Got my review today. I am teh rockstar. In general it was glowing. I’m apparently a pleasant surprise to work with, I do my job so well that people tend to forget certain tasks even exist because they’re always taken care of, I’m awesome, outstanding, amazingly responsible, I inspire trust, I not only troubleshoot but I provide practical solutions to difficult problems, yada yada blahblahblah.
So… I was told I was getting a recommendation for, and I quote, “a big fat raise”, and that never hurts. I’m pretty pleased by the past year, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next year brings. I think there’s some cool fun stuff up & coming.
Here it is half way through the Colbert Report & I’ve neither exercised nor practiced guitar. Lots on my mind to process. Guess I’ll be doing those tomorrow instead of taking it as my day off…
Tomorrow is M2′s 4 year doc appt & I’m working from home. Good times. More about work after the jump…
Of course because I’m me what stands out are the imperfections. Because that’s just how I am. Given three or four pages of high marks, I’ll notice the three individual points that are not up to my standards. People are apparently shocked by how apparent my discomfort is in speaking to “strangers”, speaking up in a group, participating as part of a group interview of a candidate, & on the phone (and I’ve actually made great strides in the phone conversations, all things considered). It was also noted that I don’t advocate for my ideas or for myself sufficiently. It didn’t actually occur to me that this might come up in a review, but it isn’t an unknown aspect of my existence that I find these things extraordinarily difficult until I’ve got a “patter” imprint — and that’s something I don’t have yet with this particular job. It doesn’t come naturally to me either. My email skills are a sight to behold — but that’s because I get a good message, I save it as a canned & use it over & over — my memory for phrasing sucks & the canneds in my brains are stumbling and halted when I try to get the from my brain past the tip of my tongue. I have so little socialization outside of work too, that it’s not like I exactly get practice in just talking and connecting with other people outside of The Girls(tm) &
Kind of tying in with this, is the pleasant surprise to work with thing — I guess I’m kind of unassuming and then people are shocked by the high quality of work I produce as well as my comprehension of and ability to resolve difficult issues. Part of getting opportunities at this place is by who you know & who wants to work with you again. If one is kind of unassuming & overlooked, the whole opportunity thing is a bit of a problem… I was told I should do something about this. I’m not sure what to do though. Hire a PR agency? What I need to do is learn to schmooze. Yeah, back to that connection stuff that I suck at. Ok. Well. I’d rather my reputation spread from the quality of work I do, but… it is what it is. So, in retrospect it makes sense, noted.
It wasn’t said so much as implied that I ought to pay just a wee bit more attention to teh snark. Expected & noted.
A lot of the other stuff was a matter of having opportunities in which to grow. Everyone wants me to have them, but at a consultancy, a lot of stuff falls through. It is what it is. I have some potentially interesting stuff upcoming. A professional dev project (ie, not billable time — non-consultants, I get paid for my time, but can’t bill to client…) to kind of force a number of opportunities that have not been forthcoming (hello metalogix, hello schemalogic, hello case study & hello presentations, maude help me!). Plus there’s an opp that will hopefully not fall through on me, or have so many hours cut that they can only take one person (and prior experience is likely to win that one). So — hey! Opportunity! But hey — consultancy & two out of my three December projects never got off the ground and the third didn’t actually happen until January & it was cut from 40 hours to 5. So, I’ll roll with it. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst & rock whatever it is that I get… Not allowed to say anything at this point, but if I/we get it? HELLA FUN PEOPLE! We’ll see.
