Professional Growth? I'd rather not.

So it is that time of year at my current place of employment where you are forced (more or less at gunpoint) to reflect on your goals and the skills you have learned over the last year. Yeah, go ahead and gouge my eyes out, why don’t you?

Now admittedly this is not as painful as it was at my old job (I actually like this job), but this one is definitely still difficult. Maybe because I am much more concerned with doing a good job and where I am going in the company - that is probably it. Anyway filling out the ol’ PGP (stands for Professional Growth – I don’t know what the last P stands for) is certainly an uphill battle.

First there are the check boxes. About a million skills and qualities are listed and then you have to check either not observed, needs improvement, meets expectation, exceeds expectation or exceptional. I pretty much want to put needs improvement for every box. Couldn’t we all always improve at least a little? I figure that really defeats the purpose though. I think you are really supposed to reflect on what you do well and what you are ready to learn, blah, blah, blah. Well I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I want to be this self-aware. Then you come to the personal goals section – vomit. Maybe I don’t want to have any personal goals. Maybe personal goals are just a little too intimidating.

I mean, don’t you miss the school days, when you didn’t have to wager a guess at how you were performing. The teacher just told you – A, B, C, etc. You didn’t have to assess yourself and then wait a month to see if your boss agrees. And wouldn’t that be the greatest embarrassment of all. You commit to paper how great you are at leadership and time management and then you hear your boss laughing next door, because he thinks you may very well have the worst leadership and time management skills on the planet. In fact, why hasn’t he fired you for that yet? I only rest in the solace that my boss told our entire department that I will never be fired because I bake treats for the group. Thank goodness I have one saving grace!

Ok, enough procrastinating, back to writing my Professional Growth P-whatever. Wish me luck!