May 23, 2003
2:03 PM

Report Card


Gloria wrote an email back to me, and asked me the old 3 word question, "How are you". This is the response I typed up. I don't think I'm going to send it.

I really don't know, it's been crazy here. I feel rather content right now, but it seems like I shouldn't be. I got my official yearly review today. The period and pre-evaluation and all that stuff was last month, but this was the official meet-with-teacher-and-sign-report-card. Well, I got an F, so to speak. Reviews go from 1 (exceeds) to 5 (fails to meet) and I got a 5. It's not all from my manager though; the director and supervisor graded it too. And there's a good chance that it was Greg (the director) that _lowered_ it from a 4 to a 5.

I went though this same shit at Lucent just before I quit, and it's the same procedure: I'll have to do what's called a "PIP" (Performance Improvement Plan). Basically, the manager has to come up with a special "to do" list, I sign the acknowledgement that I got it, and they watch me do it for 60 days. Honestly, I don't know what to make of it all. Maybe I _do_ have the interest to stick around here for a little longer. Last time I had an "after class" talk I made it pretty clear that I hated this place. This time (and off-record) I made it pretty clear what I'd rather be doing. "[Math is] not just my back ground, it's..." "It's an interest." (She's great at interrupting me) "No, not just that. It's my PASSION."

This came up because the Teacher brought up "[name of math software company]" as an aside. I gave her the full story. "Now I think they make software for�" "They make a product called [***] and some other product. I used it for part my thesis." I'm all too familiar with the place. It was the first place I had a professional interview with. This was before I even enrolled in grad school. And at the time I was applying for, of all things, a QA position. They thought I was more qualified for a developer (programming) position. So I naively said "OK". And I failed as an applicant for a developer position. Then I looked for other math-applicable jobs (like [name of other company here]), but to no avail. Then a headhunter found me a job in 1999 doing QA for Lucent.

So I told her just how familiar I was with that place. I said, "As long as we're talking off-record here, I'll be bluntly honest with you. I'd absolutely love to work at that place. Last night, I was driving by there on my way back from the Natick mall. And I slowed down so I could thoughtfully look at the lit-up sign." What I didn't tell her is that I said "someday" out loud to myself there in the car.

Anyway, the software economy sucks right now, so the company I work for can be as picky as they want. They even explicitly told all the managers, in so many words, that they could let people go who didn't want to be there.

"We know you're capable of more." Where have I heard this before?

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