Performance Evaluation- Cynics view of a good appraisal

What the bosses say and what it means?

1. It has been a good year – I have kept a tab of all your flaws, but I am being benevolent by not pointing them out to you.
2. You have delivered as per expectations – I never thought you were up to any good, so I set the expectations low anyways
3. This rating reflects your performance – I have nothing to do with assessing you.
4. Expect you to continue in the same vein – Give me sufficient warning if you plan to leave.
5. Better things to come – Keep waiting
6. Is there anything else you want to discuss? – No questions entertained.
7. Lets go for a tea-break – Forget all that was discussed in this meeting. They add no value to you or to me, or to anyone else any time.

Joy of paying taxes – the oxymoron

Filing your taxes with the government is something expected out of each one of us as dutiful citizens of the country. There is no joy left in paying through your nose year after year for bad roads, dipping poverty, marginally improved literacy rates, and not to be commented upon sanitation facilities in the ‘ever-developing’ country. But this time, I managed to scrape some joy on a totally different plane.

1. I managed to shirk off the dependence on some knowledgeable bloke called the chartered accountant (no offence meant to the profession) who surfaces out of nowhere, come tax time.

2. I managed to decode the ever so complicated slab system of taxes; and even thought of ways how the slab system could be further mystified-like introduce incentives in the slabs for regular tax-payers ) Any takers?

3. I managed to use a bank chalan effectively for paying additional taxes, without fretting over the procedures in the bank, which always leave me feeling a little less educated.

4. I managed to use some common sense – like using the forms available for advanced users, than the mere common man, so that I am not stuck up in the online process due to some coding error left behind in the forms. Can you believe it..it stands corrected in the advanced version, but not in the basic version.

5. I managed to tide over online help forums, several PDF guides, the ever helpful local tax guy who has no answer ever to any of your queries, the toll free number that is listed as tax-help line but is not answered most of the time.

Process Improvement

I want to become a sweeper. A process improvement sweeper. There are conglomerates and big businesses that reek of gaps in processes. One customer level interaction with them proves the point. In spite of heavy research and focus on service quality, they have a long way to go.

I take solace from the fact that I may not be the only victim. Subscribed to a mutual fund online two months ago. The normal process is to receive a confirmation PDF at the registered email, which is then signed and returned to the mutual fund company confirming the transaction. I have not received this till date. They remember to send their promotional material to my email id but are unable to send the PDF to the same id. Repeated calls to the customer service centre yielded no fruits, just a complaint number, the only use for which was not having to recollect my grievance every time I called them up!

Every time I call, I am promised a well-defined TAT (read – Time after-which telecall again), but nothing comes out of it. Here is the icing on the cake..One morning, I get a call from another department of the mutual fund company asking me to submit a signed application for subscribing online. Did these people check to see if they had sent me the relevant documents in the first place? If they have, did they check to see if I had lodged any complaints in the interim because of which I may not have sent it? Add to it, when I ask them these things, they tell me it is their duty to call me; they are not connected with their own call centre department in any way.

The whole world except the ubiquitous vegetable vendors requires process improvement.
They are the only ones who can perform multiple calculations, with multiple customers, keep their promises without IOU notes, and never promise a TAT, still deliver on a daily basis. Are people who run bigger businesses blind to their faults? Or is it that it just suits them to have broken processes. Maybe there is just no inclination, besides the top line growth. Why should there be? In a country like India, very few businesses with such attitude to customer service will be left behind with zilch customers. Until such a scenario arises, these companies will continue to run and even prosper to produce the country’s first trillionaire.

Why are Shopaholics shopaholics?

This is more like the circular reference error in Excel. Shopaholics are not shopaholics by desire, they are destined to be one.

Let me illustrate with an example. I had been out to buy a pair of sandals. Trust me, it is just the sandals that was in my planned budget. I checked out a couple of shops..nothing that impressed the Princess in me. The third shop..here ye come…bright boards with 50% sale make it ominous. Let me pass over the Size 4 font “Upto” just above the Size 100 Font 50% for a moment. With full credit to the shop and its designers, the shoes there looked good and surprisingly, well within my budget. And then, size 6 began to elude me. Searched hi and lo..stretched my budget by a few more hundreds of bucks..braved myself to try out exotic colours like banana and strawberry pinks(yeah…for my feet)..but size 6 was not to be found. In all this frenzy, I came across a cool bag. After all, I was not going to buy my sandals today, my budget was still unutilized,and the budget did not have a ‘No Exchange’ tag on it…so there I splurge it on the 20*20 inch, crimson red bag, which I know is going to adorn my cupboard. The sandals shall wait for another day…