TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
"Yeah, I worked at one of those places too. Our scale went from 1-10, but
you were never supposed to rate yourself higher than a 6 or 7 (and even that
was pretty questionable). I didn't find out until my first review... one of
the categories was, believe it or not, attendance. Since I had not missed a
day in the past year, and had worked late or on weekends when necessary, I
thought I deserved at least a 9. My immediate superivsor, kind soul that she
was, explained that *her* supervisor just wouldn't accept an employee rating
herself that high, and had me re-evaluate myself. Years later, a different
immediate supervisor (who was *not* a kind soul) told me "my best employees
always rate themselves lower than I rate them, and my bad employees always
rate themselves too high." This is the same supervisor who insisted we call
her "Mrs" because that would "make" us respect her, so it was par for the
course."
I guess I have been lucky, I have never worked at a place that asked you to
do a self-assessment, then told you how to assess yourself.
As a manager, I use the self-assessment as much as a guide to see how I am
doing as how the employee is doing. If they rate themselves high on an area
that I would rate them considerably lower, I try to figure out why. Are they
not doing the job, but don't see it? Are they doing what they think is
expected, but I haven't made my expectations clear? I really am looking for
a certain tone, where they might seem frustrated, and how they feel about
different aspects of their job. By getting a sense of these things, it helps
me be a little more object (if you can really be objective about these
things). I have found that these self evaluations have been a helpful
learning tool for me and have helped keep the lines of communications open
with my staff.
Now, some managers feel that admitting that they have something to learn
about managing people is a sign of weakness, but I disagree.
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available 4/30/01 at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
