In an office, they just finished their appraisal, both first and third degree concurrently. One employee thought, her scores were getting lower. During the past few years, she fared better, a lot better. And as usual, after reaching a particular ceiling in the bell curve, there will be no other way but downward and she somehow expected that already. *In life, you can’t always be on top.*
This employee was a one-time service awardee, an award given by consistently getting good feedbacks from her clients. She’s doing the same thing over and over again for the past few years. She was good with handling her clients. Her clients love her despite, at times, she tells them off when they come late or don’t turn up on their appointment times. She knows she’s loved and she loves them back, more than anything else.
She has one particular weakness though, that seems to be getting more apparent as she stays longer in the company. She’s socially-phobic. She refused responsibilities that would warrant her to be on the stage and/or be on the spotlight. She was never a fan of being the center of everyone’s attention. Even regular small group discussions would stress her out. She’s aware of this problem and she has related this to her boss before.
She thought, good bosses should be able to know and adjust task distribution based on staff’s strength and weaknesses. They should be able to identify ways to encourage their staff to go or slowly push their staff beyond their comfort zones. She knew that the longer she stays, there will be more expectations from her and the more she’s unable to deliver, the more her appraisal will be affected. As expected, it happened.
She knew that and the more she’s made aware, the more questions saturated her head. In a workplace, what is really important? Does it have to be the way you please the people you work with or is it the way you love and please your clients? Or both? Is it really important to keep on pushing and doing things other people “expect” you to do, despite discomfort or just do things that you are happy about? What if you are just happy and content with your current disposition, do you have to change that just to make other people happy?
At work, she thought, “you might feel that you are doing a lot, and you are doing everything expected of you but how other people perceive it, will always be the opposite. They would always think that what you are doing is not enough and that they are doing more than what you have at hand.”
So in her head, “Does one have to be affected by appraisals? Good or bad appraisal is not who one is, it’s how other people, (people who do not even know the core of your being, do not even know your motives and driving forces), think of you, based on their superficial observations for 42 hours per week.”
That was what she thought.
—
I just got reminded of this fable:
The Man, the Boy, and
the Donkey
An Aesop’s Fable
A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”
So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”
So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.”
Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said:
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours and your hulking son?”
The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.
“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:
Moral of Aesops Fable:
Please all, and you will please none!
(http://www.taleswithmorals.com/aesop-fable-the-man-the-boy-and-the-donkey.htm)
A Woman in Search 