What is wrong with this as a review assessment? You've met my
expectations for the position, and in certain areas exceeded it, but
overall you met it. Nice job? You're getting a 4% raise and I've put
you in for a quarterly bonus. Apparently something is wrong because
you're crying in my office.

The company I work for has 5 levels of performance assessment:
Unsatifactory, Below Expectations, Meets Excpectations, Exceeds
Expectations, Outstanding. This is not the same as a grade system of
A,B,C,D,F where meets equals a C. You didn't do C work, you did meets
work - it's not the same.

This whole thing (today of all days) really pisses me off. I think
managers have a hard time fairly assessing their employees
performance. Exceeds should be Wow, and Outstanding should be holy
fuck! Meets means you've been assigned work, you've done it well, on
time and with quality, and every now and then you even wowed me. What
I'm finding in my current position, is that criteria I just laid out
for you would earn them an exceeds expectations - like wow, it's
amazing you actually did the work you were asked to do.

I think I'm fair. I know I'm consistent with my team and how I assess
their performance. If you do not meet, I tell you way before the
review and you have a chance to improve. If you do get better, you
will still get a below expectations at your review, but I will
encourage you and next year if you continue to do a good job you'll
get meets. If you don't improve I'll fire your ass within months. I
will always compensate you for the work that youv'e done, I always do
reviews on time because I know it's money, and I truly pay attention
to your responsibilities, work products and results. To exceed my
expectations means just that, it doesn't mean you did the work as
assigned, or better than the mediocre schelp whose place you took.

I have an employee very upset because she usually got oustandings or
exceeds. My response was that her previous bosses must have had low
standards or didn't have the courage to assess people fairly. I knew
when writing the review I was fair and accurate. I asked her to think
carefully if she were in my position how she would assess her
performance and we would talk about it in the coming weeks. I shared
with her the criteria as defined by the company as to what meets,
exceeds and outsanding means.

So please, if you're a manager, assess your people fairly, most should
be meets with a few star performers (exceeds) and a few that are
having breakout - free agent kind of year (outstanding). And, if you
are a staff person who got a meets expectations, good for you! You
did the job you were asked to do.

Now stop your bitching and back to work all you!