Thank heavens for the Thesaurus!

As the holidays near there's one tradition that I DO NOT look forward to every year and that's the dreaded EP&DP.

For those of you who don't know what an EP&DP is, consider yourself lucky. Well, maybe you're lucky... it could mean you're unemployed, or that you're just self-employed, but for a good portion of the corporate world it's known as the Employee Performance & Development Process... and it stinks!

I just finished mine, so let the holidays begin, but really, I don't get the whole thing. I have to go through 20+ pages explaining what I did during this last year and how fabulous I'm going to be during the next year, but I have to do it all talking about myself in the third person... as if my manager had written it.

So, for example, there'll be a list of goals that I had last year and I go through and write comments by each one like:

"Brooke continuously strives to..."
"Brooke has endeavored to work..."
"Brooke has done exceptionally well in... blah, blah, blah"

At the end of the process, though, it's a stunning tribute to my year of dedication and hard work! (Right?! I do work hard... I do! I do! I do!)

I also have to rank all my past efforts 1-4:
1 - Needs Improvement (I NEVER have any of these!)
2 - Meets Performance Requirements (Most of my goals fall under this category because that means I'm doing my job)
3 - Exceeds Performance (I try to slip in 2 or 3 of these every year so that it looks like I'm putting some effort into my work)
4 - Outstanding (I put 2 of these this year. I may be pushing my luck and my boss might slip them back to 3's or 2's but he loves me and maybe he'll let it slide, cuz I'm fabulous!)

My first year doing an EP&DP I had mostly 3's, and then some 2's and some 4's. My boss kindly explained to me that I really wasn't that great and should rank myself more near the average employee with more 2's. I told him that I wasn't average, I was SPECIAL, at least that's what my mom's always told me. He rolled his eyes and said, "Go with more 2's". Ok, just kidding that didn't really happen, well, not the me telling him I'm "special" part, even though I am, in so many weird ways, and I'm ok with it, so deal with it!

And I must give a special thanks to the online Thesaurus that helped me come up with synonyms for the following words that I used a plethera of times in my EP&DP:

• strive
• endeavor
• work
• effective
• address
• devote
• sustain
• continuous
• ongoing
• effective

I'd use bigger words but then my boss would definitely know I used the thesaurus. In fact, I think "endeavor" might push him over the edge. I've only ever used that word to describe space shuttles before!