About the worst thing a worker can hear at a performance review.
Surely that can't be true? Let me tell you why: "'Meets expectations'? That's it? I prepared a whole new course with all the training materials, documentation and support backend, briefed and coached two people on how to run it, ran it myself once, and all a month ahead of your artificialness tight deadline whilst running two three-week induction courses and sets of first-week team support for the new staff In addition I inventoried and set up all the training machines and wrote a team manager induction specification and helped HR rewrite the hiring specifications'" Personally, I reckon that exceeds expectations, but there ya go. "'You'll also recall the prize the department won last year for technical staff communications and diagnostic training. The prize-winning junket you did not invite me on? Remind me who designed that training and did all the materiel support for it.'" Spoiler Alert: it was also me. And you call that "meets expectations". A fucking pox on you and your house for seven generations, I sweated my bollocks off to get that in ahead of time without any support of you or any of your team. "I devised a new Communications Skills module that could fit flexibly into any new technical training, a course that you managed to sell on to other arms of the company, and for which you got invited to a binge arranged by Head Office. You call me in to troubleshoot training issues whenever they occur and call on me to coach you when you get stuck." Fucker, take your "meets expectations" and your paltry pay increase. There are Shakespearean insults and Biblical curses I could call down on you but you know what? I'm better than that. But the next time you want me to fly to the other end of the country to run a course at three days' notice, I will remind you why you always call on me for the hard things…
…was what I wish I'd have said. But of course I didn't because not only am I better than that, but I also know that your boss is gunning for you because everything you know about training is what I taught you, and everything you know about managing people, you read in a book. That's almost a direct quotation from her, by the way. I don't think she believes you meet expectations, otherwise she'd have had you devise that course."
All too often, managers in business give you the least praise you'll be happy with, perhaps with some back-handed compliments and all the while will nitpick at your performance. We all know it's a lousy political game designed to minimise what they have to lay out and they will damn you with faint praise just to keep you from breaking down in tears at the performance review, or going postal in the car park at the end of the day. You're a know-nothing bozo, clueless about what I do and about as caring as a rock.
"Meets expectations". Give me a break. Then a promotion and a raise ☺