Crank!

Isn’t that pretty? Soothing? Calming?

Good, ’cause I need that.

Just a short rant to say – I think the week of work BEFORE taking a week off might be the worst. Yes, some would argue it’s the week you come BACK that sucks more, but..right now, I’d say no. Because at least when you get back you are carrying a modicum of relaxation with you. Whereas the week before – you are at peak GET ME THE HELL OUTTA HERE!

It does not help MY situation at all that it is also employee evaluation time. Yup, I have to get those done before I sign off for the month. Pretty much as soon as I said “I think I’ll take the last week of April off so that I can turn in some vacation time and get in a nice break before the summer year end mania hits” – all sorts of “this is due 4/30” busy work came down. Plus evaluations. Ugh. I don’t know WHY I don’t like eval time. I just don’t. I mean, I know why I don’t like *getting* evaluated. But why do I also not like preparing it for others? I only have 3 people and they are the BEST group I’ve had as a manager, hands down. Why does it weigh on me then? I think part of it is the format of how our evals are done. It is VERY rigid. A 1-5 numerical system and really you can only give out 3s and 4s if people are performing well.  A 1 or 2 means Big Trouble and a 5..well..you better be able to write up a justification in line with a Supreme Court decision for one of those. So it feels like my hands are tied and that it is a very uninformative process for everyone. Then, of course, the HR department HAD to choose a program which is actually worse than our everyday load of crap. IF I manage to successfully log in the first time I try, I will be cursing the damn thing within the first 2-3 menus that I have to navigate. Nothing is where it makes any sense and it is one of the least intuitive interfaces I’ve ever seen. The ONLY plus to it is that at least I don’t have to manually add up those damn weighted 3s and 4s to come up with the final scoring. Bleargh. Hate the whole process, yes I do, and yet I must slug it out in order to get to full vacation mode.

At least I have a dinner party to go to tomorrow night to meet some local bloggers which looks like it will be great fun.