Once upon a time, before the digital flood, I was pretty good at doing my job. At least that's what I gathered from the positive performance reviews I received each year. From time to time I'd even get, you know, a pay raise or even a Christmas bonus.
These days, however, grappling with the old-fashioned nitty-gritty of my job is the last thing required of me at the office. Providing solutions is the name of the game now. I need to be part of a problem solving team first and foremost. Although the only real problem we encounter is that our company doesn't make enough money anymore. And we haven't been able to solve that one yet.
So I don't have performance reviews anymore. There's nothing to review. I am just one of three computer monkeys picking data fleas off each other, and nobody can tell whether we're doing it efficiently or not, including ourselves. Hear no productivity, see no productivity, speak no productivity.... Well, that's not exactly true. We actually talk about productivity quite a lot; then we return to our cubicles and completely forget what was discussed.
No review, of course, means no pay raise. Not that there's money to give raises anyway, and not giving reviews is a good way to avoid the awkward subject altogether. Sometimes naive employees do ask about raises, but we tell them to wait until their annual reviews that we know will never happen. Besides, I fully expect us to go bankrupt before the cost of living goes up again.
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