For those of you who remember/were alive for the Reagan years, you will be interested to see that Paul Laxalt's grandson, Adam Laxalt, is running for Nevada attorney general. Someone has chosen to leak an evaluation of his time at a Las Vegas law firm to a journalist, Jon Ralston. It's... not complimentary*:
Readers, what's the worst thing someone's ever written about you in an evaluation?
*What makes this particular leak unkind is that, according to the law firm, Laxalt himself had never seen the document. Yeowch.
The assessment by the Lewis & Roca Associate Evaluation and Compensation Committee (AECC) suggested that Laxalt attend seminars to "address basic legal principles" because of his "horrible reviews" and because he "has judgment issues and doesn't seem to understand what to do."
The recommendation: A "freeze in salary, deferral, and possible termination."
The summary of the findings, which I have obtained, authenticated and posted below, is incredibly scathing and derogatory. The conclusion: "You need to work on the quality of your work. You need to work on your legal writing skills."I don't think I've ever received such a negative evaluation, but I did once have a manager tell me that I needed to work on my fundamentals. I was pretty irritated at that statement, but I managed not to let it show. (And some good came out of that statement.) There was also the time where a supervisor I deeply respect noted in a draft that my view of management was "cynical." Truer words could not be said, actually. I wish it weren't so.
Readers, what's the worst thing someone's ever written about you in an evaluation?
*What makes this particular leak unkind is that, according to the law firm, Laxalt himself had never seen the document. Yeowch.
"We also spoke with Adam about the disconnect between his self assessment and the actual reviews."
ReplyDeletelink should be fixed...sorry
ReplyDeleteOh, man. They leaked his self-evaluation, too:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ralstonreports.com/blog/laxalt-wrote-glowing-self-evaluation-committees-view-was-much-different
I'm really glad I'm not in politics. Who knows what an oppo researcher could dredge up about me?
"The Tokyo Rose of the ACS" would be a good one for my oppo file.
DeleteI'm torn on this one. It's really awful to leak someone's performance evaluation but Laxalt sounds like he shouldn't hold public office either.
ReplyDeleteUI - And you're basing this on a one evaluation made by one supervisor 3 or so years ago? Isn't that a bit of a short-sighted measurement of "fit for office?"
DeleteOkay, what are his qualifications? "Is related to former governor"?
DeleteLet's not stock the political class with exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, okay? At least, not any more than it already is.
I was once had a boss who wrote an annual evaluation of me and forged my signature.
ReplyDeleteWhat he hadn't counted on was that our HR "business partner" was an old friend and ratted him out to the CEO of the company (and myself). Needless to say, it was expunged, as was he.
Every once in a while there is some justice. :-)
I once had a boss who told me that my career at (insert well-known sweatshop here) was like a corpse on life-support. It subsequently flat-lined and the machine was turned off. I still want to kill him. But he's certainly not worth going to prison for, so hopefully Karma will get him instead. He actually wrote that in a review which was seen by HR, which tells you all you need to know about that company.
ReplyDeleteLet me guess the sweatshop name: Albany Molecular, Scynexis, Frontier Scientific, Array Biopharma, Boulder Scientific, Sepracor-Sunovion,Vertex ...
DeleteUnder the "I once had..." heading:
ReplyDeleteIn a previous life, in a union shop, I had an employee filed a grievance on me for a "negative evaluation" when I said that they "met expectations." The previous year's evaluation, from a different supervisor was "exceeds expectations" and the employee viewed it as a "negative trend." The short conversation went like this:
Employee: "Last year I exceeded expectations in the accuracy category. This year is only 'meets' - that a downgrade"
Me: "You're an analytical chemists, right?"
E: "Yep"
Me: "Analytical chemists are expected to be accurate - you know - by definition, right?"
E: "Well...yes"
Me: "Well then, you have met my expectation then."
Yeah - logic and unions never mix.
Adequate is the new inadequate.
DeleteBeing told by an old, fat guy who happened to be the richest person in town and hadn't lifted a finger in years with respect to physical labor that I wasn't crushing dirty used glass bottles fast enough at his beverage distribution warehouse. Note that I was the first person in to work that day, and I had already put in more than 60 hours that week. I lost 17lbs in twelve weeks on that job, despite eating 5000 calories a day. It definitely scared me straight when it came to career choices.
ReplyDeleteFrom my last eval at an old job: "[FN] has delusions of a management position. She has been here long enough to know her temperament is not the one we look for in managers." IOW, I wasn't a butt-kissing yes-girl. I didn't really want to be a manager, I wanted something different. They talked a good game about professional development but none ever materialized.
ReplyDeleteThose two little sentences made me so angry I said to the then-boyfriend, now-husband when I got home that night, "F that place. I'm going to get my Ph.D." I gave my two weeks' notice the next day. I suppose I should thank them in a way.