On January 19, 2001, I got a performance review from Ron Beaton, who had been my supervisor for only a few months. Before I moved to Ron’s Administrative Services Division, I worked for Chris Neff in Information Services. I think that Chris wanted me out of his department. One reason probably was that he needed someone with a stronger technical background, but I also think he didn’t like me. I don’t know why. I didn’t really fit in anywhere else, either, so Ron got stuck with me. 

I was very upset by the review and quickly wrote a response. At that time, Ron was the personnel director for MERS. He, of all people, should have known how unprofessional his review was. He told me when he gave it to me that he didn’t really know much about what I did, so he had based it on what he was told by Chris Neff, Kathy House, and Anne Wagner.  

One accusation in the review was particularly bizarre - the one in the supplement about “Changes to PeopleSoft”. Besides the fact that I had heard nothing of it before the review, the idea that I could change codes in PeopleSoft was ludicrous. I had no access to the inner workings of the PeopleSoft system. I could enter codes, but only from a list provided in a drop-down box. If any invalid codes were on that list, it would be the fault of our Information Systems department. Although I never did get an explanation, I believe the code in question was one I had entered to identify a correction to an error I had made doing a refund, and I did so on the advice of a staff member who normally did refunds.

The “Additional Comment” in the supplement probably were as a result of comments I made in July 2000 on the brand new MERS website. I printed off each web page, wrote my comments on them, and gave them to Ron with a note asking that he pass them on to Anne.

The same day I responded to the performance review, I got a memo from Ron suggesting that we re-do the whole review process in 60 days. That review was a vast improvement.

The next “annual review” occurred in October 2001. The “win-win agreement” referred to in the review was something Anne asked all of us to write about a month before the Covey training. Ron’s comment under “Monthly Payroll Reporting” about providing information to municipalities comes from my dispute with Marian about reporting deadlines (see Reporting Deadlines). But I do not know what Ron is referring to under “Attitude/Office Presence” when he speaks of my “negative attitude” and “negative verbal comments”. I suppose I should have asked. But the review was favorable enough to get me a $3500 merit bonus.