Friday, February 23, 2007

The Top Ten (And A Half) Things Not To Say During Your Annual Employee Review

Inspired by David Letterman’s 25th anniversary on late night TV, I have decided to post a Top Ten and a Half List every Friday. Why ten and a half? Because I don’t want to be accused of stealing a great idea, of course…

So, here are the top ten (and a half) things not to say during your annual employee review:

11. I am rubber, you are glue. Whatever bounces off of me sticks to you!

10. Hey Boss, let’s not talk about me. I know I’ve been working with Jim for 10 years now and he considers me his best friend, but he’s really slipping. We should let him go and since his office is bigger than mine, I’ll take it.

9. So, did the company pony up and provide me that 4-door company sedan yet?

8. When you said employee review, I thought you meant employee revue. When does Lilly from accounting do her song and dance number?

7. It was just a box of pencils, it's not like I took a case of paper like Phil did.

6. Lies! Lies! They’re all lies!

5. You can’t fire me, I resign. Ha, I beat you to it!

4. Uh, I think you’re missing a zero or two there on my raise.

3. You fired me three months ago? Really? Why didn’t anybody say anything? Well yes, I did have a severe attendance problem, but I don’t see how that has anything to do with it.

2. Define unsatisfactory performance please.

And the number one thing not to say during your annual employee review is…

1. Take this job and…

9 comments:

captain corky said...

Mine's coming up within the week or so... This is definitely helping me prepare for it. I might use number 11 and 1. I wish they would just email me the results. Sheesh.

Odat said...

"Employee revue" ...I love it...and intend on using that! and all the other ones too!!! Great job Michael...I give you an Excellent and another plug for a raise...hehe.

CS said...

When I worked for a real company (as opposed to working for myself, and I'm a bit of a slacker as a boss), we had to write up a list of yearly goals. One year I handed over a sheet of paper that said only, "More of the same." I don't think the VP thought it was nearly as funny as I did, and it went into my file.

thethinker said...

I remember number 11 from elementary school!

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

good advice as usual michael!

smiles, bee

High Power Rocketry said...

I want to invite you to the game of LOST:

Win $5,000!

tkkerouac said...

totally funny!

Anonymous said...

I've found from experience that you also don't want to say the following:

"Hmmm. Why didn't you TELL me you monitor all my Internet activity?"

Eva said...

Perfect! I'll take #4, please. Oh, and #9 would be great too...Please.

I just did reviews for my staff last month; something I've never done before. I was more nervous than they were! Especially since two of them got a talking-to for spending so much time on Facebook, MySpace and espn.com. I'm no good at confrontation.