PR Grouch: How to approach appraisals
PR Guru
My yearly appraisal is around the corner. A huge waste of time for me, and also for my boss, poor woman. I will give her hell. And she will give me, well, nothing at all. No extra pay, no more benefits and there’s obviously no budget for training. I will get zilch.
The reason I give her such a hard time every year is because I’m bored of this annual tax on my time. I reckon that if I dragged it out long enough every year, she might agree with my request to abort the whole thing next year. Hasn’t worked so far.
I quite like my boss, but unless she’s had a bottle of wine she doesn’t do banter. So to attempt to liven the appraisal up a bit, I thought I’d score myself top marks. Problem was this meant endless arguments. So the appraisal went on for hours. And that’s before the 40-minute second session! At the end of it all my boss went from thinking I was relatively normal, to believing I was nuts.
By the final session she was spitting nails. Genuinely livid. Sweating anger.
So here’s my amended advice for getting the most out of appraisals:
- Make sure you tell your boss that you are planning to give them top marks for excellent management skills. Sucking up is always a wise move.
- Explain that as your boss is so busy, you are happy to postpone the appraisal. Indefinitely. After all, what’s the point? What’s the chance of a payrise in the current economic climate?
- If you can’t cancel the damn thing, make sure you get the timing right. For example, after a boozy event. This is only good for you if your boss likes to drink too much and you don’t. It could be a disaster the other way around.
- Offer to write up the action points for your boss. After all, you know they are very busy...
- Don’t worry about the payrise. After tax, unless you’re looking at a 15 per cent increase, you really don’t notice the difference in the bank account. And more money, means more pressure.