An Honest Performance Evaluation

Dear Sirs,

First, as a note of clarification, I’d like to shed some light on the greeting I’ve elected to use for this alleged “performance evaluation”. While I find this entire endeavor mindless, irrelevant and, quite frankly, insulting, I'd like to acknowledge the patriarch(s) that is Corporate America/Canada and its undeniable influence that has crept its way into our everyday lives like muddy rainwater seeping up from the ground into an old, musty basement. This salutation is meant to address those individuals who have their bloated, clammy collective finger on the button; those who I consider to be somewhat, if not wholly, responsible for this exercise.

I received an email a short while ago with an innocuous-looking Word document attached. The body of the email contained instructions directing me to “evaluate” my “performance”, and promptly return said document to the appropriate managerial party. The following categories were to be assessed: Adaptability, Communication, Compliance, Aligning Performance for Success, Decision Making, Delegating Responsibility, Managing Conflict, Planning and Organizing, and Work Standards. It contained a box with bullet points where I was to delineate my Future Goals and Objectives. It also contained a Comments section.

I printed out the document and looked at it more closely, as if I expected the words and characters to have changed as it crossed over the wires and made its way to the nearest HP LaserJet. I threw it away, promptly.

To my dismay, I find myself still holding a sense of obligation to you and your need for me to "evaluate" myself. It's the same obligation I feel towards something like wrapping Christmas presents. One can't help but despise the glaring irony that, despite the effort put forth to wrap a present, to make it neat and shiny and to curl the ribbons to Martha Stewart perfection, it will only ever result in a saccharine acknowledgment of "how pretty" it looks. Ultimately, at day's end, ones effort ends up in the same place as the picked-over turkey carcass.

So, I won't evaluate myself or my performance, at least not based on any of the criteria you've provided. I won't be homogenized and broken and mashed into square bits so you can squeeze me into a box to fit your categories. I won't be a perfectly-wrapped, tidy package so it's easier for you to assign a value to what I do.

My successes are my own; my value has nothing to do with Compliance or Work Standards or any other corporate buzzwords. What I have achieved is not through an obligation to you or to this organization, but through an obligation to myself to conduct myself in a manner each day that reflects a desire to improve myself and those around me. I will take that with me in lieu of a slightly above cost-of-living pay raise.

I cannot list my future goals and objectives, as my present goals and objectives are really all that is relevant. Goals should not be lofty ideas hanging in the balance, like a carrot on a string, but initiatives we practice daily. If we operate within a box, we operate within limitations that never expand outside its walls. If we submit to conformity, we accept mediocrity and stagnate. Accepting the value that someone else assigns to us based on inane criteria is to accept an illusion of success. It closes the box, and locks the lid.

This letter is not meant to be hostile or flippant, only to inform. It is an attempt to improve you; to encourage you to truly evaluate yourself and your performance. It is an invitation, if any of this information is new to you, to wake up.

Please consider this my "Comments" section.

Kindest regards,

Magen

My Parents Love Their Vacuum More Than Me

My parents recently purchased a Roomba. A Roomba is a small, electronic robot vacuum that resembles a Storm Trooper. He has one button on top; when you push it, he makes a very charming, pleased-with-himself noise, and scuttles around sucking up all the dog hair and debris that has accumulated on your disgusting floor. Then, when he's done, he makes another delightful noise announcing his success and goes back to his Roomba charging station. You're left with a clean floor, just like on tv!

I'd normally be happy with this development, as I live with my parents and, ipso facto, having a Roomba means less vacuuming for me. There is, however, one problem: Roomba is ruining my life.

I came home one day to find my parents watching Roomba. Their arms were skeptically folded, but warm half-smiles were pressed on their lips as they willed their new purchase to succeed. He adorably motored himself around the floor, bumping into things, but somehow via painstaking trial-and-error managed to troubleshoot each obstacle and keep on suckin'. I felt like the older sibling whose parents had just brought the "new baby" home from the hospital.

"What a good boy, Roombie!"

Roombie? What the hell?

I wasn't sure what to make of any of it, so I consulted my sister about this development. As usual, she was both admirably laconic and accurate:

"I don't know about that stupid thing, but they look happy. One of us probably needs to have a baby soon."

Christ! It's worse than I thought.

Things went on innocuously enough for a while, but I realized quickly that I was spending a lot of my day micromanaging Roomba. My meticulous supervision of him was time-consuming and maddening. He was always tangled around some cord, or stuck under a chair. Sometimes I think he just got lazy.

Even our household pets, while initially terrified of him, drifted into moderate curiosity, then blatant disregard. They'd move if he shuffled himself over to them, but it was very half-hearted and usually accompanied by what I assume would be an eye roll if they had the ocular muscular structure.

My normal Roomba assistance usually consisted of him making some pathetic "uh-oh" noise and me cursing him and his inability to troubleshoot. I'd get up, empty his disgusting dirt receptacle, or dislodge him from underneath the couch, and then send him back on his merry way. One day, however, in lieu of an "uh-oh" noise there was a British woman's voice politely directing me to, "Please remove Roomba's brushes and clean them."

After staring at where the voice came from for several seconds, I exclaimed furiously and to no one in particular (maybe the British lady), "WE MAY DO LESS VACUUMING, BUT WE MORE THAN MAKE UP FOR IT IN MAINTENANCE!"

It was in that sweaty, venomous moment as I held him over the trash and cleaned his still spinning brushes that I was overcome with murderous rage. I wanted to flood his circuit boards with gasoline and light a match. I wanted the British lady to beg for forgiveness. I wanted reflections of burning plastic to flicker in my maniacally smiling eyes. His final heap of melting moments would be my incendiary glory.

Luckily, my desire for a plastic bloodbath waned. My parents never knew, and I didn't have the heart to tell them. They came home to a clean floor, oblivious to the fact that Roomba antagonized me all day and on occasion pushed me to the brink of sanity. He was like one of those kids who is all peaches-and-cream while adults are in the room, but the second they turn their backs, he shoves you, steals your Celtics mini-basketball, and throws it in the trash. You can't go home without your pride and your ball, so the only solution is to rifle through the trash, reclaim it from the empty milk cartons and rotten eggs, go on about your business like nothing happened, and hope no one asks why you smell like garbage.

Note: It's not that I hate all robots. I am saddled with an inherent robot distrust which I attribute to the movies. The message is clear: put too much trust in inanimate robot objects, as adorable as they may be, and you will end up in a pod full of pink liquid goo with your head plugged into a computer program. I see my parents' beloved Roomba and wonder, will the fateful day come when he turns on us? Is he our future, or our demise?

My approach lately has been to ignore Roomba. Like an obnoxious co-worker, I deal with him only when I absolutely have to. I help him if necessary so it doesn't reflect poorly on me, but I'll never trust him. My parents remain enamored, and I remain an ambassador between humans and robot. I keep the peace. But I watch. And I wait. And I'll be ready.

An Honest Out of Office Auto-Reply

I leave for Montana for a week on Friday and am considering using the following as my Out of Office Auto-Reply message. What's the over under on time till firing?

Hello. If you are reading this, that means that you are in the office and I am not. I’m sorry. While you’re sitting at your desk, listening to the mind-numbing din of fluorescent light bulbs, willing the clock hands to move already, I’m probably out basking in the sun, or climbing a mountain, or sitting on the bank of a river watching it fall over itself and listening to it laugh. Like Siddartha, but with beer.

During my week off, I will be attending a wedding, and then traversing the Montana countryside. During your week, you will do things that probably won’t matter in the slightest in a few months. In all likelihood, I will be forced to wrestle a bear and scramble to safety (possibly using its hide for a sleeping bag later on), while you will passive-aggressively deter your cubicle neighbor from stealing your stapler for the third time this week by keeping it in your desk drawer from now on.

In the event that the bear episode doesn’t go as I envision, and I do not return from Montana, you will probably not receive a response to this email. In the event that I’m only slightly maimed, you will receive a response to this email, it will just take longer as I may have to learn to type with my feet or nose.

If you need immediate assistance, you may contact my boss, though she is very busy so don’t be self-absorbed. Picture your amount of work, multiply times one hundred million, then think about if you’d want to respond to your email. Didn’t think so.

Peace!

Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay...

Lindsay Lohan has officially gone from jailbait to jail bound. Since I heard the news, all I've done is wonder, why am I the only person in the world who has yet to put Ms. Mean Girls in handcuffs?

Many of us have spent hours pondering the actress' mighty fall from glory. She captured our hearts with her freckled, impish performance in The Parent Trap, and tickled us pink with her endearing, but befuddled (and kinda bitchy) perpetrations in cinematic masterpieces such as Mean Girls, Freaky Friday, and, uh, those other ones.

Lindsay was the princess of Tinseltown and the Queen of America's collective heart. So what happened? How did we get here, Linds? Help us help you!

Drug possession, DUIs, and lesbianism--oh, my! The hard-partying starlet has somehow pulled off making court-ordered ankle bracelets and passing out on the sidewalk the new sexy. While we wait for her to rise from a pile of her own Marlboro Light cigarette ashes like an over sized handbag-clutching Phoenix, she continues to break our hearts, one infraction at a time. It's like watching a glacier, once so imposing and majestic, slowly fracture and fall bit by bit into the sea.

Lindsay is Hollywood's hottest Humpty Dumpty. Except skinny. And drunk. Here's hoping that a few months in the clink will put Humpty back together again. I'll be sure to do my part and send her brownies and a copy of A Long Walk to Freedom...

Afternoon Delight

There are several dangers associated with jogging alongside a puppy. Most notably, puppies are unpredictable and also complete chickenshits. I learned all of this the hard way last week when a ferocious window dog assailed my jogging partner Gracie and I with a series of ferocious window barks and grunts. Consequently, and to make a short story shorter, I made a large donation of my leg and hand flesh to a sunny sidewalk in front of ferocious window dog's house.

The fall and related injuries have precluded me from doing a number of things, some good (dishes, manual labor) and some bad (high-fiving, showering). Today, a little over a week from the incident, I decided to tempt fate, get back in the saddle, and take Gracie for another jog.

It was approximately 470,000 degrees outside today so while I was getting my cardio on, I began to feel extremely guilty about having dragged the pup along. I adjusted my route so she could take a dip in what locals creatively call The Basin.

The Basin is an estuary and home to all sorts of estuarine animals. While Gracie was frolicking in the water with her stick and presumably having the time of her life, I happened upon a small horseshoe crab nestled into the wet sand.

Horseshoe crabs both fascinate and terrify me. You don't have to look around too hard to notice that there is not a lot else on the planet that looks like a horseshoe crab. They predate dinosaurs by, like, a lot, and pretty much make all other species look bad because they're so well-adapted. They essentially kick ass at existing.

Their defense against predators is basically just to be a horseshoe crab. From above, they resemble a rock with a long, spiky tail (not used for spiking, used for righting themselves and steering, although I'd totally spike the hell out of something if I had that tail) and who wants to mess with, let alone eat that?

This particular horseshoe crab was small. Too small, I thought, to be laying its eggs on the shore. I was fairly certain they didn't just kick it on the beach unless they were laying eggs. I was nonplussed, and, as the tide ebbed, my concern for this creature was growing.

I very logically decided to engage HSC in a dialogue.

Excuse me, little horseshoe crab, do you need some help getting back into the water?

I felt as though I was saddled with the responsibility of this animal's life, his very existence hung in the balance, and I was the only one who could tip the scale in his favor. I decided that this HSC would not perish ... not on my watch.

Mustering as much courage as I could, I walked cautiously up behind the (still very much harmless) creature and did the equivalent of tapping him on the shoulder.

Tap ... tap.

Hi. You might remember me, I was just here a few minutes ago. It looks like you're stuck, and possibly too infirm to propel yourself back into the water, so what I was thinking was that I'd go ahead and pick you up and just plop you back in the water so we can all go back to our days. Cool?

I assumed he was on board, peered at him for what felt like forever, and went for it. I put one finger underneath the front of his little horseshoe head, and another on his side. He apparently became aware of my presence at this point because he began squirming frenetically back and forth, wiggling his way further into the sand. Naturally, I let out a high-pitched squeal and ran ten or so steps away without taking my eyes off him, as if he were going to spring into action and assault me like Bowser from Super Mario Brothers.

I cursed myself for not anticipating this. Of course HSC was going to try to move. He didn't know I was trying to help. From a (very) safe distance, I queried:

So, was that, like, an evasive measure because you think I'm a predator? Ideally, if you were trying to escape would you have preferred to have ended in the water? I'm still just trying to assess what your level of helplessness is at this point.

I grabbed a stick, since I was now resolved to the fact that there was no way I was touching HSC again. I plunged it into the wet sand below him, thinking I would gently lift and maneuver him to the water (unless he tried anything funny, because then he was getting catapulted). To my surprise, I struck something. I started to uncover the sand and saw what appeared to be a rock with a ... long, spiky tail.

*GASP!* Oh my god, they're mating! They're mating, Gracie! Did you know that?! This is incredibly awkward!

Sheepishly, I covered the bottom one back up, placed a couple of nice-looking shells around them (to enhance the mood) and offered my sincerest apologies to HSC.

On my way out, I realized that I should have known that creatures with that kind of shelf life on this crazy planet probably don't need my help. I took one last look over my shoulder and was fairly certain I saw HSC wink at me.

The Suckiest Bunch of Sucks That Ever Sucked: A New Moon Recap

In a belated but obligatory effort to keep up with the mainstream, I finally watched New Moon. It was Saturday night, I was two glasses of wine deep, my cat was on my lap, and it just seemed fitting.

I had seen Twilight and found it entertaining in that sort of one night stand, sit back and let it happen without too much scrutiny kind of way. I wasn't expecting anything great, and it was something to do.

Refusing to read the books, I'm told that there is quite a bit more to these stories than meets the eye on the big screen. This is somewhat encouraging because otherwise I'd be seriously concerned for this generation of teens. If all I had to look forward to was the cinematic stylings of Bella and Edward, I'd be sexting too.

While no one could possibly be mad at the overabundance of boy abs (but seriously, Taylor Lautner, eat a bagel, bro), Edward and Jacob look like lesbians. I realize that pubescent girls/gays and unfulfilled soccer moms everywhere just cringed, but I'd like to point out that Edward wears more make-up than I do. The man sparkles for Christ's sake. He's not a sex-symbol, he's a My Little Pony.

Jacob is feisty and all, but Michael J. Fox was a more convincing wolf, and at least he partied and could slam dunk. And seriously, the wolf graphics? Jacob basically morphs into a cartoon. Considering the budget for this movie, it was really pretty audacious.

The most vacuous, pouty-lipped, behind-the-ear hair-tucking disaster is, sigh, Bella. In the deepest sense of the word, I just CANNOT figure out why I should root for her as a protagonist. She's basically as boring as sugar-free vanilla pudding, and, as far as I can tell, does nothing but constantly bleed in an apparent homage to the Russian Royal Family. It's just plain inconvenient considering the company she keeps.

She assigns all of her self-worth and self-esteem to whichever other-worldly dude will stay by her side the most fervently. When there's a guy around, she's elated and stable (but remarkably, still pouts with the same frequency), when there's not, she's suicidal. A truly responsible message to relay to teenage girls.

I get that high school can be painstaking when you don't "fit in" but, like, join the photography club or play an instrument or something. All I want is a reason to believe that she's as enamoring as she's supposed to be, and not the girl in gym class who gets smacked in the face with a volleyball and runs crying to the nurse.

To summarize, the two hottest guys in the history of high school and other vampires/creatures that predate Bella by, like, hundreds of years are captivated and fighting for scraps of her glazed-over, sulky attention. And I don't have the slightest idea why.

The only hope I have is that post-nuptially, Edward will turn Bella and she'll be slightly more interesting as a vampire, or at the very least, require fewer rescues. It's not like she was doing much with her soul anyway.

Canada Wins Men's Hockey, Remains Polite

Accepting their oddly-shaped silver medals at the awards ceremony yesterday, the American athletes looked dejected, embarrassed, and inexplicably (or, actually, pretty explicably) sweaty.

Likening it to losing a wrestling match to a younger sibling, one U.S. player said, "Whatever. Mom and Dad like me better anyway."

No one really knows what that means, but one thing is certain: had the US won yesterday there would be a tremendous amount more shit-talk and gloating, as is the long-standing tradition in the States, along with being better than Canada at everything.

Olympic officials initially considered launching an investigation into the game's legitimacy, due to the almost complete non-reaction of the Canadian players.

"It was an unprecedented and confusing display of sportsmanship. Politely smiling? Who does that? It wasn't until we saw them at the bar afterwards chugging Labatt Blue that we knew how excited these guys were."

While Canadian hockey players and fans remain gracious about the victory, it is certain that, perhaps for the next four years, their neighbors to the south will resemble those silver medals: totally bent out of shape.