How am I doing?
Yikes. Yet again, I didn't realize how much time has passed since the last time I posted.
My programming class at UW is almost finished - next Friday is the final exam. It has been really interesting for me, and reaffirmed that I'd like to study more computer science.
However, the 5 times a week class schedule has been less than desirable. I feel very fortunate to work at a company that allows a flexible enough work schedule that I can accomodate this, and really appreciate that my manager and colleagues have been very understanding. (Ok, enough of the Microsoft Kool-Aid.)
On the TAP program front, after 4 selection meetings, we have selected a group of participants which I'm really excited about. The next step for them is to submit all of the legal paperwork required to join TAP, which is sometimes quite challenging, especially during the summer when everyone goes on vacation. The good news is that 8 companies have already completed this paperwork, and we still have 3 more weeks until the deadline.
Unfortunately we had to turn down a lot of great nominees as well, since we only have the capacity to support 20 TAP partners. We got a total of 64 nominations, which was unbelievable. I was really worried that we wouldn't even get enough interest to fill 20 spots! Those we didn't select for TAP will automatically be selected to participate in our closed Beta program in early 2006, which I am also managing.
So I look forward to getting some great product feedback from both programs. In fact, this is clearly stated on my 2006 "commitments", which are what we call the goals we have for our performance in the coming year.
In the next few weeks I'll get my performance review results for the last fiscal year. I am looking forward to this - I guess it's sort of like a grown-up version of the anticipation I felt as a child on Christmas Eve. Unlike in school, where you're always getting continuous feedback on your work via graded homework and exams, in the working world, it seems like you only get feedback if you do something exceptionally well or poorly, unless it's performance review time. Aside from the financial rewards, it's nice to find out how your team thinks you're doing and get very specific feedback for your career. I admit there are a lot of things about the actual process I don't agree with, but I like the idea of formal, meaningful performance reviews a lot. I know several people at other companies who never get reviewed, and consequently they're not rewarded for doing great work, and have no idea what people think of their job performance.
So, what do you think of performance reviews?
