Every job has performance reviews. Some are a little more structured than others, I’m sure. Where I work, it was an annual process that began about the same time each year. Year after year. The e-mails from corporate would come out, and the conversations with managers would start. Then the planning, the documenting, the entry into the system, the final discussion with the manager, and finally, the 2% pay increase.

Does anyone actually enjoy this process? Okay, maybe there is that one or two people that do, but I am sure it is loathed by the masses. I don’t ever remember having a conversation with anyone wherein they said “hey, I’m looking forward to my performance review this year.”

As I reflect, I can imagine that someone who is anticipating a promotion – perhaps they did exceptionally well on a couple project and or their manager implied it was coming – they are probably looking forward to it. But that too is a small number of people because promotions don’t happen that often. And what about those that are “expecting” a promotion, but never got it? Or even promised it and get the ole “it just isn’t in the budget” or “so and so got the promotion instead.”

Where I work, we have mid-year reviews, though these were more of a process formality / an informal process, than a formal drawn-out procedure.

The process with my employer starts, believe it or not, in September – but doesn’t complete until early to mid January. But because the mid-year is done in June-ish, the decisions driving the formal review in January were pretty much already made because, well, corporate and that is how the process worked.

I will NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, miss this one bit. I hope in retirement that the only performance review (and I’ll keep this PG) is whether or not my wife, or our friends when they visit, like what I cooked for them for dinner.