Words You Don't Want to Hear During Your Annual Performance Review

Other DILBERT books from
Andrews McMeel Publishing

When Body Language Goes Bad
ISBN: 0-7407-3298-6

What Do You Call a Sociopath in a Cubicle?
Answer: A Coworker
ISBN: 0-7407-2663-3

Another Day in Cubicle Paradise
ISBN: 0-7407-2194-1

When Did Ignorance Become a Point of View?
ISBN: 0-7407-1839-8

Excuse Me While I Wag
ISBN: 0-7407-1390-6

Dilbert—A Treasury of Sunday Strips: Version 00
ISBN: 0-7407-0531-8

Random Acts of Management
ISBN: 0-7407-0453-2

Dilbert Gives You the Business
ISBN: 0-7407-0338-2 hardcover
ISBN: 0-7407-0003-0 paperback

Don’t Step in the Leadership
ISBN: 0-8362-7844-5

Journey to Cubeville
ISBN: 0-8362-7175-0 hardcover
ISBN: 0-8362-6745-1 paperback

I’m Not Anti-Business, I’m Anti-Idiot
ISBN: 0-8362-5182-2

Seven Years of Highly Defective People
ISBN: 0-8362-5129-6 hardcover
ISBN: 0-8362-3668-8 paperback

Casual Day Has Gone Too Far
ISBN: 0-8362-2899-5

Fugitive from the Cubicle Police
ISBN: 0-8362-2119-2

Still Pumped from Using the Mouse
ISBN: 0-8362-1026-3

It’s Obvious You Won’t Survive by Your Wits Alone
ISBN: 0-8362-0415-8

Bring Me the Head of Willy the Mailboy!
ISBN: 0-8362-1779-9

Shave the Whales
ISBN: 0-8362-1740-3

Dogbert’s Clues for the Clueless
ISBN: 0-8362-1737-3

Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies
ISBN: 0-8362-1757-8

Always Postpone Meetings with Time-Wasting Morons
ISBN: 0-8362-1758-6

For ordering information, call 1-800-223-2336.

DILBERT
®
is a registered trademark of Scott Adams, Inc. Licensed by Peanuts Worldwide.

DOGBERT
®
and DILBERT
®
appear in the comic strip DILBERT
®
, distributed by Universal Uclick and owned by Scott Adams, Inc.

Words You Don’t Want to Hear During Your Annual Performance Review
copyright © 2003 by Scott Adams, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information, write Andrews McMeel Publishing, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri, 64106.

E-ISBN: 978-1-4494-1789-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2003106552

www.andrewsmcmeel.com

www.dilbert.com

ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND BUSINESSES

Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please write to: Special Sales Department, Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, Missouri.
[email protected]

For the Queen of Imaginary Quilts

Introduction

If you are an “employee,” sooner or later you will be subjected to a horrible humiliation that forensic scientists refer to as your “performance review.” You will need a strategy for coping, and I can help.

I recommend working for a timid boss who likes to avoid confrontation. You can test whether your boss fits that description by bringing a huge bag of fertilizer to work and shoving his head into it, then sewing it to his shirt collar and laughing as he goes running around like a man with a bag-o-fertilizer head.

After that, if he says something about how humor helps morale and how you’re like a member of the family, then you have a timid boss, and your performance review will be just fine. He’ll give you “exceptional” ratings on every category just to lessen the chance you will cry, complain, glare, or sew his head into another bag.

The next best kind of boss is a lazy boss. If he asks you to write your own performance review, you’re home free. Try to weave into your evaluation words like Einsteinian, overlord, magnificent, and deeeee-licious. Even if he crosses out a few of your descriptors, whatever slips through the cracks will still serve you well.

If your boss is neither timid nor lazy, you’ll have to do things the hard way. Sacrifice your health and your personal life by working extra hard to earn that highest performance review rating. Bankers will tell you that the 1 percent higher raise you earn for being a star performer will add up over time, thanks to the miracle of compounding. But later, when they’re alone, the bankers will laugh heartily at your working 50 percent harder for a 1 percent higher raise. And they’ll mock you for not understanding that compounding doesn’t apply to people who spend all their extra money on beer to forget their jobs. Bankers are funny.

Or you could ignore your performance review altogether, and wait until Dogbert conquers the planet and makes all non-Dilbert-readers our personal domestic servants.

www.dilbert.com

Other books

Time at War by Nicholas Mosley
First Temptation by Joan Swan
Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac
Term-Time Trouble by Titania Woods
A Hand to Hold by Kathleen Fuller
Written in Blood by Collett, Chris