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Goodbye "area of improvement"

I work in one of those typical high tech companies in Silicon Valley. I'm not an engineer nor a senior manager nor an executive. I describe myself as a sheet of Kleenex Ultra Soft Facial Tissues 130 Count (Pack of 8), Disposable Facial Tissues, Gentle and Durable, 3-Ply Thickness, Designs May Vary at a tech company. 

Manager blows his/her nose (dump sh*tty work) until tissue paper (me) is no longer useful (burn out, irrecoverably unhappy). Yikes - disgusting. 

 What I want to complain about today is this nightmare "performance review" process. A lot of companies in this area conduct employee performance review around Spring season (now-ish). 

 What is performance review, for those of you have never heard of it? It basically tries to rate employee against some random motivational attributes such as leadership, growth mind set, presence, company value and so on and on (that gives me goose bumps). 

 By the way, these random motivational attributes are hilarious in its own way if you think about.
  • Leadership: How bossy are you?
  • Presence: How much bragging have you done?
  • Company value: How brainwashed are you by your company?
  • ... and so forth
After bunch of BS ratings, your manager will finally summarize and tell you two things:
  • Your strength: Heck yeah, it's my strength. I know what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. You don't need to tell me that. No thank you.
  • Area of improvement: Wow, seriously. I work 40+ hours a week and now you are telling me that I need to improve somehow? I thought you hired me because I was a good fit for your job description and obviously somehow I passed that interview. So, again, why do I need to improve?
Tech companies cherish this "feedback" culture so they assume employees are happy to hear what other people say about and you and your "area of improvement". They assume that you would love to work towards improving it. However, frankly, I don't have any intention to improve my weakness. I'm simply not good at what I'm not good at so I do it minimally and move on. Can't you tell?

 Here's the great book I read in the past: StrengthsFinder 2.0 which talks about in the states, we are so focused to be all-round person. We waste time improving our weakness rather than advancing our strengths. I totally agree and my daughter also agreed at age of 2. Yup - she knows what to focus.
Mom - I'm trying to identify my strength!
Seriously, I'm old and it's not time for me to focus on what I'm not good at. I have lots of crap going on in my life (cleaning the house, cooking, yelling at the kids, and my least favorite emailing & spreadsheeting at work) so I don't need an extra sh*t on my plate right now. May I get my paycheck and go home, please?

My productivity around performance review season is at least -30% because I get moody, upset and just wanting to quit the job. Unfortunately, I haven't see any "study shows" article about this yet. I wish some scholar will do research about this soon!

Nevertheless, check out today's featured shopping list:
  

Enjoy and you're welcome!

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