Chapter 19: Appraisal, We Wrote

The National Novel Writing Month event is a yearly novel writing challenge which participants from all over the world try to write a 175-page or 50,000-word novel from scratch within the month of November. It is a difficult task that is not easy to accomplish and only the bravest writers take up the challenge. However, this event is just an elf standing next to our company’s yearly writing event.

In this yearly event, all employees participate to write a 5-page or 2,000-word non-fictional report from scratch within one week. The report must be based on real life story where all characters are real and all facts are traceable. Some might try to sneak in some office politics while some might try to exaggerate numbers. But they know the judges are strict and the consequence of lies is serious.

And it was that time of the year again. The clock started to tick when we received an email from Rose. The appraisal writing event had started.

We needed all the concentration we could have in order to put all the work we had done for the year down into a 5-page report. We booked a small meeting room for half a day and our team brought our notebooks into that seclusion to write the report. We needed a tranquil environment, away from the endless phone calls and rantings in the office. Almost the whole team was there, except for Rose and Nicky. Rose was in Chennai for a business trip, while the sulking Nicky could not unplug his whole desktop computer, including two monitors, and shift it into the small meeting room, so he had to write his report at his desk.

“Sigh… this is so difficult to write! I don’t even know how to start!” complained Dawn.

It was indeed a difficult writing task for Dawn. For the past one year, she had been busy thinking of where to go for lunch, looking for people to lunch with her, dropping by Ju’s events which had nothing to do with her projects, attending meetings without preparations, sending out long but pointless emails, and starting projects without finishing them. How was she going to write a 5-page report on those?

Unless her report was going to be based on her research on places where pregnant women could go for lunch, statistics of the number of people who she tried to lunch with but was rejected and a list of their excuses, statistics of the number of times that she was blocked on our team members’ MSN Messengers, observation on the happenings in Ju’s events, grading on the food served in Ju’s events, and of course, complaints about how others had hindered her projects from completion. If that was the case, she should not have any problem writing at least fifty pages.

“Don’t worry, Dawn. Just edit your previous year’s report and add in your newer projects and it should do,” Ju advised. “And guys, I’m going to email you the template for this year’s appraisal report. There’s a slight change in the format.”

Fortunately for us, Ju was always there to take care of the formatting of our appraisal reports. With that template which she created, all we needed to do was to concentrate on the content part.

“Why do you guys hate writing your appraisal so much?” Ju asked.
“Because it’s a big stress on my brain for it to recall what I’ve done for the whole year, within one week,” I replied.
“That’s only because you guys don’t keep a diary of what you do everyday!”

Well, Ju was right. She was the only one in the team who refused to use the online calendar that was embedded in the Outlook. Instead, she used a leather-and-paper organizer to keep track of her events, meetings, tasks and lunches. Yes, Ju put her lunches in the appraisal report as well. As a marketing manager, she had regular lunch meetings with vendors, magazine reporters and event organizers. Of course these lunches will take place in hotel cafes and posh Chinese restaurants, not the food courts and hawker centers that the rest of us frequented. That was the best part of her job which we admired.

“Do you know that your appraisal is the most important document in your whole working life in the company?” Ju chided. “Your appraisal will tell Rose what you’ve been doing for the whole year, and whatever you write will be the bullets that help her to fight for a higher bonus for you from the department head! And that’s not all. Your appraisal will also be kept in our company HR database so that if any other higher profile department is interested to snatch you away from our department they can look up on your capability. So you see, how can you neglect such an important document?”

Ju’s logic was impeccable. That was the kind of knowledge that she had accumulated in her twenty over years of working experience in the marketing field.

“Err… Ju, can I take a look at your event calendar?” Sally asked. “So that I can recall what I did for the year?”
“Sally, why don’t you take a look at your to-do list instead? You could just write those tasks in your appraisal.”
“Oh…yeh, you’re right. Thanks!”

Sally’s appraisal should not be too difficult to write. All she did for the year was assisting Ju in the logistics matters in the events, like packing goodie bags and liaising with vendors for collaterals production. Furthermore, Ju had made it mandatory for Sally to update a to-do list monthly. With that list, Ju could keep track of the outstanding tasks that Sally was working on, and decide if Sally was too overloaded. That to-do list would really help Sally in her appraisal writing.

“Okay, done,” said KZ.

As usual, KZ was the first in our team to complete his appraisal. He had used less than two hours to finish a 5-page appraisal. I took over his appraisal to take a look. It was written succinctly in points form. For every task mentioned, the details were written in short and clear bullet points. All necessary elaborations and facts were given and no adjectives were used unnecessarily. That was KZ’s style. In everything that he did, he would never stray away from the focus point.

“Hey, I thought we’ve got one week to do this report?” Choi asked.
“Yeh, we’ve got one week. But judging from the way we work, we’ll end up doing it on the last day anyway,” I replied.
“And as for you Mr. Choi, your appraisal will end up on Rose’s table only a week after the original deadline,” mocked Ju.

Ju was right. Last year, Choi’s appraisal was late by two weeks by the time he submitted it. And that was already after some chasing emails from Rose. Choi had a very different approach to date and time. His works were always late for a couple of days, or sometimes weeks. However he was never late for any official or non-official appointment. In fact, sometimes he could arrive at a conference fifteen minutes before the starting time. At times, I wondered if he had a different calendar from the ones we were using. Maybe the November 15th on our calendar was only November 1st on his?

“Yo guys, are you done with your appraisals? Let’s go for lunch!” said Nicky as he entered the room.
“Yes, good idea! Let’s go Paragon! I feel like taking sushi!” Dawn exclaimed avidly.
“Give us another fifteen minutes or so,” Ju replied, ignoring Dawn.

Nicky pulled a chair and sat next to Choi.

“Bro, have you finished yours?” Choi asked.
“Still working on it. Hoping to finish by the end of the day,” replied Nicky.
“Okay, I’m done. Do you mind helping me to go through and see if I’ve got any grammar mistakes or missed out anything?” Choi pushed his notebook towards Nicky.
“Choi! How can you show Nicky your appraisal? It’s supposed to be private and confidential!” asked the surprised Dawn.
“Relax, Dawn! Nicky is our products analyst! If I’m already submitting my products’ revenues and stuffs to him every month, there’s nothing in this report that Nicky can’t see!” Choi argued.
“Okay, if you say so. Anyway, it’s your appraisal.” Dawn went back to her typing and kept quiet.

“Choi, now I know why your appraisal is always the longest one in our team,” commented Nicky.
“Hahaha… now you know the vast amount of work I’m doing right?” Choi grinned.
“No, it’s not the amount of work. It’s the way you wrote your appraisal.”
“Yeh, I tend to put in more details.”
“No, it’s not the details. It’s your elaboration! It’s like as if I’m reading a novel!”

The rest of us stopped typing and looked up. We were very interested to know how Choi managed to write a novel out of an appraisal.

“Look at this!” Nicky took a deep breath, and then read: “The borrower’s stricture hindered our proposal like the sea current trying to stop our ship from moving forward to discover the new land ahead of us. But with a zealous devotion, I managed to convince the borrower that among our cash management strategy, there must be a liquidity management solution hidden somewhere that best meets his needs. The borrower was enthralled by the undisputed solution that I proffered to him. He knew that he was looking at the solution that he had been searching for. The one that he had been waiting for had finally arrived. With tears in his eyes, he shook my hand. He could not thank me enough. Finally, we had been mandated to invest our borrower’s excess balances to yield a return that is based on the overnight market driven rate.”

After Nicky had finished reading that dramatic paragraph, all of us looked at Choi, some of us with an eyebrow raised.

“Hey, I’m just trying to show my determination in selling a solution, okay?” said Choi.