A Down and Up Week

This is the time of year that we do our performance appraisal (or in IBM acronym PBC). I hate it but a necessary evil. To top that off I received a call from my manager to talk about BU (billable utilization). Mine is too low. So that just set me off, I felt very emotional about it for some reason, most of the time I don't care, I try and do a good job, and if more time is needed I put it in, but I don't work just to get my BU up. Even though I knew Lucy (manager) was just the messenger, she was the brunt of my anger. So no one can say I don't work hard, and that I am not effective, but putting in more hours does not mean better work. I have decided that when IBM says we need more work life balance what they are really saying is "How can you balance your life so you can work more" so all in all a crappy meeting. A couple of days later, we had a Town Hall (aka staff meeting) to meet the new Managing Partner for GBS (group of IBM that I belong to). I was not expecting much, but was very surprised. Her name is Lisa Caldwell and her background is diverse not all working for IBM, so she has a different outlook than a lot of IBM executive. she has only been in the job for 60 days, but can already see lots of the issues. Some one asked about BU and she sounds like she is trying to get it to be a little more realistic (the target right now is 94%, if I work 4 hours per week extra, never take a sick, training or any thing other than vacation and stats, I can just make it). I asked why we keep getting the line that training is important, but of you don't take it in the first two quarters forget it, because it always gets canceled in the last two. And why every year for the last 10 years I have worked for IBM, we are asked to move vacation into the next year, if not taken by the third quarter, which if we do negatively impacts our BU for the new year(bit of a catch 22). I said it seemed like poor planning to me. She agreed. I do like my job, it can be stressful sometimes and I get a lot of job satisfaction, but some of the surrounding administration and directives from on high, make me wonder why I stay. So it will be interesting to see what happens in 2011, if Lisa will make a difference. And if not, then only 4 more years to retirement, I am sure I can last.

Just to round out the week, a cold is making it's way through the office, and I caught it, so I am taking Cold FX, hoping that will help it go away sooner, or at least the symptoms will not be too bad.

The weather has sorted itself out, beautiful blue Alberta sky and temps around 0, much more enjoyable than the - 25, -30 something with the wind chill. And next weekend Schmoozy and chocolates, so things are really looking up.