Self-Assessment

It's that time of year again.

***

I wrote that earlier on today, and I have no idea what it means. What time of year is it? March? Noon? Michelangelo's birthday? Will Eisner's birthday? Rufus Hound's birthday?

I didn't know any of those things until I looked them up on Wikipedia just now (except for March and noon, which I remember from school).

I was probably going nowhere.

That's probably what time of year it is: nowhere o'clock. I just looked at my watch and I don't have one, which proves my point.

I'm procrastinating today. I have my work appraisal this week, so I have to think about what my job is. It's very stressful. Nothing has changed since last year, but we're all supposed to have ideas and goals and objectives and opinions. I have some of those, but none are work-related. So instead of knuckling down, I'm knuckling up like 3 Ninjas, even though I only have a third as many knuckles.

The appraisal involves talking about my job, which I can handle. But there are also sections asking me to identify my strengths, what changes could be made to make my job better, what career aspirations I have, and what learning and development might be useful.

Filling in these sections is torture. But I'll do it here to get my brain working. I can then edit them for swearing, then copy and paste them into the actual form.

(I realise this is a public forum, so keep in mind that I've never mentioned where I work, and that even if I did, there could be hundreds of people with my same name and face.)

Strengths

Freestyle rapping, walking down bus stairs when the vehicle is in motion, random italicising, impersonating Rod Serling, looking tired.

I really have no strengths that can be applied to the world of work. Any actual useful traits I have are immediately cancelled out by my laziness. I always say that I'm a good problem solver. That's a nice vague strength to list. You can tell it's true because I've solved the problem of what strengths to invent.

Changes

I don't want things to change. I mean, I'd like more money and fewer hours. But I generally don't want to rock the boat. I'm stuck in a nice little rut here (in my boat), and changing things could lead to difficulties. Improving things inevitably leads to disappointment. Never improve, never evolve, never experiment. Just sit tight in your rut-boat and wait until you die of exposure. Which will be quite a while, because my rut is rather sheltered.

I think I should probably be asking for more responsibility. That's what a human would ask for, right? But I don't want responsibility. It's enough of a struggle trying to dress myself.

Oh, here's one change idea: FEWER APPRAISALS. They should be like the Olympics: one every four years, me dressed in Lycra, and a horrific accident in the steeplechase.

Career Aspirations

This one's the tough one. I've been in my job longer than pretty much everyone else in this office. I've never been promoted. I've never wanted to be promoted. But people must be wondering why I'm so happy to remain stationary.

...

Hang on a minute. This has all gotten a bit serious, hasn't it? I didn't intend this. I thought I'd use this to generate hilarious content, but I've ended up just whining. I'm not even that downbeat about it. I'm fine. My job is fine. I must just tend towards misery.

I'll try to right myself.

Career Aspirations

I think I'll say I want to be Pope. I'll insist that it's a realistic goal. I'll continue talking about it for far too long, monopolising the allotted meeting time. I'll go on long diversions. I'll ask for advice in achieving this goal. I'll expose my ignorance of the papacy, and my own atheism, but will continue to ramble on until long past bedtime.

Learning and Development

Some kind of martial art. I'll ask what's available. If no martial arts are being taught at my place of work, I'll teach one myself. It will involve dressing up as a pencil and drawing an offensive doodle on any would-be assailant. I'll offer to make pencil costumes for everyone.

I'll wear a pencil costume into the appraisal and not even mention it for the first three quarters of the meeting. I'll wear it all day. I'll be respected.

I'm wearing it right now. I am respected.

But people must be wondering why I'm so happy to remain stationery.

YES. I WENT WITH THAT.

***

When I was a child, I invented my own language. I think it's probably a common thing to do.

Children are bewildered by the world at first, and it takes a while to learn all the rules. You're buffeted from idea to idea, from experience to experience, with no grounding and no morality. You have to learn as you go. Your parents might help you, but they are only slightly less clueless than you, and they've forgotten what it's like to be young and have a fresher cluelessness.

But you struggle through. You learn the ropes. And then you want to take some measure of control. You want to be able to create. You want to be able to set the agenda. So you experiment.

Some kids invent an imaginary friend, or create personalities for their toys, or have a secret haven inside their own head. They've become gods. They can create their own worlds. You may not be able to drive or to smoke or to eat ice cream before dinner, but you can be the emperor of your own special realm.

Creating a language is part of the same trend. You want to have access to knowledge that no-one else does. If you create a secret code, it's your private playground. Even your parents don't have access to it.

You can share it with your friends or your siblings, but it's yours. You've planted your flag in reality, claiming a small area of mental space as your own.

So I invented a language.

I called it "Spanish".

I named it after the country Spain (which before 1989 spoke only Portuguese). It sounded silly, but I was only a child.

First of all, I invented some nouns. For example, "bordillo" was my word for "curb".

Then I branched out into verbs and adjectives and... those other words that aren't those things.

I shared it with my sister and some close friends.

Within two years, the entire country of Spain had adopted my language as its own. Other countries, including several Latin American ones, followed suit. Soon, "Spanish" was being taught in schools and used to write great works of literature. Even Don Quixote was translated into Spanish.

I was quite pleased by this, but grew a bit bored of it by the time I was twelve. I've forgotten most of my language now. I think "búfalo" is some kind of car.

Still, it just goes to show how children deal with the world. My desire to create something lead to a whole something something something something

***

For fun - for a game - try to identify the exact point I lost interest in that hilarious comedy idea. I think you'll be surprised by how early it was.

Have a lovely day.