 Newsreel
Products & Services
Web Watch
Software Update
Resource Directory
Events Diary
Articles
The Magazine
Subscribe
Contact Us
Search DNJ Online |
 Issue
5
Angie Baxter faces a trip to her least-favourite user department, misses a trip
to her most-favourite conference destination - and has her first performance review. Will
it mean a pay rise or a vacant desk?
Monday
A big week for me as I’ve got my first six-monthly review on Thursday. It’s two
months late but that’s par for the course in a busy shop like this (or at least
that’s Mike’s story). Anyway, I’m not complaining as it means it’ll
include my stint as lead developer on the browser-hosted Drivers Allowances client.
Performance reviews are a sore point around here. Sammy hasn’t had one for 18 months
(although, if the truth be told, that’s probably out of kindness) while Carl and
Denny are refusing them as they claim Mike isn’t technically qualified to assess
their achievements. I think this is really pushing it, but they just smile serenely and
say they’ll let the market do their pay bargaining for them. I prefer the
conventional route, so it’s best behaviour for me.
Tuesday
Mike’s been milking my review for all it’s worth, giving me all the bad news in
the knowledge that I can’t bite back. I’ve already missed out on Web TechEd in
Palm Springs as his budget was cleaned out by Carl’s (pointless) trip to the PDC in
San Diego. Now he tells me that Dave Hayes is demanding a DA client site test and that
I’ve got to be in sunny Southampton tomorrow morning. I, naturally, smile sweetly and
say everything’s fine. I ask Kevin what Mike’s like in reviews, and he replies
‘a bastard’, although he adds that having it on Thursday is a good sign as they
make it Friday afternoon if they’re going to sack you. Perhaps Carl and Denny have
got a point after all - and anyway, how much does Mike know about Data Binding using RDS,
or the relationship between ADO and OLE DB?
Wednesday
Dave Hayes is the world’s most obnoxious man and his Southampton depot hands are a
bunch of sexist Neanderthals. On the bright side, I get to vent my pre-review frustrations
by giving one of them a real mouthful when he makes a remark about me wearing trousers.
This seems to impress Hayes, who starts treating me with something almost like respect.
Then I find that my assistant back at HQ is Sammy and, sure enough, he’s got the
server running pre-restructured tables. It all crashes, but instead of making his usual
sarky comments, Hayes asks how long I need to sort it out. I say half an hour, make an
urgent call to Kevin, and we get a clean run. A congratulatory call from Mike seals
what’s turned out to be a very good day. After this, the review should be no problem.
Thursday
The review is fair, but very tough. I don’t know where Carl and Denny get the idea
that Mike isn’t on the ball technically, because he delivers a virtually line-by-line
assessment of my progress; Automation API, DCOM, ASP scripting and RDS (vs JDBC) included.
He also quizzes me on what I learnt from Liam, although I put that down to AS400 rivalry
rather than gossip-mongering. On the personal side he’s written that
‘self-motivation can be a problem’ (OK, I admit it!) but that I ‘respond
well to challenges’. The overall verdict is positive, with the magic words
‘project-leader potential’ in the summary. I get my pay rise as promised (minus
back-pay, of course), bin the appointments pages that Carl and Denny have thoughtfully
left open on my desk, and take everyone to the pub to celebrate. I’m now officially a
member of the Desktop Establishment.
Friday
After yesterday’s excitement it’s back to the real world. I’m still trying
to make Internet Explorer 4 render a table cell properly when it’s bound to a
null-value field. Denny’s chattering about ActiveX Template Libraries in Visual C++
6.0 (stupidly I bite, and get rewarded with “it’s a C++ thing, Ange, don’t
worry about it”). Dave Hayes has reverted to type, and told a progress meeting that
it’d be cheaper to give the drivers blank cheques and let them decide their own
allowances. Then, out of the blue, Mike says I can go to Web TechEd after all. I start
planning my Palm Springs wardrobe, then realise that the event happened two weeks ago. I
point this out, and Mike replies that he means the European Web TechEd, in March, in
London. Carl bursts out laughing, but, with the dignity of a potential project leader, I
ignore him.
Top of the page
Issue 5 - Contents
< Previous Angie -- Next
Angie >
|
Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3
Issue 4
Issue 5
Issue 6
Issue 7
Issue 8
Issue 9
Issue 10
Issue 11
Issue 12
Issue 13
Issue 14
Issue 15
Issue 16
Issue 17
Issue 18
Issue 19
Issue 20
Issue 21
Issue 22
Issue 23
Issue 24
Issue 25
Issue 26
Issue 27
Issue 28
Issue 29
Issue 30
Issue 31
Issue 32
Issue 33
Issue 34
Issue 35
Issue 36
Issue 37
And the adventure continues at the HardCopy web site! More |