Thanks for coming in today. It’s hard to believe you’ve already been with us for thirty years! We remember HR introducing you around on your first day like it was just last week. Although you probably don’t remember anything from your first two or three years of life. That’s all right.
Here’s your detailed review, which you should read over carefully on your own time. We considered the comments you made in your online self-assessment, as well as some thoughtful input provided by your coworkers. This should help you look objectively at the work you’ve been doing and set new goals for the coming years. As you know, we don’t provide a lot of hand-holding here. Or at least we haven’t ever since you learned how to cross streets on your own.
You’ll see that we’ve noted some areas for improvement. Let’s just go over a few of these items together.
Here, for instance, under “Adaptability,” our score wasn’t quite as high as the score you gave yourself. We agree that you seemed to take the last few Twitter redesigns in stride. Yes, even when they hid the compose button up in corner like that. But here’s something else to think about: do you know what year Mars stopped making tan M&Ms? You don’t? Nineteen ninety-five. It’s time to let it go. They all taste the same and no one wants to hear about it anymore.
All right, let’s move on.
“Job Knowledge,” obviously, is minimal, much as your grandmothers are convinced you know what you’re doing.
In the category of “Organization” we also found some room for growth. Two decades ago you were very driven about color coding your little two-pocket folders and labeling your binders and whatnot. Yes, it was cute. But we’d like to see you push yourself more today. You seem to spend more energy on the aesthetics of organization than organization itself. For example, just carrying a Moleskine notebook around with you does not mean you have a “system.” There are some terrific apps on your devices that you’re not taking advantage of at all.
What’s that? Yes, we’ve seen the Post-its.
One more note here under “Organization”—your husband told us that he finds your style of dishwasher loading a bit haphazard. Have you been watching closely when he does it?
Next is “Controlling costs.” Actually, we gave you a score in the satisfactory range, but on your self-evaluation you answered this item with just a row of frowny faces. Was that meant to be a commentary on your income? If you’d like to be considered for a salary increase you’ll have to fill out the paperwork from HR, as you must know from the updated handbook we circulated last month. Although, to be honest, you’d be better off applying for a transfer to a totally new life path.
(By the way, you didn’t throw out the fire safety memo that came with that handbook, did you? We’re encouraging everyone to take this opportunity to refresh their knowledge of emergency procedures. You’d be surprised how many people don’t know where their closest exit is.)
Are you familiar with emoji? There are all kinds of icons and images available these days that convey a wider range of sentiments than these frowny faces. They even have an anthropomorphized pile of dung! Or there’s a sad face with little waterfalls coming out of the eyes. Ask a younger sibling to show you.
Here’s “Communication”; this was an interesting one. You gave yourself the maximum score. We’ve certainly observed all the hours you spend on blogging and social media. It would be hard to miss! But given that you were already an active user of Facebook and Twitter, did you really create an Instagram account last year in order to communicate valuable content to your network? Or was it more of a performative act, maybe an attempt to boost your self-worth by broadcasting an attractively packaged version of your life? That’s a rhetorical question. Just something to chew on, if you can fit it into your busy snacking schedule. Although you consider yourself a communicator, we can’t help but observe that you’ve never expressed your feelings as efficiently or clearly as you did around age fifteen months. Also, you have nine unread LinkedIn notifications.
Speaking of your early years, let’s look at this last item: “Self Improvement.” When you first arrived here, your rate of new skill acquisition was very impressive. You were gaining multiple motor and language skills every month—grasping, walking, subject-verb agreement, forks—and you were a real inspiration to your peers. Everyone was especially glad when you mastered the big-girl potty. But we’ve seen that rate of learning level off dramatically. Over the past decade it’s been nearly flat. You wrote here that you’re working on your foreign language skills. But as far as we can tell, you’re referring to a smartphone application that you use for under ten minutes a day to practice rudimentary Spanish—a language which, by the way, you studied for four college semesters.
So what exactly are you improving at? Can you participate in a conversation about U.S. trade policy with Cuba? If your life depended on parallel parking a car right this second, would you survive? Are you ever going to graduate from that Yoga Basics class and maybe try Intermediate one time? We don’t mean to discourage you, but we’re going to need to see more effort. Especially if you want to talk about advancement.
We had also hoped that by now you’d be able to reliably open a wine bottle. Let’s touch base on that at your next review.
Tags: aging, elizabeth preston, growing up, performance review
No one can reliably open a wine bottle. Even the winiest of us still get little bits of cork floating in the bottle sometimes, if it’s got that kind of cork.
That’s why I stick to boxes.
Let’s be honest, that’s not the ONLY reason we stick to boxes. 😉
I can! Friends always ask me to do it. It does help to have a decent corkscrew. Not necessarily one with arms–the leverage-y ones are less likely to get bits of cork in your wine, and they’re easy to use if they have the right proportions. Oh, and if there’s a hinge in the middle of the part you rest on the lip of the bottle, that helps too.
THANK YOU this makes me feel better. We have one of those fancy Rabbit openers, which I refuse to use because apparently I’m a masochist and want to learn how to operate a corkscrew.
And that’s why you come to NZ. We have screw tops here!
Ouch.
The stationery comments hit a little close to the bone.
It is a system.
IT IS.
It’s not fair! I peaked in 2003 because my main skill was peeling those DVD security labels off in one smooth, perfect piece! It’s not my fault movies are all digital downloads now.
But yeah, you’re really nailing it in re: the Moleskine.
Oh man, I use to love buying DVDs because it meant I got to pull off those stickers. Did you ever get the kind that had a sticker on the top, the side, AND the bottom? They were just delightful.
‘Twas a magical time.
This hits uncomfortably close to home.
Excuse me, MY method of loading the dishwasher is superior to my husband’s. In the interests of marital harmony, I make a point to avert my eyes when he loads the dishwasher.
…and then fix it later.
There is no dishwasher in my home, so dishes are washed by hand — mostly by me (my partner does the most of the cooking and all of the the shopping. I loathe shopping, so this is a good arrangement). The equivalent skill to dishwasher loading, then, is the stacking of dirty dishes beside the sink. I have mad dirty-dish-stacking skills, and my partner is rubbish at it. When I’m washing, if he finds a dirty dish, I insist that he hands it to me, so I can stack it properly. If he’s washing, I avert my eyes. Not only are the dishes poorly stacked, but he washes them in the wrong order, and even though they get perfectly clean, I can’t bear to witness such a perversion of proper dishwashing form.
hi, are you me? THERE IS A METHOD. Plates first, into drying rack. Cooking/serving utensils next, inside the long edge of the rack. Glasses next, in the basket-y part of the rack. Bowls between cooking/serving utensils and plates, then flatware, then larger dishes which can nest inside each other atop the whole mess, ending with cutting boards leaned up against either long edge. THAT is the proper order and I’ll hear no argument on it.
AGHHH NO! CUPS AND GLASSES FIRST! Plates and utensils have more food detritus on them, why would you not start with the cleanest objects so as to preserve the cleanliness of the washwater as long as possible?
Ohhh see I don’t use a sink of wash-water, just a cloth/scrubby thing. Our sink has a tendency to leak if you put too much water in so it’s safest to just wash as you go. My washing order is entirely based around the drying rack Tetris; the plates stick out into the glasses-drying area so it’s silly to start with the glasses and then have to work around them with plates.
Ah, that makes much more sense! After my initial reaction, I realize my extreme commitment to doing dishes in increasing order of dirtiness probably has a lot to do with the fact that we don’t have running water (hi there, imminent 30th birthday, yes, I am still pretty much living at camp). It takes ages to heat up enough water to do the dishes, and then it is a precious, precious commodity.
THIS! And also glasses need to be dried first so the towel itself is still dry and does not leave unsightly streaks on the nice clean glasses. I thought this was common sense.
*stands*
*wordless applause*
*single tear runs down cheek*
The M&Ms do not all taste the same! That is a horrible, horrible lie. The dark brown ones obviously taste the best and the yellow ones obviously taste the worst, and I have been stressed out for decades now because I can’t figure out where blue goes in the hierarchy. Purple would have been so much better. Why did we vote for blue, America?
I voted for purple. I’m with you.
Ok, hold up, I thought we did vote for purple? Blue has always been part of the lineup (and by always I mean since 1995 or whenever my earliest M&M eating memories are).
But in any case, blue are the most delicious, because blue is a flavor.
In 1995 they got rid of tan and there was a nationwide vote for the replacement color: blue, pink, or purple.
Also, there’s no way anything is tastier than dark brown, because dark brown looks the most like chocolate and therefore tastes chocolatier than the rest of the colors.
Yes, ok, I looked it up and that is correct, but we also voted in 2002 and purple won. But it was only for a limited time.
Now let’s solve the mystery of “why did my work vending machine replace the pretzel m&m facing with bullshit mega m&ms, when it also stocks regular m&ms?”
Let’s solve the much more pressing mystery of why did they get rid of crispy M&Ms and then come out with pretzel M&Ms in the EXACT SAME PACKAGING, causing raised hopes and subsequent destruction in the grocery store one day.
But yeah, no one needs mega M&Ms. The candy shell::chocolate ratio is all wrong.
Crispy M&Ms are back now though!!!! At least in the US!
Really? I did not know that. I knew they were still a thing in Europe (I ate a ton on my honeymoon). If they’re back here I need to track them down.
They’re in green packaging now!
My mom loved the tan ones. She refused to eat M&Ms after they got rid of them and blamed my cousin (who apparently voted for blue like a million times)
Tan was my mom’s favorite, too!
Moms, man. She also boycotted Trix after they stopped making it in balls & switched to those hard fruit shapes.
They’re back to balls! No more boycotting is necessary, as it obviously worked.
Also this is kind of apropos of nothing, but I will probably never have another place to share this story. My dad used to tell me about how, when he was in college, they got rid of red M&Ms over fear of carcinogens, but he would go to parties hosted by Vicky Mars– heir to the Mars fortune– and she would have bowls full of nothing but red m&ms.
I always kind of thought he was joking, but I just looked it up, and not only does Vicky Mars exist, but they did go to school together.
Your feelings on M&Ms are very similar to mine about Skittles and the abomination that is Green Apple.
Seriously!! Who was hating on the lime so bad that they made this change??
Right?! It totally ruined the flavor profile. “Original Flavors” my ass.
SAME. Lime was the most superior skittle flavor, green apple needs to LEAVE
blue goes on the bottom. always. i am opposed to all blue candy except for those speckled pastel blue malted chocolate easter egg candies.
One more note here under “Organization”—your husband told us that he finds your style of dishwasher loading a bit haphazard. Have you been watching closely when he does it?
Wait, is this about my wife because I love her but STOP PUTTING SPOONS IN THE KNIFE SECTION OF THE SILVERWARE BASKET FOR GOD’S SAKE. THAT WASTES FIVE SECONDS OF VALUABLE TIME THAT COULD OTHERWISE BE SPENT FAVORTING THINGS ON TWITTER.
Quite honestly, at this point in my life, I would be so happy to have a dishwasher that I would load it entirely on my own – SOs would not be allowed anywhere near it – just so they could not besmirch my joy at having a perfectly organized dishwasher. We have a dishwasher at my office and everyone just loads it WRONNNNGGGG.
(But, like, objectively wrong, not just “I’m just too OCD to function.” Who the fuck arranges bowls BETWEEN plate racks, facing AWAY from the water spray?? Ugh.)
We have an office dishwasher, too. All that ever goes in it is filmy old coffee mugs, but people STILL manage to fuck that up. Like the person who keeps putting theirs in right side up so it will fill up with water during the wash cycle. HOW???
WHAT. That is… baffling. I mean, I live in NYC and am aware that some people have lived their entire lives here (also baffling) and therefore probably didn’t have dishwashers (also also baffling), but… it just seems so intuitive!
1. Water comes from underneath spinny-fan thing on the bottom. (or even from the back, whatever)
2. Gravity
3. Everything must be upside down for gravity and water to do their jobs correctly.
4. …Profit?
I actually had to explain to a co-worker how a dishwasher functions with the spray thing and all. They thought it just filled up with water. (Not that that excuses putting cups in right side up!)
I mean, I guess if you are familiar with a clothes washer, it makes some kind of sense…
But you should still put the cups upside down!
My dad has a rhythm to the dishwasher loading. Forks go up, knives go down, spoons go either way.
I have adopted this mantra for my personal dishwasher habits (not-so-secretly the best part of my apartment) but I still sometimes go “fuck the police” and wash Tupperware, because um duh of course I will.
I always put Tupperware in the dishwasher. No way is that cheap plastic crap getting the personal touch of a hand-washing from yours-truly like my beautiful pots and pans get.
I never put Tupperware in the dishwasher because it doesn’t dry! It needs to go in the drying rack afterward anyway! The dishwasher still saves the work of hand-washing, but hand-washing saves me the irrational frustration at finding soaking wet Tupperware in the clean dishwasher.
Forks up, knives down, but spoons definitely also up. I’ve found that spoons-down leads to spoons-sticking-together, which isn’t great for easy cleaning.
And obviously you wash Tupperware sometimes. Especially the tupperware that once held delicious, tupperware-staining curry.
My dad likes to put all the spoons together in the silverware basket. Handle side up. They NEST that way, dammit, leaving caked-on yogurt in between that won’t wash out. We nearly came to metaphorical blows about proper dishwasher usage a few times when I was still living with him. Between differing opinions on the silverware and the amount of detergent to use and which cycle to use, it was rough.
Now I have a nonfunctional dishwasher that I use to store handwashed dishes. And I still make sure not to nest my spoons.
I remember the moment when my family told me I loaded the dishwasher the wrong way as a momentous day. It signalled that I had been home rarely enough that I did not know proper form — and therefore I’d moved out of that college-era thing where you technically live at college but still spend a lot of time living at your parents’ house. It made me feel very grown-up.
I don’t have a dishwasher, but my mother’s new one has a little “lid” on the basket with slots for the spoons so they don’t nest. We still sort them into the baskets, but that lid is only used for spoons. It’s magic.
Holy crap. THAT is what that lid thing is for???
I also use it to keep tiny lids from flying around the dishwasher, but yes, no more nesting spoons. They ALL get clean!
I just moved into an apartment with that lid thing and it is MAGIC.
My life will never depend on parallel parking. If my life is in danger I’m parking my car wherever the hell I feel like it. (And I drive a Fiat so I literally could park it anywhere–on the flat bed of a truck, in a shopping-cart carrell, on a sidewalk, in someone’s ornamental fish pond)
Also, being able to successfully open wine & champagne bottles (the right way with a towel, where it sighs) is one of my chief accomplishments in life.
Last time I opened a champagne bottle, for some reason I pointed it at my own face. Despite being a reasonably intelligent adult who knows what champagne corks do when the bottle is opened. It got me right in the eye and I just stood there like
Do you still have both eyes?!?!!?
Last year I was supposed to “co-host” a bridal shower for my sister, but since I had never been to a bridal shower, do not have a suitable home for hosting a party, and find the entire concept of bridal showers abominable, my primary contribution was opening the prosecco bottles and pouring mimosas. I am glad I have developed at least one useful skill in life.
Yes! Small cars allow creation of one’s own parking space at will, in the moment, wherever convenient. It was the best part of driving an old VW Bug in Philadelphia. High clearance and studded tires in the winter meant I could climb a snow bank and park on top of it if I wanted. Or climb a curb and park in the margin between spaces. I miss my old Bug. ::sniffle::
I am an expert at opening wine bottles, but my communications skills have never progressed beyond ‘screaming silently with my eyes’.
hey, that was me all wkd !
Oh God I can’t imagine dealing with co-workers and an office dishwasher. There would be GAME OF THRONES-level scheming and violence within minutes of installation.
My favorite is when people use the fancy sharp knives we have and then put them in the dishwasher (which is fine, they’re dishwasher-appropriate) but they put them in handle-side-down, which is to say, pointy-side-up, which is to say, why would you do that. Although now that Game of Thrones is in the conversation, it occurs to me that maybe they’re trying to murder the rest of us???
” We had also hoped that by now you’d be able to reliably open a wine bottle. Let’s touch base on that at your next review.”
Me too, buddy. Me too.
“If your life depended on parallel parking a car right this second, would you survive?”
YES! Yes I would. If only that were the only criteria for successful adulthood.
Oh my god. I’m turning 30 in 2 weeks and I’ve literally never parallel parked a car. I’ve had a license for 10 years and always kinda figured I’d figure it out later. Argh.
And I actually didn’t eat a blue M&M until college? I just threw ’em out.
Parallel parking wasn’t part of my driving test, so I didn’t really feel like it was that important of a skill, especially in North Carolina, Glorious Land of Parking Lots. Then my mother and I drove to a college campus, and instead of realizing that I was 16 and probably too stressed out by trying to impress everyone at my top-pick, true-love school to deal with trying to learn to parallel-park, that wonderful lady made me try and try and try and try until I was openly weeping in front of the admissions office.
I can’t remember if I actually succeeded in the end or not, but I did get into the school, which was definitely more important in the end. And then I parallel-parked my college BF’s absolute tank of a sedan a few years later in a nearby spot (on the first try) and was on cloud 9 for the rest of the day.
My driving test: if you can’t pass the parallel parking section, you fail the test. No kidding! I practiced right before hand and failed it a couple times… then when I did it for the test, it was perfect. Still proud of that one.
In the 9-10 years since then, I’ve learned that my mother is terrible at parallel parking (she did most of the “teach Potter how to drive” work) and I’m appalled. The amount of parallel parking I do in my life is huge. I’ve offered to do it for her many times just so we could park, dammit.
One more note here under “Organization”—your husband told us that he finds your style of dishwasher loading a bit haphazard. Have you been watching closely when he does it?
My father is super persnickety about what goes where in the dishwasher. Honestly, sometimes I put things in the “wrong place” because, even though he’ll deny it until his last breath, he secretly loves getting to complain about it.
Re: parallel parking
During my last few months at my old apartment my roommate’s boyfriend would park his giant truck with the motorbike in the flatbed at the end of the driveway and “helpfully” leave me a car-length-and-a-half of space in front, between his truck and my roommate’s car. It was a long driveway, but not THAT long. So even though I wasn’t parking on the street, I STILL had to parallel park my shit every day because he always got back before I did. And I couldn’t bring myself to ask him to just pull up and let me park behind him, because then when he left in the evenings he’d be un-parallel-parking a massive truck on a tiny driveway and I wasn’t that much of an asshole.
I got pretty good at it actually, but the flowerbeds still have tire tracks in them. Oops.
Uhh… guys… should i read this? I feel like i shouldn’t read this.
I’m scared somebody hold me
basically my reaction; my heart rate sped up when I saw the title
there’s no arguing about dishwasher loading technique as my partner has NEVER used his dishwasher. he’s lived in his condo for 12 years! he simply Does Not Like It. i do use it now and he, much as a cat reacts when one brings out the vacuum, eyes it suspiciously and then makes himself scarce whenever i open it. so, my point is, it is always loaded correctly 🙂
true fact: being 30 in 2015 means that in 1995 you were maybe juuuust past prime caring-about-candy age. So you had your M&M preferences well established (red, orange, tan, brown, green, yellow, for the record) from earlier times but you were also old enough to recognize a marketing ploy for what it was. Is it any surprise our very specific generation is still bitter about this?
“Yes, we’ve seen the Post-its”
OMG, this is me. When I left my last job and cleaned out my desk, I was astounded by the number of manila file folders covered in post-it notes that I had managed to generate / accumulate.
I’ve been feeling a bit smug about being a sophisticated adult because I actually started reading a newly released literary novel, and this just deflated the hell out of that. Thanks.
Today is actually my thirtieth birthday, so this was creepily perfect for me.
” If your life depended on parallel parking a car right this second, would you survive?”
Absolutely not. And the dishwasher loading? And the… oh, the everything. Adding “obviously being stalked by The Toast” to my resume.
Today is actually my thirtieth birthday, so this was creepily perfect for me.
" If your life depended on parallel parking a car right this second, would you survive?"
Absolutely not. And the dishwasher loading? And the… oh, the everything. Adding "obviously being stalked by The Toast" to my resume.
Come to Australia, virtually all the wine bottles have screw caps!
One more note here under “Organization”—your husband told us that he finds your style of dishwasher loading a bit haphazard. Have you been watching closely when he does it?
After a year and a half of living together I still tell my partner he stacks things on the draining board wrong (also wet clothes on the drying rack). It is amazing that he has not yet left me.
Unbelievably funny and close to home – thank you 🙂