I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this...

As some of you may know, I worked for my last employer for ten years, 
and managed to miss the "annual" staff appraisal every single year. 
Which is just fine with me! (And in ten years, nobody actually *noticed* 
this...)

Think about it - what would my appraisal have looked like?

   What is your job?
     I'm supposed to keep the computers running.

   What did you achieve last year?
     I successfully kept the computers running.

   What are your goals for this year?
     I hope to keep the computers running.

At this point, I have to wonder - why am I filling this form out again? 
What "goals" or "achievements" can I invent to put in these boxes? How 
can I pretend these are related to the company mission?

My new employer - heh, "new". I've been there over a year! Oh yes, which 
is why I apparently need to fill out an appraisal form. Any ideas for 
creative ways to say "last year I wrote code, this year I will write 
code"? ;-)

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On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 21:58:21 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this...
> 
> As some of you may know, I worked for my last employer for ten years,
> and managed to miss the "annual" staff appraisal every single year.
> Which is just fine with me! (And in ten years, nobody actually *noticed*
> this...)
> 
> Think about it - what would my appraisal have looked like?
> 
>    What is your job?
>      I'm supposed to keep the computers running.
> 
>    What did you achieve last year?
>      I successfully kept the computers running.
> 
>    What are your goals for this year?
>      I hope to keep the computers running.

I used to do reviews like this all the time when I worked in IT.  There's 
much more involved than that - but this explains why you had trouble 
writing your CV - performance reviews and objectives/goals documentation 
is really helpful for maintaining a CV.

> 
> At this point, I have to wonder - why am I filling this form out again?
> What "goals" or "achievements" can I invent to put in these boxes? How
> can I pretend these are related to the company mission?

In IT, pretty much everything you do relates to the company mission.  IT 
enables companies to achieve their mission in an efficient manner 
(ideally).  So every system you manage, implement, update, or fix 
directly affects the bottom line.

> My new employer - heh, "new". I've been there over a year! Oh yes, which
> is why I apparently need to fill out an appraisal form. Any ideas for
> creative ways to say "last year I wrote code, this year I will write
> code"? ;-)

Write more than "I wrote code."  Write about what the code does, what 
it's used for, and what it's a part of.  For goals, look forward at what 
the company's doing, where it's headed, and how the code you've already 
written is helping them meet their goals, and then extrapolate how your 
existing code might evolve - things you want to implement that you didn't 
get to, that sort of thing.  Goals and objectives are set in concert with 
your manager, so if you have a goal, objective, or desire that doesn't 
fit, your manager should help you align your goals to the organizational 
goals.

Jim

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> Think about it - what would my appraisal have looked like?
>
>    What is your job?
>      I'm supposed to keep the computers running.
>
>    What did you achieve last year?
>      I successfully kept the computers running.
>
>    What are your goals for this year?
>      I hope to keep the computers running.
>
> At this point, I have to wonder - why am I filling this form out again?
> What "goals" or "achievements" can I invent to put in these boxes? How
> can I pretend these are related to the company mission?

As you were the entire IT department in your last job, then I would 
expect your objectives and goals would be more like department goals. 
Things like "% of staff requests answered within 4 hours", or "% of 
uptime for critical servers and infrastructure" or "implement a new 
system to increase storage and backup capacity" whatever is actually 
important for your employer. You can then set targets and measure your 
performance against them.

> My new employer - heh, "new". I've been there over a year! Oh yes, which
> is why I apparently need to fill out an appraisal form. Any ideas for
> creative ways to say "last year I wrote code, this year I will write
> code"? ;-)

Don't you have certain projects you are meant to work on? Your goals 
should be based on things like "complete project X by date Y" or "become 
the company expert for Z" or personal development type stuff "chair a 
customer review" or "mentor new staff" etc. Did you ever hear of SMART 
objectives? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria

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> At this point, I have to wonder - why am I filling this form out again?
> What "goals" or "achievements" can I invent to put in these boxes? How
> can I pretend these are related to the company mission?
>

Did you have any deadlines?  Did you meet them?

Did you resolve any big problem that was delaying a project?

Did you find ways of making XYZ run faster?  By how much?

Was your code relevant to anything the company did?  How so?  Would the 
company have fared any worse without your code?



-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Any ideas for
> creative ways to say "last year I wrote code, this year I will write
> code"? ;-)

search Google for latest tech trends and spell it out:  "Last year I wrote all
software in EJB.  This year I shall rewrite them as Android activities" etc

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On 12/11/2013 03:39 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> Any ideas for
>> creative ways to say "last year I wrote code, this year I will write
>> code"? ;-)
>
> search Google for latest tech trends and spell it out:  "Last year I wrote all
> software in EJB.  This year I shall rewrite them as Android activities" etc

Funniest god-damned thing I read all day!

Enterprise Java Beans... LMAO!

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On 12/11/2013 10:31 AM, scott wrote:
> As you were the entire IT department in your last job, then I would
> expect your objectives and goals would be more like department goals.
> Things like "% of staff requests answered within 4 hours", or "% of
> uptime for critical servers and infrastructure" or "implement a new
> system to increase storage and backup capacity" whatever is actually
> important for your employer. You can then set targets and measure your
> performance against them.

Staff requests equate to people standing outside my door asking me to 
fix it. Perhaps "time to fix" rather than "time to respond" would be a 
better measure. It would still require somebody to actually *measure* 
this stuff.

Ditto for uptime. Systems were a bit unstable when I joined, but within 
a few years everything was stable enough that I basically didn't need to 
even *be* there any more.

"Implement new system to increase performance" would require that 
somebody actually give me the *money* to perform badly-needed upgrades. 
Never gonna happen. :-P

Basically, for the best part of ten years, all I really did was swap the 
backup tapes once a week.

>> My new employer - heh, "new". I've been there over a year! Oh yes, which
>> is why I apparently need to fill out an appraisal form. Any ideas for
>> creative ways to say "last year I wrote code, this year I will write
>> code"? ;-)
>
> Don't you have certain projects you are meant to work on? Your goals
> should be based on things like "complete project X by date Y" or "become
> the company expert for Z" or personal development type stuff "chair a
> customer review" or "mentor new staff" etc.

Not really. There is no long-term plan. We just show up each day and 
mungle on with writing the code. Deadlines don't really exist.

> Did you ever hear of SMART
> objectives? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria

No - but it sounds interesting...

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On 12/11/2013 02:13 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:

>> At this point, I have to wonder - why am I filling this form out again?
>> What "goals" or "achievements" can I invent to put in these boxes? How
>> can I pretend these are related to the company mission?
>>
>
> Did you have any deadlines? Did you meet them?
>
> Did you resolve any big problem that was delaying a project?
>
> Did you find ways of making XYZ run faster? By how much?
>
> Was your code relevant to anything the company did? How so? Would the
> company have fared any worse without your code?

At my previous place, the answer to all of the above is pretty much "no".

At my current place... well, they pay me to write code all day long. If 
I hadn't written that code, somebody else would have written it, which 
means it would have taken the company slightly longer to get where it is 
now.

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>> At this point, I have to wonder - why am I filling this form out again?
>> What "goals" or "achievements" can I invent to put in these boxes? How
>> can I pretend these are related to the company mission?
>
> In IT, pretty much everything you do relates to the company mission.  IT
> enables companies to achieve their mission in an efficient manner
> (ideally).  So every system you manage, implement, update, or fix
> directly affects the bottom line.

At my last place, I was pretty much a necessary but useless overhead - 
like paying for water and electricity. Doesn't add any value to the 
business, but you can't operate without it.

>> My new employer - heh, "new". I've been there over a year! Oh yes, which
>> is why I apparently need to fill out an appraisal form. Any ideas for
>> creative ways to say "last year I wrote code, this year I will write
>> code"? ;-)
>
> Write more than "I wrote code."  Write about what the code does, what
> it's used for, and what it's a part of.

Code is basically the company's product. We have a room full of people 
who write code all day. If I hadn't been there... they would have one 
fewer staff, so it would have taken a few percent longer to write the 
code that got written this year.

> For goals, look forward at what
> the company's doing, where it's headed, and how the code you've already
> written is helping them meet their goals, and then extrapolate how your
> existing code might evolve - things you want to implement that you didn't
> get to, that sort of thing.  Goals and objectives are set in concert with
> your manager, so if you have a goal, objective, or desire that doesn't
> fit, your manager should help you align your goals to the organizational
> goals.

*mumble something about the company not actually having any defined 
direction*

Interesting suggestions...

Thing is, if I say "I wrote some code", that's too short. And if I 
describe everything I implemented - even just the noteworthy stuff - 
that's *way* too long.

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On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:21:29 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> At this point, I have to wonder - why am I filling this form out
>>> again? What "goals" or "achievements" can I invent to put in these
>>> boxes? How can I pretend these are related to the company mission?
>>
>> In IT, pretty much everything you do relates to the company mission. 
>> IT enables companies to achieve their mission in an efficient manner
>> (ideally).  So every system you manage, implement, update, or fix
>> directly affects the bottom line.
> 
> At my last place, I was pretty much a necessary but useless overhead -
> like paying for water and electricity. Doesn't add any value to the
> business, but you can't operate without it.

If you are necessary for operation, you're not useless overhead.

>>> My new employer - heh, "new". I've been there over a year! Oh yes,
>>> which is why I apparently need to fill out an appraisal form. Any
>>> ideas for creative ways to say "last year I wrote code, this year I
>>> will write code"? ;-)
>>
>> Write more than "I wrote code."  Write about what the code does, what
>> it's used for, and what it's a part of.
> 
> Code is basically the company's product. We have a room full of people
> who write code all day. If I hadn't been there... they would have one
> fewer staff, so it would have taken a few percent longer to write the
> code that got written this year.

The important thing is that you actually /did/ something, not that they'd 
have continued to function/exist if you weren't there.

Give yourself some credit, man! ;)

>> For goals, look forward at what the company's doing, where it's headed,
>> and how the code you've already written is helping them meet their
>> goals, and then extrapolate how your existing code might evolve -
>> things you want to implement that you didn't get to, that sort of
>> thing.  Goals and objectives are set in concert with your manager, so
>> if you have a goal, objective, or desire that doesn't fit, your manager
>> should help you align your goals to the organizational goals.
> 
> *mumble something about the company not actually having any defined
> direction*

Certainly someone must have an idea what the company does.  You're very 
secretive about even where you work, so it's kinda difficult to provide 
specific information.

What market does the company serve?  Who are its competitors?

> Interesting suggestions...

That's how it's actually done.  Someone else suggested you read up on 
SMART goals - and that's definitely a place to start.

> Thing is, if I say "I wrote some code", that's too short. And if I
> describe everything I implemented - even just the noteworthy stuff -
> that's *way* too long.

There's a middle ground.  "I wrote code that does 'x'" - as a summary, 
not a detailed description.

Jim

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