Funny Performance Appraisal Comments and Review from my Boss

The following poor performance review, in an email, was sent to me by my boss after a couple of months of work writing my soul out.

I publish it as a warning to anyone who bothers putting effort into a rubbish job and expects someone to be just slightly grateful.

At least I know you guys know how hard it is, trying to think of new ways to sell stuff or to add valuable information for potential viewers.

Trouble is, some people think it’s just an easy job.

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For those who don’t know, I am part of a newly formed writing collective. This basically consists of me doing the hard work, my boss Sue Crotum doing the managing and blue sky thinking (lol), and Theo Nanist doing the editing. It has not been a great success so far, but I am always hopeful of turning the corner.

Unlike some.

Anyway, here’s the email from Sue.

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your recent correspondence in which you said the following and I quote…

“Hi Sue, things is going really good with the writing stuff. I’m a big hit on Hubpages and got loads of fans and that. Traffic’s picking up and we are going to go viral any minute now. See ya, Mark”

Well Mark, that’s not what the stats are telling me. Theo and I have checked the Adsense and Amazon figures and a few pennies is NOT what we are looking for.

When you first introduced yourself to us a while back you explained how you were harbouring a eagerness, talent and desire to make it big in the online world. It sounded quite plausible, and you made a reasonable impression. I will admit that at first I found one or two among your many, many ‘jokes’ amusing.

At first Mark.

But now here we are with no sales, little interest and precious little content - certainly nothing of value.

I did an estimate of the amount of work I felt a full time writer could churn out. It’s approximately 10,000 words a day. That’s about 5 to 6 reasonable articles, as you like to call them. Well, you have had two months of this – paid for thanks to my father’s generosity in getting us up and running – and I have reviewed your output.

Imagine the surprise on my face when - instead of the 200 researched and optimised articles selling product I had expected - I found this collection. I’ll summarise for you.

A couple of product hubs – one on plush toys.

Mark, the only time I have seen you near a plush toy was that time when I caught you in flagrante delicto with the large Winnie the Pooh we keep for an office joke.

It was an embarassing moment for both of us.

As for writing about incontinence products – it beggars belief. For a start it’s insensitive to Theo and his problem. Your expected sales on this piece of work are what exactly?

My generous estimate would be zero. Perhaps the jokey idiot profile picture doesn’t say serious sales page to potential visitors, particularly those who may not have the luxury of much time to browse.

Quite amazingly you have written a lot of pages about writing. By “a lot” I mean more than one, which is all you need to know that writing doesn’t sell, and doesn’t earn. And if I were hoping to learn about writing I would first be suing you under the false claims act.

I did find one that I thought was promising – visiting London.

Ah, travel guide, pull in people, sell them some books. Finally – he gets it.

Sadly no, you didn’t get it did you?

A sarcastic vent against the thing that people have searched for – why would you do that? Oh yes, of course – Mark thinks it’s funny. Mark - poverty isn’t funny. This is about earning money, not your ego.

Then we have a collection of what I presume are your humorous articles.

I use the word "presume" Mark because I have briefly scanned and am unable to detect anything that could even loosely be termed a joke.

Now I have a strong sense of humour and am a ready wit myself, often ready with a joke when it’s the right occasion of course – but I fail to see what on earth possessed you to create such unmitigated ego centred garbage.

You see Mark, it just isn’t funny.

I know in your head you think you are being amusing, but perhaps if you spent more time discussing this with your therapist, instead of trying to say you had a miserable childhood (WHO DIDN’T?) then you might be able to move forward.

What was once funny as a five year boy has long passed it’s sell by.

I have read some drab dreadful drifting drivel in my time Mark, but I feel we should prepare a standard letter of apology for any unfortunate who accidentally lands on it.

There may also be some legal issues with saturating the internet with your particular form of twisted crap.

So that brings me to some questions regarding your future Mark. Questions which either you can answer - or myself if you force me to.

• Do you want to continue working with us?
• Can you immediately improve your output?
• If we measure sales in one month will we see a significant increase?

It’s up to you. My father will not continue to line your pockets, and my patience is running out. This is your last chance to create some targeted sales pages and actually start earning for once in your life.

Yours,

Sue

Ps. Your profile picture is rubbish Mark. Get rid. And grow up.

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OK, it's a little terse, and perhaps angry in places. But I think on reading it again that Sue managed to find some positives and perhaps redirect me subtly. I do feel a sense of, admittedly well disguised, warmth towards me in her writing.

Even the best writers need a little constructive criticism occasionally.

So it's onwards and upwards from here on in - stand by for some cracking sales pages and some really funny stuff.

Oh, and I'm not changing the profile picture. She was joking. It's that weird sense of humour where people have a go at you, but they don't really mean it. I get quite a lot of that.

If by any chance you know someone, anyone who might find this page worth a read please, please, please share it.

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Otherwise the dragon will be on my back again.

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