Another Trip Around the Sun...

Someone wise, who it was doesn't really matter, said, "The days are long, but the years are short."

Naturally, when I first read that quote, my impatient self laughed. The years are short? Ha!

Now, it has been almost exactly one year since I started my current job. NOW, I really realize just how incredibly true it is: "The days are long, but the years are short."

In this past year, there were days that dragged on forever because I had nothing at all to do besides obsessively check every possible news outlet for new news. There were days that dragged on forever because I was buried under a mountain of work that could not even be started until someone who was ignoring their emails did not pass along key information. There were days that dragged on because I was eagerly counting down the hours until I was at the airport, heading off to see my love or waiting for my love to arrive. There were days that were long just because there was a monotonous routine: wake up, go to work, sit at work, go home, go to sleep, wash, rinse, and repeat. There were days that seemed impossibly long because I was overwhelmed (or sometimes, underwhelmed) by all the new things I was learning. Yet, for as much as just about each individual day seems to have dragged on this year, the year itself seems to have flown on by, same as blinking an eye.

And naturally, the reason for such profound musings is the annual employee evaluation. My company handles the employee evaluation a bit weirdly: employee does a self-evaluation, boss does an employee evaluation based on the self-evaluation, CEO, CFO, and COO all sign off on the boss' evaluation, then the employee and the boss sit down to discuss the evaluation. It's awkward, and I'm not crazy about it. But seeing as how I'm hoping for a nice raise and a semi-promotion (I just want the "junior" dropped off my job title already!), I am determined to have an excellent evaluation.

So, after work today, I had a little wake-me-up workout and then I hunkered down in the local coffee shop for a while to start listing all the job responsibilities, on-the-job-training, accomplishments, recognition, and mistakes I have had this past year.

This job has been a difficult position to fill, because both clients that I've had this year did not have clearly defined responsibilities for me and most of my interactions with my clients were remote (via email and phone) rather than on-site due to space limitations, yet, I received a fairly positive six-month, end-of-trial-period evaluation, and then I also earned an award of which I'm quite proud.

It's hard to grade yourself accurately, especially when you don't have a clue how your boss is going to grade you. (My boss is not a fan of feedback. The good news is, I rarely get bad feedback from my boss. The bad news is, I rarely get good feedback from my boss.) Thus, I do not really have a clue as to where I really stand in front of him. So, I am trying my best to grade myself accurately and objectively, with a definite positive slant (I do hope for a raise, after all!).

I will have to spend at least one or two more nights this week on the evaluation, but I think I am off to a good start. (I'll keep you, dear readers, updated on what the final outcome of this evaluation is in the end....)