Handling jerkish comments in performance review

In My Humble Opinion
21

A mix of superiors and peers. I’m a manager, but just at a project level. Some of the managers that gave comments are at this same level, some are at a higher level than that.

The jerk manager… I’m not sure where to place him. He’s manager of a particular platform, so I guess he’s an engineering manager, which would be higher level. On the other hand, I manage more people.

As I say, I don’t directly work with him. I didn’t know who he was until I noticed snarky comments in the slack channel, and the 1-to-1 chat was the first (and last) meeting I’ve had with him.

22

Well at my job they have something called a PIP. Performance improvement plan. If you get put on one of these you are essentially on your way out. This is their small way of getting rid of someone by starting the process of recording their faults and the the PIP is usually something so onerous that the person ends up quitting before he/she is “downsized”

23

I don’t think that’s always the case. I’ve worked at plenty of places where people had PIPs and corrected their performance. But in this day and age, at the very least it’s an indicator that maybe this company isn’t clicking for you. So a lot of people just look at it as a sign to move on.

Years ago I worked for a company where they put me on a PIP. I’m not really sure why, other than a project I was leading ran over budget. But pretty much all of our projects did because the company was a mess. It wasn’t even my manager who put me on the plan. It was his manager who didn’t even work in our office. Months later our HR director, who I was friendly with, came up to me asking “whatever happened to your PIP?” I was like “Aren’t you HR? You tell me. I haven’t been fired so I assume I got better?” Although I was laid off about 6 months later with like 20% of the company when we were acquired by another firm.

24

I’ve posted about this before, but it deserves another retelling.

I was a technical writer/trainer at a technology company in the 1990s, and it was time for my annual performance review. My manager, who was an engineer by education, and who actually knew little to nothing about technical writing, said, “We’ve identified that you need more education in writing.”

Dahell? I’d come with fine credentials from companies I’d written for, I had a portfolio that impressed them at the job interview; hell, I had published many works. I’d written more books than Stephen King, only they won’t make mine into movies. What was wrong with my writing?

“Specifically, we think you might benefit from a night course in technical writing at this local community college. We’ll pay for it, of course, but you should know that your job might be in jeopardy if you don’t take it.” She had a few brochures that she presented.

I said, “Is that the course that’s taught at [College Name], Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 7 to 9 pm?”

“Yes! You’ve heard about it.”

“I sure have.” I leaned in close. “I teach it.”

I really did. I taught the course that she, and by extension, the company, wanted me to take, and she never, ever realized that I was the instructor, though my name was in the course catalogue as the instructor. Her expression in our meeting was priceless. She didn’t believe it at first, but I supplied her with my contact number and contact name at the college, and the contact confirmed that yes, I really did teach that course.

My performance review got a lot better after that, and the manager left the company soon after.

Paging @Sunspace . He was one of my students, and a co-worker at that time. I’d enjoy his comments on the performance reviews we both got from that manager, and his thoughts on my class, that our company thought I should take.

25

That’s the best story I’ve read in ages, so you must be doing something right.

26

I had a manager try to put me on a PIP once. She decided to try and humiliate me by including everybody and their cousin in the meeting. The Business Unit Manager, her boss, HR, managers of closely related but separate departments. I pointed out that everything she had listed for me to improve in was actually part of HER job description. She resigned about a month later.