Paradoxically

I had my review at work today. It was the mandatory one-year review, albeit about three months late, but whatever, you know? People are busy, I understand that.

It was pretty much what I expected--less-than-adequate ratings in nearly everything, an improvement plan at the end with a 60-day time-frame...

It was absolutely one of the most positive experiences I've had at this job, and ten million times more palatable than my reviews at my LAST job.

And I put that completely at the feet of my manager, ImmediateBoss. I have many criticisms of him--he's hard to get a hold of, he's a little on the flaky side sometimes--but I will give him this compliment and shout it from the rooftops: Even when he was giving me a REALLY bad evaluation, he was absolutely 100% adamant that every single issue we discussed could be fixed and any problems I was having in this job could be overcome. And he's not a bullshit artist by any means--he's blunt to a fault, sometimes, absolutely NOT the office diplomat--so when he says something like that, I believe him. I left that meeting feeling motivated to do better and willing to wipe the slate clean and start over again. I was so impressed by how he handled the whole situation...I mean, he had to give me some seriously bad news at the end of the review (apparently our company has a formula for calculating raises that pretty much nixes them completely for anyone who gets a review as bad as mine) and he actually managed NOT to make that massively demotivating. Not only that, he told me some things I didn't know--about training opportunities that are available, things like Microsoft certification, which can improve not only my standing HERE, but my marketability everywhere else--and they'd pay for it!

It was just so nice to feel that a manager wants me to succeed, to hear someone in charge say, essentially, "Yeah, there are some problems--but I think they're fixable, and I'm willing to work with you to help you fix them." It wasn't like at the last place, where even the compliments felt backhanded, and I walked out of every conversation--let alone every review!--feeling like a total failure. In fact, I actually wrote ImmediateBoss sort of a thank-you note, telling him that I appreciated how he handled the whole situation. (It DOES suck that I don't get even a teeny raise, but ImmediateBoss handled that pretty well too; as he said, if I improve even up to just better-than-average, it will look good enough that he can put in for a fairly-whopping raise for me next year and probably get it. And really, that "year" is only nine months...)

It's very strange that I feel THIS good about my job after getting a BAD review. This job may be salvageable after all. (Of course, please don't quote me on that tomorrow--I meet with HRChick about my medical "accommodations". Hopefully she'll agree with me that since the problem has been largely resolved, we can move forward and stop talking about it....but somehow I'm not optimistic. We'll see.)