It's that time of year . . . . . . . . .

Yes, it's that time of year.

With the advent of dark days where daylight is at a minimum, hordes of wonderful HR people throughout the land are emerging, clipboards under their arms, to "reach out" (i.e. irritate) staff in organisations nationwide. They arrange staff meetings where they don't just take minutes, but take hours. Proving that personnel is not a word, but a sentence.

Yes, it's annual review time. The time of year where acres of pointless questions occupy reams of paper, all printed-off despite the twee "don't print this unless you have to" messages. Reams of paper that are filed in the HR office, never again to see the light of day, apart from any of the ideas from staff that can be stolen, adapted and used by the HR department claiming them as their own.
These annual reviews are by and large totally farcical and completely irrelevant. There is no proof that anyone actually takes any notice of them.

"Where do you see yourself next year?" Why answering another one of these useless annual reviews of course. That have taken you all year to print off. That is exactly the same as last year. And the year before. Bet you're glad I kept a copy of last year's so I can copy and paste it into this year's. On second thoughts I didn't? Never mind, I'll send it by email to my partner and they'll fill it in for me.

"What could the company be doing better?" Er, treating me and the other employees that generate a fortune for the directors better. How about a decent salary increase instead of the 26p an hour you offered last year seeing as the Chief Executive is on £800,000 a year plus a chauffeured car? Or perhaps stop with these pointless annual reviews.

"How have you performed against the set KPI's?" I haven't. They are unfathomable crap, developed by someone who plainly has a personality disorder and only gets out on day-release when there's a shortage of staff at the sanatorium.

"How do you rate the performance of your manager?" I don't. He gets paid 50% more than I do, yet does half the work. Actually, to be fair, he occasionally does the work of two men - Laurel and Hardy.

"Do we live up to our expectations of being a customer-centric organisation?" Yes. Of course. Up until their money is safely in the company bank account. Then we completely ignore them, unless management come up with a new wheeze to further part them from more of their money.

"What training have you planned to further your career?" I forgot my anti-bacterial cream, so I'll have to pass on the ass-kissing for the moment.