I had my annual review at work last week and on the whole it was positive. I got glowing marks for my admin work, but not so glowing on the office manager part. That’s OK. This is the first time I’ve ever been an office manager so I’m learning.
One thing that was in my review was that I was to take a trip to NY State and be trained in my office manager duties. They got the OK from the office manager at the NY location and it took me 2 months to firm up the dates I was going to go. It was a four hour drive one way and an overnight stay in a city I’d never been to. The comment on my review was “The training was helpful but we had to remind her on several occasions to go, and she didn’t make the training trip until 2 months later”.
When they asked me to go, I was in the beginning of my therapy and starting to get the anxiety and agoraphobia under control. I didn’t think it was any of their business what I was going through and I told them I wanted to wait till the weather was a little better before I drove to upstate NY (by the Great Lakes). There was no way I could have made that trip at that time. I went when I had my disorder under control.
It didn’t really surprise me that it showed up on my review, but what really bugs me is that I had a valid reason for not immediately hoping in my car and making the 4 hour trip and still it was a mark against me. I'd been looking at it as a personal victory all this time.
What I want to do is go into my boss’s office, close the door and tell them why I took me 2 months to make the trip. It still isn’t any of their business, but I want them to know that I had a reason, a medical reason, why I didn’t go immediately.
But it’s water under the bridge now. The review is signed and filed with HR.
And yet I’m still annoyed.
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5 comments:
Yeah, that would chap my ass too. You wouldn't ask someone who couldn't swim to swim the English Channel and then get mad at them when they took the time to learn before they just jumped in prematurely and drowned would you?
But like you said, water under the bridge. You can swim right? ;-)
I would be annoyed too.
It seems like they have to make a comment to show there is something to improve upon (that the employee isn't all perfect) and that the employer did notice enough to document it a negative item in the file.
Couldn't they have focused on something truly constructive?
Yeah that's annoying. But like Kim said, they have to put something negative in there else it won't look like a real review. It's stupid.
Do you think it would make a difference if you told them why you waited? I work in the mental health field and while we encourage folks to talk about things, I know in the real world it can cause problems. I'll bet doing things in your time when you're ready makes you a more thoughtful and understanding office manager.
It was better that you didn't let them know about the medical issues. You would hope that it would be received with compassion and understanding, but usually sharing that information works against you, sadly.
Most companies have rules for doing reviews. It could be that was the only negative they could come up with for the review. It's actually a pretty minor thing, business wise.
I'd still consider it a personal victory, personally. And next year's review will show improvement, a big plus at management layers at the top of the company.
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