Author: jbenton

Your manager is not the only one responsible for your appraisal. An appraisal is a two-way street. A good appraisal is the result of a partnership between you and your manager. It is a chance to make sure that you are aligned on your goals, job expectations and performance standards.
Example: How to receive feedback.
Janet: Sue, I overheard you yesterday talking to one of your internal customers and that attitude has got to stop.
Sue: Janet, I don’t know what you are talking about.
Janet: You were talking to Mary in credit and you really talked down to her.
Sue: Well, she is stupid.
STOP! How might Sue have responded?
Sue: Janet, help me understand. What did I say that was a problem?
Janet: I believe you told someone that you didn’t have time for them.
Sue: So, you felt that I didn’t treat her with respect?
Janet: Exactly. We just can’t treat our internal customers that way. Respect is one of our corporate values.
Sue: Janet, you know I guess you are right. I was just so frustrated with her for losing one of our checks. I will call and apologize and really try to watch how I talk to people. I didn’t mean to be rude.

Wouldn’t want you folks to think I was being less than attentive to my crabwalk obligations. Just got in last night from Nashville, where I got to learn far too much about federal education reform and got to see Anthony, my old high school bud. This is the second time in two years I’ve seen Anthony in Nashville, and each time his wife was “out of town.” You’re not fooling me, man — she’s fictional, I know it.
Also took advantage of having HBO in the hotel room to watch The Sopranos. I saw nothing to convince me to change my prior opinion: a perfectly good show, but not the television deity some would have us believe.
One other thing: my iPod may be the most perfectly designed consumer good since the egg. There’s no better way to generate instant jealousy at an airport.
Met with my Little Brother today for the first time in a few months. (We’re only supposed to meet during the school year.) He ended up not getting enough credits to be promoted to 10th grade, so he’s a freshman again. (Almost one in five Texas high school freshmen take more than a year to become sophomores.) I’m looking forward to hearing his latest theories on how Tupac’s really not dead and is waiting on a Caribbean island for his eventual return.

Can someone tell me why Google searches for Elisabeth Kieselstein-Cord have tripled my usual hit count today? Did she do something newsworthy? Geez, I mention her once in an appreciation of George Gurley two months ago and all of a sudden this is EK-C Central.
In any event, Google’s mistakenly pointing to this site’s main page instead of the archive page that actually mentions her. So Cordistas, here’s the page you’re looking for.

Here’s a site I finished building the other day.

This has the makings of a grand day. I just convinced my apartment building to give me $200 to go toward my car break-in repair fund. We had a rockin’ storm this morning, the sort of summer tempest I miss from my days in south Louisiana. I just found out I’ll get the vacation time I asked for at Christmas. If Airborne Express‘ tracking system is correct, I have an iPod waiting for me at home. That’ll be just in time for my weekend jaunt to Nashville. And tonight I get to play Whirlyball, whatever the hell that is. A grand day, I tell you.

Dallas Observer readers (or, really, readers of any of its ilk) will be familiar with these hoary alt-weekly standbys.

If any of you have ever wondered about the appeal of working in a newsroom, this should settle it for you. You don’t get characters like that in insurance agencies, I tell you.