The Dreaded
Annual Review
by Ellie
Sinclair
There are a
few events in life every person dreads: dentist
visits, family gatherings, the release of the
next Paris Hilton film. I was recently subjected
to one such event when I had my annual
performance review.
I'm an
editor—I copyedit books for an educational
publisher. At least my job description says I do.
In reality, I spend half my time devising ways to
appear busy without actually working and the
other half implementing those techniques. It's
not that I'm a slacker—it takes effort to
avoid work without getting fired. And it's not
that I find the job distasteful, though my lack
of interest might be evident in the fact that I
continually fail to grasp the difference between
transitive and intransitive verbs, between
demonstrative and interrogative pronouns, yet
could write an entire manual on the rules and
regulations of beer pong.
No, the
problem is that I have an artist's sensibility, a
delicate desire to create that is stifled in a
corporate environment. Enclosing me within the
walls of a cubicle is akin to caging a cheetah or
a lion. Such animals should be free to roam, to
display their full magnificence, to pass the time
uninhibited by the prying eyes of nosy coworkers
who suffer under the delusion that drinking at
work is an egregious sin.
And so I surf
the Web, I make lists (shopping lists, to do
lists, to don't lists, famous people I think will
end up in prison lists), I daydream, and I gaze
out the window, eyeing with envy the unstructured
lives of the panhandlers below. I thought this
level of productivity—at which I've been
functioning since I was hired—was completely
acceptable. Until my first performance review.
It started off
well enough, with my boss praising my ability to
color coordinate my office supplies and show up
within an hour of the company's start time. But
that's where the praise ended. Because next my
boss told me that he was concerned with the
amount of time I was spending on projects. That I
was perhaps too thorough, too assiduous, too
attentive to the minor details.
Poor sap. I
didn't have the heart to tell him my current
project was late because I'd lost it for five
weeks under a stack of People magazines.
I was left
with two choices after such a review: amp up my
output or find a career more suited to my tastes,
a career that would let me embrace my god-given
talents of shirking work and lounging about in
utter idleness. Pulling out a purple steno pad
and a purple pen from my drawer of supplies, I
came up with the following occupations:
1.
Heiress
2. Lottery winner
3. Pirate
As enticing as
these occupations are, there are obstacles to
entering any of them—my parents aren't rich;
my financial straits are so dire, I'd need a bank
loan to afford a lottery ticket; I'm afraid of
parrots.
So with a
career change out of the question, I'm resolving
to put more effort into my current job. I'm
buckling down. I will distinguish myself, rise
through the ranks, and become the best damn
editor that ever wielded a red pen…. Once I
figure out what the hell a predicate is.
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