Appraisal is done for another year...

Thank God, the annual torture session is over.

 

Supervisor told me what I already knew. She wanted to give me higher marks in the section that I got a warning for, but Napoleon 86'd that idea. Big surprise there. I don't know what she was dreading.

 

We go through the other sections of the appraisal and then she says, "Now, I know you're not going to like this, but you got a 1 [lowest rating above zero]."

 

I assured her that I expected no different. After all, I frickin' got written up. When one receives a warning, one cannot expect that fact to go unnoted on their appraisal. She acted like it was very shameful; you could tell she'd have been horrified herself to receive a 1 in any section of her appraisal. Frankly, I am not very bothered by it. After all, that was then and this is now. And despite all my ramblings about my mistakes, my doubts, my this, my that, I am a fairly good employee. I just happen to have a bunch of spare time on my hands and have to think of ways to fill it. Besides eating.

 

I'm pretty good at this job, even if it does irritate me sometimes. Anyone with a normal level of intelligence and a modicum of ambition would eventually tire of this position or any other administrative assistant position.

 

Supervisor listed all my good stuff that I'd done this year. I think she may have copied and pasted from my self-appraisal that I sent her. Then I said, "So do I have any hope of a raise this year?"

 

"Oh, nothing I say or do has any bearing on that. Napoleon gets a certain budget and doles it out to the administrative staff. It's all based on impression."

 

"Oh great," I said, knowing that this was my chance to find out what impact he'd had on my appraisal. "Did he even read this?"

 

"Oh yes, he read it. I was going to give you a 4," and I thought that obviously she was on another planet or high or something, my behaviors last year were horrid...she must have been thinking about this year, "But I didn't think he'd go with it, so I tried to give you a 2. He wouldn't even go with that, saying that I had had to warn you. So don't make me do it again!" She laughed.

 

"I understand where he's coming from. Well, this year is going to be different."

 

"I know."

 

I have seen a pattern lately of things; repeated mentionings of my need to prove that I can be here on time every day. Should be a cinch. My personal life is better now. I am disappointed in myself that I allowed my personal life to interfere so much with my work performance. But I guess when your world is crumbling around you, it's a little difficult to hold anything together at all. At the same time, everyone has their travails and they handle them much better than I did mine. Let's hope that I handle whatever the next set of travails is a lot better.

 

I mentioned that Twiggy and I are getting along better.

 

"Check it out, Supervisor, Twiggy seems to actually like me now. I guess showing up on time every day has that effect on people."

 

"I'm so glad to hear that. Maybe now she won't feel so put upon." It's apparent that Supervisor believes Twiggy whines a lot. I'm inclined to agree. I whine too, but it's on this blog, not in the office. In fact, I have found that one way to continually boost Twiggy's buddy-like qualities is to whine a little about all these damn fools that call the wrong number every day, then listen sympathetically while she goes on a tirade about it. She hates that aspect of her job and keeps passive aggressively hinting that I answer the phone for her. I can tell because she's waiting until the end of the 3rd ring to pick up a lot more than she used to.

 

I don't want her getting the wrong impression though. That's one sure way to plant ideas in her head that the phone duties ought to be more equally shared. No thanks. I will help her if I have absolutely nothing to do, but I'm not going to be doing that unless and until that happens. Furthermore, even if that did happen, I might not help her with the phones because she has begun functioning under some strange notion that I could be of more help to her than I already am. I would not want her to get any ideas about how things could be changed around here.

 

Sounds heartless doesn't it? It's just self-preservation and you must practice it in the workplace to some degree. That's especially true when you work in a job where you are not allowed to say no.  Administrative assistants in this department are not allowed to say no. One time, I told Adminzilla no about her stupid shredding. What happened? I soon received an email from Supervisor directing me to shred her stuff. I told some jerk admin from Client Services no about her presentations one time. I soon had an electronic missive from Supervisor asking me about it.

 

An Administrative Assistant, an Executive Assistant, a Secretary, whatever, cannot ever appear to be unhelpful to those whom he/she supports, no matter how much work he/she has already, or he/she will soon find themselves unnecessary. Her 'people' will find others to do their tasks. Soon the company will realize that either A) you're a twit or B) they have an extra administrative staff member and they will take appropriate action. Trust me. I've been there. :) This is a post unto itself, really.

 

But now it's time for me to depart the office for the weekend. Sweet.