6 May 2021
Context
Welcome to Day 126! Performance reviews happened almost immediately when I began working for a chicken-selling fast-food chain. Joan, who was the manager, provided feedback that sounded like: “get your ar*e moving young lady!” or, “you’re too slow” or, “where are the chips?” Chips were a big deal in my role as hostess.
Performance Reviews & Mystery Shoppers
The threat of a mystery shopper drove a manager’s performance. The mystery shopper/s appear at any time. The shopper would order something and then assess the quality of the order. The areas checked were store cleanliness, how long it took to serve, food quality, and hostess’ friendliness. In turn, managers managed and trained staff to do well in these areas. So, feedback and training on how you performed was quick.
The company had clear parameters for most aspects. If you were hostess greeted with, “Hello, how may I help you?” and a smile, performance was good. While you were placing the order, if the hostess followed up your request with, “would you like fries with that?” the hostess got a favourable mark in the upselling category. Feedback to the store on the areas of success, improvement, or failure determined the manager’s mood and discussion next time you were on shift.
To ensure the stores were ahead of the mystery shopper, managers would organise their own mystery shoppers. These shoppers came in the form of friends, visiting family, family, and friends of managers in other stores. I’m not sure whether there was a store budget for this self-assessment to maintain quality between corporate mystery shoppers.
Instant feedback is how I thought employee performance worked. If you made a mistake, you were told about it and told how to improve it at the same time. The Harvard Business School’s research article titled The Performance Management Revolution in 2016 has many elements used in 1981 by the fast-food company.
Corporate Performance Reviews
In the bank, reviews were a simple affair. You sat with the manager once a year; he/ she ticked a bunch of boxes, which worked like a report card. If you got an “A”, you were excellent, “C” was acceptable, and a couple of others suggesting improvement or underperformance. It seemed simple enough. Then you found out the bank only ever gave a “C” because it didn’t want you thinking you were good. Otherwise, you might leave the bank and work somewhere else.
The question I hated at performance review time was, “what do you want to do in X number of years?”. There was always a lot of pressure to strive to become the next bank chief executive officer. When you knew the expectation for everyone to want to go for that role was unrealistic.
At a structural engineering firm with 80+ employees, I received regular feedback from the lady in the office. If you weren’t doing your job correctly, feedback happened quickly in the office area. When working for a computer company, performance reviews determined your pay increase.
I can honestly say I don’t remember having a performance review when I was a contractor. The agency did, however, get a feedback form filled out after each contract to gauge performance. Again, if you didn’t do well, the feedback was immediate. Also, contracting was simple; if you did your job well, you got another job from the agency. If you didn’t, you weren’t a contractor for very long.
Government Performance Reviews
The biggest shock to the system was working for the government. By the time I had gotten my first government job, my confidence in my skillset was considerable. There had been many roles, and at each point rallied resources and smashed the job. It came as a shock when the supervisor printed everything I had worked on and sat me down to review them.
It was a week’s worth, and highlighted were the bits I’d gotten wrong. Correction highlighted the areas where I could improve next week. At first, I felt super bad because of the number of people inconvenienced by my mistakes. So bad, I cried. It was that whole, letting others down thing which made me feel terrible.
The supervisor patiently explained it wasn’t a criticism; it was to show the areas for improvement. Getting the feedback was great and, it was also an excellent example of instant feedback before waiting until the end of the contract to find out you sucked.
Performance Reviews Now
In my current role, I avoid performance reviews. It’s not because I don’t like performance reviews. It is just that performance reviews are complex and meaningless to me at present. My focus or philosophy is if I’m doing something wrong, just tell me,” and if I can fix it, I will.
Let’s see what the cards say!
Today's Cards
The Cards - Analysis
Carry Over Cards
There were no carry over cards from yesterday.
Analysis
Cross
Morality in the Now is influenced by Exhaustion. The Playfulness card sits in the Goal position. I’m trying to do the right thing (Morality) by continuing to adhere to my goal of capturing 365 days of tarot. What I didn’t realise is it would take longer to write each night. Staying up until 1:30 AM every night is okay. However, when you’re fighting something off, it’s difficult to recover quickly (Exhaustion).
Exhaustion challenges Playfulness. In this case, Playfulness as a Goal is an accurate assessment of what I’d like to be doing. After all, “Girls just want to have fun!”.
Creativity is in the Distant Past; this is an easy one to address. Having the idea for the website was Creativity. This Creativity led me to the current predicament of Morality, which has led to bouts of Exhaustion.
The Aloneness card is in the Recent Past position is the time of night spent alone. Note that this does not mean I’m lonely, just alone.
In the Future Energy position is the card of Turning In. Turning In is about doing Performance Reviews for myself and assessing what I am trying to achieve. It might require reducing the Context area of the blog.
Base
My Feelings about being torn between giving up how I like to write the blog at the expense of sleep is why the Stress card appeared.
Others’ Views has the card of Adventure. The Adventure card, according to Osho is about, “entering the unknown with the trusting spirit of a child, innocent and open and vulnerable, even the smallest things in life can become the greatest adventure.” (Osho, p. 78). Guess others might see me jumping onto the website adventure, unaware of the pitfalls ahead.
In the Hopes & Fears position is the card of No-thingness. I usually describe the No-thingness card as the card of potential. In the Hopes & Fears spot, the card takes on a different perspective. The fear is the blankness and the unknown. When the card acts for hope, it means wanting to find the light at the end of the tunnel.
Finally, it’s the card of Rebirth in the Outcome position. Because of my inner conflict, I cannot interpret the type of Rebirth implied. So, I turned to Osho. My eyes landed on the following sentence, “[w]haterever the space you’re in right now – sleepy and depressed, or roaring and rebellious – be aware that it will evolve into something new if you allow it. It is a time of growth and change (Osho, p. 136). It seems apt.
For a day that seemed focussed on performance reviews, the cards focussed on something else entirely.
References
- Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
Cappelli, P. & Tavis, A. 2016, The Performance Management Revolution. The focus is shifting from accountability to learning. Harvard Business Review, Last viewed 6 May 2021
