As a primary school students in rural Orissa, many many years ago, we used to wait with excitement and fear for the days when School Inspector visited the school.
A school inspector is a govt. employee who visits all govt. schools periodically and verifies if the teachers come to work.
If students are following discipline. If the school premises is safe and healthy. If the fund given by govt is utilized properly.
Of course, like every other govt job in India, this noble job was also reduced to the moral lows of babudom.
When school inspectors came, huge amount of panic would be there in the air. Teachers will all be there in time in cleaner clothes. They would not take the kids away from class to clean their own back yard.
Before digressing too much -
During one such visits (when I was in class 5), our school inspector asked me to draw a line on the black board which is 1 meter long without having a tape or scale. Just to see how close I get to the real measurement. This is probably one of the ways to measure the cognitive skills of growing kids.
I drew a line. And among all lines drawn by other kids, mine was the closest to 1 meter. It was luck probably. But I got kudos for that.
Then it took a sudden turn. The inspector looked at me with a smile and asked, can you make this line smaller without erasing any of it ? I knew this trick already from home, while playing with the dough while my mother was making rotis. I immediately went to the board, and drew a bigger line. All of the sudden the older line was smaller.
Its relative ! It really is. Everything is. Nevertheless, he made me feel like the smartest kid in the school :) That was cool indeed !
Why am I telling this story today ? After so many years !!!
It still has its relevance. It always had.
Relativity will always have relevance.
The appraisal season is going on. One of my old-timer, experienced engineers turn. He has been instrumental in growing the level of this team for past 5 to 6 years now. Great engineer. He has been repeatedly rated as one of the top guys.
This year was a bit different. His contribution has not decreased, there were a few new kids on the block, whose contributions have over shadowed his. It was not easy for him to accept this. As you can guess, I did tell the above story. We ended the discussion on a high note. No bad blood.
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1 comment:
good one! a thought that were running in my mind while i was reading thru this blog -
when it comes to appraisel - "It really doesn't matter, whether you win or lose. What matters is whether 'I' win or lose"
I can argue that appraisels are always unfair. 50% of engineers in the sample space are either underrated or overrated. ePM time is "time for managers to exhibit their little knowledge abt their engineers, and their prejudice"
Over my last three years in my company, i have observed the following -
1. Good knowledge + Excellent self-advertising skills (read show-off skills) are very often rated above better knowledge + not-very-self-advertising.
2. Some people are just hyped as being great, super intelligent. The mgmt treats them as the best engineers while they are actually not. A closer observation of such engineers will very surely reveal the truth, but our mgmt has so less time for all this inspection. Mgmt's life becomes easier in just sticking to the assumption that these hyped engineers are indeed unquestionable. Until few months back this was just a small thought in the back of my mind, but i was proved right when i witnessed Mr AA ask the dumbest of dumb questions during a preso - all just to make his presence felt, and the managers attending that preso were so pleased to see the greatest engineer asking questions (but what kind of questions were they??? they never thought abt it)
3. There are some people who are so lucky to be born with an appearance of being an intellect. And this coupled with their talent to talk in flashy english and to impress the boss, has taken them to the top! While their performance as such is usually average or maybe in some cases just good. But definitely not TOP! My one more observation regarding this class of engineers - they seem to look at career as a 100 meter dash, and not as a marathon. Wonder how far they will go. Have never liked this category of superficial butterflies who spend all their life trying to impress ppl above them.
4. with teams expanding, mediocrity is setting in. Wonder how the mgmt will rate the vast mediocrity we have today - will there be 'good mediocrity', 'so-so mediocrity' and 'bad mediocrity'?
Will have to wait and see :-)
Echoing what Pink Floyd says (with a few substitutions)- "We dont need no biased-appraisel, We dont need no thought control. no dark sarcasm in our workplace, hey managers leave the engineers alone! all in all your just another brick in the wall"
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