HAVING an appraisal with your boss? Try to avoid the temptation to roll out one of these responses to their stupid f**king questions.
What do I find most challenging?
Having to answer to a twat like you. I’m pretty sure you’re at least twenty years younger than me, and yet you’ve floated to a higher position, presumably because you’re not ashamed to be an obsequious arse licker to the bigger bosses. Honestly, it’s like being line managed by Hermione bloody Granger.
Where do I see myself in 12 months?
Doing another one of these f**king appraisals. I hate this job but, given all the shit that’s going on with the cost of living crisis, it feels too risky to quit. So in a year’s time I’ll still be here, but I’ll hate you even more. Although you’ll probably have been promoted by then, because you’re obsessed with your ‘career path’, you boring little bastard.
My greatest strength?
Patience. I can work alongside arseholes without losing it and putting my fist through a flatscreen monitor. Like Susan in accounts who seems unable to count past ten or Martin in IT whose only solution to my computer crashing again is to tell me to ‘Google it’. I’m basically Mother Theresa, if she’d worked in a logistics company on a trading estate in Woking.
What have I achieved since my last review?
Hmm, well, I learned how to work the complicated coffee machine in the staff kitchen, which means I can waste an extra five minutes making a cappuccino instead of using instant. And I’ve snaffled so much contraband stationery from the company that I’ve got a nice sideline on eBay. I’m nothing if not entrepreneurial.
Any chance of a pay rise?
You’re obviously going to say no, citing the current economic challenges the country is facing, but it makes me feel better to let loose and go on a rant about how I’d be willing to work harder if you paid you more. I’m fully aware that in a fortnight I’ll be quietly made redundant and replaced by some fresh-faced university graduate who’s willing to work twice as hard for ten grand less.