Okay, so I need to learn to shut it around here. When I got back to work I was giving Mr. Russell a document for his files and he said, “Hey, can you close my door for a minute, I’ve got something I want to talk to you about.”
I close the door, dreading the worst.
“So next week we need to sit down and do your review officially, but I wanted to let you know that the ratings came out and you were given an Outstanding rating for the quarter and an Outstanding rating for the year. I just wanted to give you that heads up – you are doing great work and it is really appreciated around here.”
I thank him and upon walking out of his office went straight to my co-worker, KK. “I’m really irritated,” I said. She asked why, and I told her that Mr. Russell had given me the middle rating out of five, when last quarter he told me that if he COULD give me the fourth level rating he would, but because I was only two months into the job he could only give me the middle rating.
“Let’s go look at the chart,” she said, leading me to her desk. She pulled out her files and pulled out her review. She flipped to the last page and voila – turns out the Outstanding rating IS the fourth level. Her review was marked at the middle level. “This is you,” she said, pointing to the level to the left of hers. “You did great. This is all I ever get,” she said, pointing to the middle level.
At this point I laughed. “Sometimes, KK, I just need to learn to keep my mouth shut. Everytime I come to you to complain about something, it turns out that I’m complaining about something that is actually GOOD.”
“Not just good,” she said, “but better than everyone else!” Then she laughed and said, “Don’t apologize – your boss definitely gave you the rating you deserved. We all aspire to be like you!”
At that point I slinked back to my desk, feeling REALLY bad about my complaint. Because remember with the booth header? I lamented to her about my spelling error, and she consoled me and showed me her own error – she ordered an expensive set of tabs for an RFP that The Company was sending out, and it had a typo on one of the tabs. When she showed me, she said, “Here’s my own expensive typo – these tabs were special ordered and proofed by me.”
So now TWICE in one week I’ve accidently made her feel crappy – once because my review was better than hers, and twice because my typo got fixed for free and hers cost another few hundred dollars and a possible lost deal.
I SUCK.