So why is a section about areas I'm not performing the best in the most meaningful? After all, if my boss needed to put something in there, wasn't he digging for something, anything to write? How is a forced criticism useful to anyone?
The answer is perspective.
I've been blessed with many good teachers throughout my life. Some of those teachers I really liked. Others, not so much. Take my literature teacher from my senior year of high school. I wasn't her biggest fan to put it mildly. However she fulfilled the primary role of a teacher - she taught. And while the lessons I learned from her don't really pertain to literature...they pertain to something far better: life.
The lesson I learned from her that applies here is that it is far better to have an accurate view of yourself instead of thinking yourself better or worse than you really are. Her mission was not to pat us on the back for being seniors in high school (a welcome breath of fresh air for me) but rather to be honest with us. Sometimes the truth stung. She didn't spare any necessary words when grading a poorly written paper. But neither did she heap excess praise on a well written paper. She was honest; some might say honest to a fault.
I remember one paper I wrote in her class - she graded our rough drafts and handed them back with her comments on them.There were grammar mistakes on mine and my style didn't really jive with her. I decided to fix the grammar mistakes but I didn't touch the style of my paper at all. I still started sentences with conjunctions. I asked questions and had a more relaxed tone of voice than a proper analysis paper should have. And I turned in my final draft like that. Upon receiving my final draft back, graded, I noticed something. She had two grades on the paper - the first crossed out and replaced by the second. The first grade was an A for a well thought out paper that successfully answered the prompt and was engaging to read (as engaging as any paper I guess). The second grade, the final grade that went in the grade book, was a B for not fixing everything she had told me to fix in the rough draft.
Initially I was upset. My paper was A material. But I got a B on it because she didn't agree with my style. My teacher though wasn't concerned with giving me accolades for just having a mistake free paper. She recognized that I could have done better than I did do (by her standards) and graded me accordingly. Her grading was honest even if seemingly unfair.
But that honesty means so much to me now. She wanted me to be the best I could be. She found areas for me to improve and rightly decreased my grade for not improving in those areas. My grade wasn't a reflection of my paper, it was a reflection of me. My grade was an accurate view of myself instead of an ego gratifying complement.
And so today when I received my review back for my work performance...I could tell by the numbers up top that they appreciated my work. Getting a raise when you're above minimum wage is proof enough of that. So I turned to the areas of improvement section to find out what I could do better. And while my boss had to write something in there, what he wrote was honest, fair, and is indeed something I can and ought to improve.
So from my perspective, I enjoy knowing that my boss appreciates my work enough that, if I didn't change anything, I'd still be doing a good job. But at the same time, my boss respects me enough to push me to be even better.
And to my senior year literature teacher, if you're reading this, thank you. I wasn't the best of students, I passively tried to make your life difficult yet you didn't give up on me. You pushed me to be better than I was. And while I still have a strong disdain for Dorian Gray, the lessons I learned in your class are still with me. Well, some of the lessons.