A couple of weeks ago I had my annual performance review at work. My boss graded me as “Meets Expectations”, which is about what I hoped for. He admitted he was a little generous because it was my first year and the learning curve is very steep. 

I actually graded myself as “Meets Expectations” on my self-review, although I ranked myself slightly lower than he did on a couple of points. Still, my score averaged out to “Meets”. 

I find myself pretty okay with meeting expectations this year. I’ve made no bones about the fact that I don’t like this job — I like the company, but not what I’m doing — and I’m doing pretty much the bare minimum to meet my boss’s and the company’s expectations. I don’t do overtime (unless I’m on a customer site); I work my nine hours a day and that’s it; I try not to take on extra work. 

At my previous jobs, I always shot for an “Exceeds Expectations”. In my last two, it was almost impossible to get anything more than a “Meets” because pay increases were directly tied to your review score and we only had so much money to go around. Here, there are other factors, including sales and profitability; I think I could get up to a 7 percent raise, based on previous records that I’ve seen. 

What’s changed? Besides the things I already mentioned, the fact of the matter is: I’m tired. Being unemployed for nine months took a lot out of me, and even before that, a two-year job search (which is still going on, by the way) was draining. Plus, I’m used to only having to manage people; at my last job I didn’t have a lot of daily tasks that didn’t involve managing or going to meetings. I’m accustomed to a certain type of job, and I’m trying like hell to get another one just like it. 

Plus, I’m more focused on my writing now, and work takes away from writing time. Telecommuting means more writing time because when I don’t have anything to actively do I can turn to my personal computer and write. Can’t do that in the office. Work is exhausting, and it sometimes means I can’t write when I get home because of the day I’ve had. And from December through March, I put a lot of my focus on GASP, which also takes energy. Spending that energy at work is not ideal. 

I have two goals this year:

1. Achieve “Meets Expectations” on my next review. 

2. Not be working here by the end of the year (because I got another job, one better suited to my skills). 

Let’s see if I can meet both of those expectations.