Self Evaluation

Self-Evaluation

Over the past three months, I have learned a lot from my work at school and through my job.  There has been a lot that is related between the two.  At work, I have gone through so many high’s and low’s.  It has been a roller coaster ride since August.  I have changed positions, departments, rolls, products, bosses, schedule and personnel at least a couple times in the past three months.  I have learned a lot about myself and my job through these experiences. 

Reading about self-evaluation makes me look back at where I was a year ago and three months ago.  Over the past year, I feel like I have grown tremendously through all the experiences I have had.  In the past year, I traveled to Alaska for the military, received a promotion at work, found out my wife was pregnant, got deployed to the U.A.E. with my military unit, brought my second daughter into this world with my wife, changed departments at work, introduced a new product at work, started my second year at CU, changed departments again and am currently going through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy with my company. 

As I look back at the past three months and evaluate where I am and where I would like to be, I can’t help but think I would like to be in a different place than I am now, but at the same time, am glad I am where I am.  I don’t think anybody would want to have to experience bankruptcy with their employer, but now that I am here, I am interested to see what is going to come out of it.  I hope I will never have to experience this again, but am glad I get to learn from it.

Self-evaluation is a great tool to use, but difficult to actually do it.  I think you always want to think highly of yourself, but when it comes down to it, I think we can all improve in one way or another.  It doesn’t mean that we haven’t done good things, it is just easier to identify where you need to improve.  My PA from last year taught me a great deal about this.  He would always challenge me to think about the job that I was doing and where I could improve.  He would never point anything out right away; he would always let me say a few things and then would offer his input.  At the time, I thought he was being a little harsh to put me on the spot like that, but looking back at it now, I’m glad he did what he did.

When it came time for performance reviews, there were no surprises.  I always knew where I stood with him.  I learned from that and tried to apply that to the people that I managed.  The first time I did performance reviews for my people, it was the hardest thing I had done to that point.  I hadn’t thought about it all year, and then had to tell 15 people how I thought they were doing over the past year.  For the most part they were all good, but the ones that I had problems with, I never really brought the issues up before until that point.  I never made that mistake again.

Like the reading says, you want to be on the same page as your manager.  If your manager expects one thing, and you think you are supposed to be doing another, you want to know right away when you are straying away from the path that your manger wants you to be on.  It may be as simple as misinterpretation.  That is an easy fix; your manager clarifies what he wants and you correct your course.

I also agree with the reading when it advises to keep a running log of the accomplishments that you have throughout the year.  This is also something that I didn’t do right away, and when it came time for performance reviews and I had to give some bullet points of what I accomplished throughout the year, it was tough to try and recall what exactly I had done.  This running list just makes it easier on you when the time comes to recite what you did.

When I look back over the past three months in regards to school, I can’t help but think that I have not done so well.  I think I would have done things differently if I could go back and do it over again.  I haven’t done well with my online courses.  It is a lot tougher than I was expecting to have to do these two online courses.  The workload is much greater than I was expecting.  I have trouble as it is trying to balance my work, family, military obligation and CU, and then I added two online courses on top of that.  I should have learned from last year, when I had enough trouble keeping up with the CU workload.  But, I am here now and need to learn from this experience; it is all I can do.

I will accept whatever the consequences are for falling behind and learn from it.  Hopefully it will all turn out alright in the end, but I will have to wait and see what happens.  Going forward, I know what I have to do, but it is a whole lot easier to say than it is to execute.  Luckily, I have a good supporting cast around me to help me through this.