my professional year in review

[sergebroom]

I got my yearly review, with a rating of 3 out of 5. It means I do my job well but no more than that. To get a better rating, I'd have had to show creativity, I was told. That one didn't sit well with me, as you can imagine, and I explained that I am quite creative, but that it's the not-flashy kind of creativity that people seldom notice - because it improves things and doesn't break them, but I refrained from saying that last bit. I gave some examples. I was then told that one way to show creativity would have been to come up with proposals to improve our system. I immediately proceeded to describe one such proposal, which I had been contemplating for quite some time, but never mentionned because, well, I had been assigned big projects last year that'd have made it impossible to actually work on my own proposals. I just finished writing it up formally. That way, there'll be no excuse along the lines of how could they know that I was thinking about things if I didn't tell them.

Red Alert!
Serge is thinking!

At least I didn't get a demotion this year, and was even given a raise. A tiny one, but it is a raise. Oh, and my manager will be talking to upper management in March/April about turning me back into a pumpkin… I mean… back into an exempt employee who will not be paid for overtime. Yes, you read that right. Every hour of overtime I bill them for means less money in the group's budget, thus making me more expensive than the rest of the group, which is exempt from overtime. You'd think they'd have considered that rather obvious side-effect when they came up with that idea last year.

Comments

[redrose3125.livejournal.com]

of course, on a scale of 1 to 5, I think you rate a 6!

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Aw shucks!
Thanks!

[miltonthales.livejournal.com]

Not creative???? Don't you fire off puns in your work e-mail?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Alas, that's not the kind of creativity that'd get me positive attention.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I think of you very positively.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's better than it could have been. Sounds like they want you to give them ideas, even if they don't want them.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I feel better about the review, now. For one thing, writing that proposal made me feel creative and the response so far has been positive.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I wonder... just what is is you do which makes you exempt? Because the requirements are pretty specific, and I think you are under the Calif. requirements.

It's possible the long-distance nature of your employment might make it such that you qualify, but I am skeptical.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

When I was originally told about it by my manager, it was explained that the overtime lawsuit of a few months before was forcing them to reconsider everybody's exempt status. Notice the word "...everybody..."? You can then imagine my surprise a few months later when I found out that only one other person in the group had been made non-exempt. When I confronted my manager (yeah, I do that), I was told that major problems with one big project of the year before made it obvious that I wasn't a designer thus the unofficial demotion to, in my own frank words to her (yeah, I do that too), greasemonkey. When I asked about making me non-exempt last week, I pointed out that, when she had originally made that recommendation, it had been based partly on input from my former manager and did my manager know that this other person did not like me? No, she did not know that. Anyway, I think she has realized that this was an expensive decision. My fingers remain crossed, but optimistically so.