Dictionary of Performance Evaluation Comments

Some of you might like to know what the supervisor is really saying in all those glowing employee work performance evaluations s/he keeps cranking out.

Accepts new job assignments willingly: Never finishes a job.

Active socially: Drinks heavily.

Alert to company developments: An office gossip.

Approaches difficult problems with logic: Finds someone else to do the job.

Consults with co-workers often: Indecisive, confused, and clueless.

Consults with supervisor often: Pain in the neck.

Displays excellent intuitive judgement: Knows when to disappear.

Happy: Paid too much.

Hard worker: Usually does it the hard way.

Identifies major management problems: Complains a lot.

Indifferent to instruction: Knows more than superiors.

Internationally known: Likes to go to conferences and trade shows in Las Vegas.

Is well informed: Knows all office gossip and where all the skeletons are kept.

Inspires the cooperation of others: Gets everyone else to do the work.

Keen sense of humor: Knows lots of dirty jokes.

Keeps informed on business issues: Subscribes to Playboy and National Enquirer.

Listens well: Has no ideas of his own.

Not a desk person: Did not go to college.

Use all available resources: Takes office supplies home for personal use.

Quick thinking: Offers plausible excuses for errors.

Spends extra hours on the job: Miserable home life.

Strong adherence to principles: Stubborn.

Takes advantage of every opportunity to progress: Buys drinks for superiors.

Very creative: Finds 22 reasons to do anything except original work.

Instructions for Life

1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

2. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

3. When you say, "I love you", mean it.

4. When you say, "I'm sorry", look the person in the eye.

5. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

6. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

7. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"

8. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

9. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

10.Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

11. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

12. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

13. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

14. In disagreements with loved ones, deal with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.

15. Read between the lines.

For Those Who Take Life Too Seriously

1. A day without sunshine is like, night.

2. On the other hand, you have different fingers.

3. I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.

4. I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

5. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges.

6. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

7. Borrow money from a pessimist - they don't expect it back.

8. When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane and going the wrong way.

9. A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

10. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

11. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks

12. The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the ability to reach it.

13. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

14. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

15. If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.

Benefits of Growing Older

Kidnappers are not very interested in you.

In a hostage situation you are more likely to be released first.

No one expects you to run into a burning building.

People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"

People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.

There's nothing left to learn the hard way.

Things you buy now won't wear out.

You can eat dinner at 4:00 o'clock.

You can live without sex, but not without your glasses.

You can't remember the last time you laid on the floor to watch television.

You consider coffee one of the most important things in life.

You constantly talk about the price of gasoline.

You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.

You get into heated arguments about the price of groceries.

You got cable TV just for the western channel.

You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.

And with a slight adjustment to your hearing aid, you won't notice their parties either.

You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.

You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.

You sing along with the elevator music.

Your arms are almost too short to read the newspaper.

Your back goes out more than you do.

Your ears are hairier than your head.

Your eyes won't get much worse.

Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.

Your joints are more accurate than the National Weather Service.

Your secrets are safe with your friends, because they can't remember them either.

Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable size.

So enjoy it - you're just getting older.

My Top 20 Mom Quotations

1. "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother."
-- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

2. "A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path."
-- Agatha Christie

3. "Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own."
-- Aristotle

4. "A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take."
-- Cardinal Mermillod

5. "My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."
-- George Washington (1732-1799)

6. "Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within hearsay of little children tends toward the formation of character."
-- Hosea Ballou

7. "The best academy, a mother's knee."
-- James Russell Lowell

8. "Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world."
-- Kate Douglas Wiggin

9. "We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful. Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth."
-- Mary Antin

10. "Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; a mother's secret hope outlives them all."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1775-1817)

11. "When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk you'll end up as the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso."
-- Pablo Picasso

12. "There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

13. "A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive."
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

14. "The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes one a mother—which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician."
-- Sydney J. Harris

15. "An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest."
-- Spanish proverb

16. "The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
-- Theodore Hesburgh

17. "A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them."
-- Victor Hugo

18. "The only thing a lawyer won't question is the legitimacy of his mother."
-- W. C. Fields

19. "A man never sees all that his mother has been to him until it's too late to let her know that he sees it."
-- W. D. Howells

20. "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."
-- William Ross Wallace

It's a Great Relationship, But is it Time to Break Up?

You've found a new guy and the two of you have been dating for a few months now. He's handsome, funny, and charming, and yet something about the relationship doesn't feel quite right. You so much want this to work, as it has been some time since you've dated anyone this long with the prospect of a permanent commitment. But you still have some important unanswered questions.

1. Where does he go on the weekends?

You've noticed from the beginning of your dating relationship that your guy doesn't hang around on Saturday or Sunday. In fact, you don't see him too often on Friday nights, either. You have to wonder if he has a family out there somewhere, or some kind of commitment elsewhere that is bound to interfere with yours at some point. In fact, it already is interfering. When you ask him why he can't come around over the weekend, he stutters and stammers, but so far, no good excuses.

2. What about his family?

After five months, you still haven't met his parents, sister, or even his dog. He's given you a dozen reasons why you can't visit his apartment, none of them valid. You would love to meet his family-if he has one, that is. Moreover, it wouldn't be a bad idea to be introduced to his coworkers, neighbors, or friends. But so far, none of that is happening. There was one buddy from college who was passing through town and took the two of you out for dinner, but that was it.

3. Does he really have a job?

Even though he has vaguely mentioned having a job somewhere, he doesn't say much about the work, the company, or his boss. You don't actually know what he does or how much he makes. In fact, he's often broke, which is why the two of you hang out at your place for pizza and television rather than go to the movies or dinner.

4. Will he ever get serious?

This guy takes life pretty easy. He doesn't seem to have any hassles or worries, and he's not particularly interested in the future-with or without you. You've fallen into a fairly predictable and almost boring dating pattern, and you're wondering if you could live this way the rest of your life even if things did get serious.

5. Does he meet your needs?

When you need a shoulder to cry one, he withdraws a little, like he's not very comfortable with emotion. At times when you want to dress up and go out, he's ready to sack out on the sofa for a little snooze. He seldom shows much interest in your job, your family, or your hobbies. So what's to love about him?

If any of these, especially in combinations of two or more, describe your relationship, maybe it's time to move on. Unless you force a confrontation and insist on things changing, chances are they won't. And who wants to force someone to pretend to like you, anyway? It could be time to give up and get going if your Romeo isn't showing much enthusiasm.