Annual Review

OK, so remember like a month ago when I said that I was doing my employee reviews? Yeah, well, apparently part of the deal is you actually have to present them to said employees, and provide constructive criticism and insightful commentary that will aid their professional development. Now what helpful feedback I could possibly provide to someone who is content to have spent 8-plus years pounding away at a 10 key for $11 an hour is beyond me personally, but I managed to somehow say the exact same thing to each and every one of them and sound somewhat kinda remotely supportive.

So today was the deadline for giving the reviews, thus I spent the last 2 days feverishly cutting and pasting astute behavioral observations such as "Employee X consistently meets the expectation of this standard" into 16, count them, 16 employee evaluations. I am all for the warm-fuzzy non-exempt employee experience, but I have waaaay too many direct reports to actually know what they do or how they do it on a daily basis. I have entirely too much internet surfing and goofing around to do to actually pay attention to whether Sally Ann is actually hitting her 7000 keystroke per hour minimum. Really. I am paid to oversee, supervise, and look really great in high heels. And I am fine with that. Especially since in our era of corporate financial conservatism, I'm not getting a raise this year--you gotta pay to play, baby, and if you want more than my bare minimum performance, you gotta pony up some coin (and contrary to what you may have read on the bathroom wall, that is not my philosophy in the boudoir--that would be tacky).

So anyway, I'm a little worn out, because I spent the past few days actually working which is always exhausting for me. As for the rest of my week, I'm playing golf tomorrow (woo-hoo!). Seriously, is there any better combination of words in the English language?? I think not. Well, I believe that "Hey Kelly, this is the K-I-D, but you can call me Bobby, and I would looove to give you free tickets and backstage passes to my show on July 17 and/or 18 at Comerica Park, whichever date works best for you, I just really would like you to come be my guest and hang out and drink beer with me and my buddy George Clooney, so please, please call me back" would probably be a better sentence, but slightly less likely, so I'll take the golf reference. And then there's Wings game afterwards, and holy crap what am I still doing up??

I may be tired, but tonight was kind of special (and if you sing the Lowenbrau song, I swear to God, I will punch you right in the throat) because I had dinner with two of my oldest friends, Holly and Lori. Now I've been friends with them since right around the time I moved to the D, so that is roundabout 83 dog-years, give or take. We got married and had kids at the same time, and shared our life experiences as young mothers together. More importantly, they shared my belief that we may be moms, but we are still smokin' hot chicks who like to party like rock stars. And we did. Our families would get together and play cards, and laugh, have some (lotta) cocktails, and laugh--you get the idea. It was great. And then I got divorced. And the wheels fell off. I fully expected it to lose some friends because of it, but not them, and I felt terribly disappointed and hurt. I think we got caught up in the circumstances, and just plain lost each other for a while. But I think we're on track towards finding our way again. We're slowly shedding the awkwardness that got tangled up in our friendship, and I am very glad for that. At least I hope we are, because I've missed them.

So yeah, it's mid-way through the first week of the month, and I am beat. I don't think I'm cut out for all this reflecting and evaluating. I'm so much better at judging and disparaging. Nah, I'm just kidding. I love my job even with all of its drama and tension--after all, it pays for golf and my subsequent nearly-good-pizza binge. At the end of today, I would offer that I was a goal-oriented performer, who worked well with others, and was able to accomplish my assignment in a timely fashion, with little or no direct supervision. And if The Man doesn't agree, he can suck it and suck it hard. And I think my girlfriends would agree.