It’s Performance Review season at my company again.  I’ve always hated performance reviews.  Not because the reviews are bad - in fact, I’ve never received a poor review.  Something about getting a corporate report card has always bothered me.  Of course people need to know how they are doing, how they can improve, and get recognition for their accomplishments.  But I stand to reason that most performance reviews, in practice, are pointless. 

For years, I have practically received the same evaluation.  I am a top-rated employee.  I have solid judgment and am known to always get the job done.  I am highly respected in the organization.  But… (isn’t there always a “but” in performance reviews) I am too tough.

Typical working woman dilemma - be nice and get called “too soft.”  Be tough and get named a “bitch.” 

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It begins with the short work week right before Thanksgiving.

I head out of the office on Wednesday and don’t return until four days later.  By that time, Black Friday shopping and holiday decorating have sufficiently cemented me into seasonal work mode.  The rapid succession of extended weekends will keep me there until New Years if I let it.

I’m distracted.  I’m counting down the days until the next weekend or vacation.  I’m worrying more about Christmas lists and holiday meals than I am about monthly sales goals and marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately, businesses - including the one that employs me - do not shut down for the month of December.  And they tend to take things like customer service and earning a profit just as seriously as they did for the first 11 months of the year.

This is when I find productivity tips, like the ones below, the most helpful.

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Voting Day is a pressure-filled day for working parents.  Not only do you have to manage drop-off, pick-up and a busy working day, now you have to throw voting into the mix.  In history-making elections like this one, more people turn out to vote making long lines… and even more stress for the working mom.  I’m sure if I had asked my boss for time to vote, she would have approved the time off.  But then I’d be feeling pangs of guilt since my polling place is open for hours before I get to work and hours after I return home.  And I know that many employers are not willing to allow employees to leave early or come in late so that they can fulfill their civic duty.  I even heard of bosses sending out emails to their team telling them to “vote on their own time.”

For the last two years, I almost always voted via absentee ballot.  For me, it was the only way to manage the juggle.  There are days were I barely manage daycare drop off and pick-up with work meetings.  And I’ve already admitted that I often don’t take a lunch.  So voting was just one more thing to do on the list.  Switching to voting by absentee ballot meant that I had plenty of time to research the candidates, measures, and propositions.  Voting day no longer had to be the day of the election - but whatever day was convenient for me.

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A friend of mine once told me that he couldn’t believe how I managed to leave jobs without burning bridges, even the ones for whom bridges would probably be better burned.  I’m a firm believer that nothing good comes from leaving any relationship, business or otherwise, bitterly, or angrily, or with hurt feelings.   Obviously, there are situations where work relationships are unsalvageable; however, in the event that you’re planning on leaving employment with a company voluntarily, here’s my advice on how to do it with grace, dignity, and perhaps even a few contacts and references in hand.

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Last week one of the managers at my company was terminated.  His exit was swift.  One day he was here the next day he was noticeably absent.  After a long investigation, the company terminated his employment due to Sexual Harassment.  Allegedly he harassed multiple women at the company, including at least one of his direct reports.  While his team is protecting the woman he harassed, they have been very vocal about their pleasure in the company’s actions and his termination of employment here.

I’m willing to put money on it that, if asked, nearly every working woman could cite an experience of being harassed in the workplace.  Whether it was the creepy guy who always started at your breasts, or the drunken co-worker who tried to take things to another level at the company holiday party, or the man who thought that keeping a calendar of scantily-clad women on his desk was perfectly acceptable.  With the lines of what is unlawful sexual harassment and what is just inappropriate workplace behavior, what defines sexual harassment remains blurred between black and white.
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Last week Friday, the second day after my last day at work, I did something that I’d been dying to do, but hadn’t been able to find the time:  I visited the exhibit entitled The Black List Project at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.  The exhibit features large format portraits of 24 prominent African-African Americans, and the accompanying documentary included their views of what it means to them to be African-American in 21st century America.

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When I returned to the practice of law a little over a year ago, it was admittedly with some reluctance:  at the time,  I was working from home for a large Fortune 200 corporation, helping manage several of the online publications.  I wasn’t making a lot of money, but I was generally happy:  my time was my own, I was ever-present for my young daughter, it allowed me to write and gave me time for my photography, and I was helping contribute financially to our household.  But then, two former bosses called me and practically begged me to come back to law; because I respect and enjoy working with these two men (and despite my better judgment), I did.

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Let’s face it:  here in the United States, the last few Presidential elections have had their share of drama; however, this year, this campaign seems to have taken the cake.  It appears everyone has an opinion on one party or another, one candidate or another, one candidate’s running mate, or another.  I don’t think I’ve had one conversation in the past few months when the subject hasn’t turned to the upcoming election within 5 minutes.  Even my four-year-old daughter can identify John McCain or Barack Obama any time one of them appears on our television screen.

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When I decided that I wanted to work from home at least one day a week, I did not prepare a pitch.  I barged into my manager’s office one day and simply blurted out that I was going to work from home every Friday.  While my manager did agree that having an established day in which I was home was acceptable, I would not recommend this approach.   My tactic was unprofessional and while it did work to get me what I wanted, it most likely won’t work for you. 

The best thing to do is to be prepared.  The power of information is in your favor when it comes to working from home.  In order to earn that Telecommuting badge, you must prepare a thoughtful and comprehensive proposal.

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I’ve been a working adult for what … 20 years, now? … and for every one of those twenty years, I’ve been in search for the perfect organization system.  I have tried them all:  Filofaxes and Palm Pilots, Day Runners and Blackberrys, nice pristine legal pads and Outlook — and yet none of them are just right.  The reasons are varied:

– I hate electronic task managers, because I like actually writing down to-do lists, and I adore the self-satisfied feeling of actually dragging my pen across the page, marking out an item completed.

– I really love calendar functions that allow for alarms, so that when I’m lost in the middle of a project, my PDA will actually buzz or sound a tone alerting me that I need to get ready for a meeting.

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