Appraisals and objectives

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Yo

For anyone who hasn't come across any of my previous posts - I've been unofficially diagnosed by the therapist I'm seeing for depression/anxiety/PTSD. Have had initial short assessment interview with a specialist, filled out a bucketload of forms and am awaiting either an invitation to the in depth assessment or a report detailing why he doesn't think I'm on the spectrum.

Anyway, I've landed in a company where they take appraisals and objectives really seriously, and I've got to think of at least 4 before next week. 4 things I want to, and believe I can, achieve in the next year.

Problem is, unless I have an obsession on the go, I'm not really bothered about that kind of goal. I just want to be good at my job and get through each day without accidentally insulting anyone or having a meltdown!

And long term - well the honest truth is that I'd really rather not work. I'd rather be at home, doing DIY and playing with the dogs.

On top of all that, I recently changed career from being a programmer to a product manager, so I'm used to having technology related goals rather than "soft skill" ones.

Anyone else have this kind of problem?

I have the exact same issue as you! My company is obsessed with goals and objectives. I am also just happy turning up to work, doing a good job every day and going home again and don't really think about big career goals etc., as I do not live for work, and none of my life aims/dreams have anything to do with work! I would also rather be at home doing what I want! But yeah, as with you, turning up and doing a good job on a daily basis is not good enough for my company.

Funnily enough I'm writing up my new goals right now as I have a meeting about it with my manager tomorrow morning. We have to update/assess our personal goals every 3 months. My rather vague goals are improving confidence and assertiveness, not being afraid to speak up and constructively criticise when I disagree with a colleague, taking full ownership of projects I am working on without needing to refer to a supervisor; and then I have more quantitatively measurable ones like spend x% of time doing this task and x% of time doing that task, get x number of figures per week/month, etc.

Good luck with the objectives, hope you manage to find some of those tricky soft-skills ones.

Awesome! What a coincidence. Yeah, we assess ours every 3 months too.

I'll probably end up putting a couple of woolly things on there, although we have to put what we want to achieve, how we'll go about achieving it, and how we'll know we've succeeded.

It's the kind of thing that just completely does my head in.

While I don't go in for the more ephemeral types, I do love measurable goals. I have to have an item or two of focus, for when I get listless and distracted. Those parts are okay for me, because I love tracking stuff and would be compiling the data on my own anyway.

I understand that managers within big companies have to prove that their employees are being productive and an asset to the organization, as we're adults and most of us work independently of our bosses so they can't attest to much, except that the ball does not get dropped in a major way.
One of the many things that let me know that I have no intention of ever being a manager.

Being in a tech position, it's easy for me to say things like 'roll out new features' or 'prepare tutorials on X features' and prove I've done them.
That 'personal development' stuff is where I bog down, like 'learning more about the primary functions of our business' (I'm IT for goodness sake, why do I care what a broker does? or same for my previous job in the hospital), how do I set measures for that?

Also, my personal goals are further out than what they'd like to see (like completing my graduate degree), and I certainly don't want to climb the ladder here. It's heads or tails whether a boss wants to hear that anyway, because they might expect ambition (I have a to-do list, not ambition) or because they might fear you gunning for their job. ~shrugs~ I dunno.

It's just part of playing the game being in a big company. Most of my colleagues work for really small companies and don't get regular reviews (which might contain: a chance to brag or remind of accomplishments or cost of living increases or merit raises).