Appraisal

Last week I had my annual appraisal with my boss, Jeff. Neither of us particularly like the appraisal process because we both know that at heart it’s just another feel-good paperwork exercise with which our employer – the Local Authority – likes to burden its staff. So everybody goes through the motions but no-one really takes it seriously and another three sheets of A4 paper get bunged to the back of the filing cabinet along with the Public Complaints file.

The only good thing about the whole exercise is that my boss usually holds the meeting in the rather informal setting of the café and buys me the hot beverage of my choice out of his own pocket. The fact that we get a 15 percent discount is neither here nor there.

Anyway, as appraisals go it wasn’t at all bad. I got my back slapped. I got praised. I got thanked for all my hard work and effort over the last 12 months. And I got an admission from Jeff that my job description needed to be updated to reflect how the post has grown and changed over the last few years to encompass all manner of new and weighty responsibilities.

It was at this point that I (reasonably) thought to ask if there would be a fiscal element to this updating process...

To which my boss smiled and assured me that he foresaw no need to reduce my salary in the near future.

Oh ho ho.

That’s all I need.

A boss with a sense of humour.