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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FlopShanoobie on 2024-11-06 22:38:02+00:00.
At the end of every year we have to do this ridiculous self appraisal as part of our performance review. Normally it’s 3 or 4 questions based on your goals for the past year: did you accomplish your goals, what roadblocks did you overcome, how did you become a better employee, etc.
This year I got a new boss who, instead of the usual 5 goals, assigned me 25. Yes, a total of 25 highly specific goals for me to accomplish throughout the year. Since January I’ve been knocking them down and moving to the next one, or working on long-range projects that included multiple goals. I did really well, all things considered, and even got a promotion. Nice!
That brings us to the annual performance evaluation. I had a lot of goals–25 of them, if you recall. My plan was to write a short essay that broke down the year by quarter and outlined all of the goals I met and a short description of how meeting that goal helped the team make progress. Clean, simple, and complete.
Except my boss has this form. This form includes six sections with 4 to 7 questions per section, for a total of 33 separate questions … per goal. That’s 825 questions. Each question requires at least 150 words to be considered complete.
He handed me the evaluation packet last week and said I needed to turn it in my Thanksgiving. After getting a couple of questions into the thing I realized it wasn’t just asking for narrative, but data and analysis, sometimes multiple data points per question. I spent two entire days just completing one goal, which comprised 12 written pages, two spreadsheets, and 14 separate graphics. Doing the math I realized it was going to take me 48 business days to complete the remainder. I asked my boss if this is really what he intended and he said Just do it like I said.
Sure thing.
I cleared my calendar through Thanksgiving. Not one meeting. Declined all project requests in Asana. Turned on Busy in Teams. Turned on auto-replies in Outlook. For a full month.
When my boss’ boss - our VP - came by and asked why I wasn’t responding to any requests or responding to email I explained the situation. What’s funny is he said, “Yeah, he’s a real stickler for detail. I guess he needs to learn how to deal with reality. Carry on!”
I’m up to about 130-odd written pages. This thing is going to be bigger than my dissertation! And he STILL hasn’t come by to ask why I’m not coming to meetings anymore. Maybe this really is what he wants - a team lead doing useless paperwork for 6 weeks. Whatever. They’re paying me.