Evaluation 2018, etc
Damn it! I nearly forgot to write today's entry! I'm playing a lot of catch-up today, largely thanks to the time spent yesterday writing about the weekend visit in Wallace, Idaho (all the photos are captioned now, by the way), and the fact that I took Monday off of work this week. Oh, and about forty minutes yesterday was spent with Scott, in one of the two-person "phone rooms," or meeting rooms, for my first work evaluation since 2015. Say, why don't I lead with telling you about that?
Since I no longer have the option of "friends only" entries like I did over at LiveJournal, I can't get too detailed about this -- not that there's much all that private about our conversation this time around anyway. What I can tell you is this: Scott has an unusually positive approach to work evaluations, and even though I kind of scoffed at how hippy-dippy the new evaluation forms are now, comparatively at least, they actually seem to be a pretty good fit for him. He's clearly not interested in being especially critical; on the contrary, he even started the meeting by saying, "These give me a chance to say good things about you." God knows, I have come a long way from that catastrophic six-month evaluation with Stephanie back in February 2003. So far, in fact, that Scott, even after many years now as the Grocery Merchandiser, has never once really been critical of me. He assumes the best of me more often than I even deserve, really.
This evaluation was no different. As per usual, I was asked to fill one out for myself, to be turned in along with the one he filled out for me. This one does away with the "draconian" (Scott's word) 1-10 ratings scales of past evaluation forms, and relies much more on overall feeling than on specific ratings. There were three columns: "below expectations"; "meets expectations"; and "exceeds expectations." Neither of us marked me for any of the items under the third column; we both marked me for most of the items in the middle column; I think I may have marked myself for a few more than Scott did for the "exceeds" column -- but I still gave myself an overall "meets expectations," as always -- because from my perspective, I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do.
I just realized he never did tell me what overall score he gave me, but when it comes to the "details" space under each category, his feedback was kind of ridiculously positive.
As always, I had very slight nervousness before the meeting, but not much -- just an echo of the PTSD from that horrible 2003 evaluation, which was an unfortunate way to start them, coloring my expectations of every one of them for years thereafter. I've been here far too long to worry much, though; anyone following me on social media knows well how often I share things brokers tell me about how much they adore me. I even noted on my self-evaluation that my reputation for reliability and efficiency among brokers and vendors is something I am more proud of than anything else here. And, after sixteen years at this job, that reputation is now quite longstanding.
This was ostensibly an "annual review," so Scott marked his form as being from 2017 to 2018. I actually have a file folder of all past self-evaluation forms, though, and the most recent was September 2015, so I regarded it as being for the past three years. (Other years: 2009 was the most recent before 2015; 2005; 2004 and 2003. So, I had one a year my first three years, then the next four years later; another six years after that; then this was three years after that. Six evaluations out of sixteen years working here.)
I recall the 2015 evaluation meeting lasting much longer, but whatever; Scott had lots of other meetings yesterday. I feel like we have, and have always had, a great working as well as personal relationship.
I got nothing from him about anything I should change or any problematic behaviors -- any time anything even comes close to that, he actually talks to me immediately, such as when I was asked to stop sending my photo digests via work email. (I continue to regard that as ridiculous, but I now have a recipient list of personal emails I send to from gmail so it's not that big a deal.) The closest thing would be the "goals" section, where he challenged me to come up with some sort of idea or project I could take some leadership on. I suppose I'll think on that, but I will admit not being supremely motivated about it. He told me to come up with "a passion project" as he put it, but while he may come up with things like a PCC-branded baguette as an idea while he was in the shower, and as much as I due truly believe in what this company stands for, I just don’t have that kind of wiring. I don't contemplate work things when I am in the shower, ever. I leave my work at the office pretty much always.
In any case, overall it was a fine evaluation, the only even moderate downside being that it cut into time I could have spent getting work I'm behind on done. That just goes with the territory though.
Okay now I'll go one day back, since I did not bother to mention this in yesterday's entry about my weekend travels: only hours after we got back from Wallace on Monday afternoon, that evening we went down to Pacific Place for a press/SAG-AFTRA advance screening of Mary Poppins Returns, which I was truly thrilled to get a chance to see early (it opens officially today).
I have loved the original Mary Poppins so much for so long -- I could not even tell you how many times I watched it as a small child in the early eighties -- that I had an unusual amount of emotional investment in this sequel: an unlimited desire for it to be great; a cautious expectation that it will inevitably disappoint. This sort of dubious approach kind of helped me, to be honest: it turned out to be about as good as I figured I could possibly hope for -- which is to say, nowhere near the greatness of the original, but fun enough. I've already made plans to see it with Laney on Saturday January 5, and I think I may enjoy it much more the second time, which is typical for a movie that is fine but slightly disappointing the first time around. Now that I already know how it goes, it has no means to disappoint me in any way a second time, and I can just give in to the delights I already know it possesses. I also think Laney will enjoy it.
I've thus been up fairly late the past couple of evenings, because on Monday, after a 130-minute movie that did not truly begin until probably 7:10 pm, I spent at least an hour writing that review before getting ready for bed. I have less reason for it last night, except to say that my plan to see Elf with Evan and Elden at Central Cinema fell through due to Evan feeling under the weather, so instead I met with Shobhit at Whole Foods at about 6:00 for the day's 50% off cheese. We came back and baked one of the two trays of eggplant parmesan we got at Costco, during which I also wrapped two final calendars that I need to mail out, hopefully after getting home from work today.
And we had a slight bit of synchronicity with yesterday's news of Penny Marshall passing away: I had the Blu-Ray of A League of Their Own from Netflix at home, so that made it the perfect time to watch that movie, which I believe I only saw once before, back in the mid-nineties. It's not a "great movie," but it is good and entertaining, and most importantly, unique especially for its time in that it's about women and directed by a woman -- the first female director, in fact, to make a movie that exceeded $100 million at the box office. (That movie was, in fact, A League of Their Own, her biggest hit by any measure.)
It's also two hours and 8 minutes long, and it was just after 7:30 when I started it, and I had to stop it several times, both to deal with laundry and for Shobhit to go get snacks out of the kitchen. I was really afraid to look at my weight again this morning after that, since yesterday's first weigh-in after eating my way through the weekend had me at 156.3 lbs, easily my heaviest of the entire year; this morning I was back to a much more acceptable (for now) 153.5 -- less than a pound heavier than I had been on Saturday morning. So that's going back in the right direction, at least. We'll see about tomorrow, as tonight we go back to the Vegetarians of Washington monthly feast. At least my lunch was fairly light. I think. (Leftover eggplant parmesan.)
So it was fairly late again by the time both that movie was over and I had all the laundry folded and put away. Shobhit even beat me to bed last night, while I was folding his clothes.
[posted 12:34]
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