Would this seem odd to you?

Here's the "wierd thing" that made me begin this post:

This past Friday, my supervisor conducted my end of year performance evaluation--three months ahead of schedule.

During the verbal commentary, she brought up YM by name and mentioned how he and several other students had not come back for tutorial assistance this term. I said he'd come back several times just to say hello, as did other students (whose names I mentioned) who also didn't need help with classes.

She said, "he's very polite, isn't he" and I laughed, like one does when one knows full well that the person who's just spoken is full of fecal matter. She then got flustered and said, "Well, you would know him better than I do." I said he can be very rude, but I'd never seen him be rude to anyone who did not deserve it.

Not only that, but it was a bad evaulation. I've shown it to a coworker, who was astonished. My program office has seen it, and they are aware that I will respond.

I think the woman is a whack job, I hope to God she is not hired for the permanent position, I'm glad I had already decided to not work for her any more, I will not ask her for a reference, I'm glad beyond measure that no one else outside the office/program will ever see that evaluation, and I can now move on to another job with a clear conscience--I don't feel like I'm quitting my job just to be with YM and setting myself up for a lot of heartbreak if things don't work out between us.

Here's the "back story" for anyone who's interested:

In one of my other posts in this forum, I shared that I have a coworker who is very, very interested in everything I do--including the exact nature of my relationship with the 22 y/o who caused me to find Ageless.

The "coworker" is my supervisor. By her own admission, she is a control freak. Others in our office have observed that my supervisor's need to know what I am doing is almost pathologic. She is currently married to a man who is younger than she is (by 2 years, and they make a huge deal out of it) and was her student.

This is his third year working in the same office with her, despite the fact our institution has a policy against spouses working in the same department. They don't hide the fact that they're married, but they aren't exactly open about it either--she does not use his last name, and many people outside our dept. don't know they're married to each other.

They began dating while he was her student, and she makes comments to the effect of it's okay for people who work in adult education/colleges to date their students, because they're both adults. (I disagree; I think that it is just as easy to take advantage of an adult student or an adult who is receiving tutoring/mentoring services as it is to take advantage of a child.)

In fall term, YM came to see me for tutorial assistance several times each week. (He needed it.) Because he came to see me so often (but no more often than several other students), my supervisor and one of her peers started twitting me about whether or not YM had a crush on me. I blew it off; I've been tutoring for 7 years and this is not the first time a student has liked the way I looked or flirted with me to break the tension of a long, demanding tutorial session. I did not yet realize how filthy her mind is, or how attractive she finds YM. (I actually didn't notice at first how attractive he is or how nicely he's built; his devotion to his family, his sense of direction, his intelligence, and his interests in literature, music, social justice, teaching, coaching and 1940's memorabilia were what drew me to him.)

YM and I spent time together outside of work in the second half of the fall term and over winter break. (This is not against written or unwritten policy.) I'm a little slow on the uptake; it took me three times of being mistaken for his girlfriend to recognize there was "something else" involved and we were throwing off more sparks than I realized.

When the office reopened after winter break, my supervisor made several comments about YM that I considered borderline inappropriate in the sense that they were somewhat sexual or snide, leading questions about the nature of our relationship. By this point, I'd worked in the office several months and knew my supervisor well enough to become concerned that she might misplace part of YM's file, etc. (there is a LOT of paperwork that goes with being an international student in the US).

YM is an athlete; he is in competition mid-January thru' May, and his training schedule doubled at the beginning of spring term. I had an event to plan and put on, and a week-long training session to attend out of town. When I realized it would be about six weeks into spring term before either of us would have time to spend together, I asked YM to dinner.

At dinner, I tried to make two things very clear. First, I knew we were both going to be very busy in the next few weeks and I wanted to spend time together while we had the chance. Second, we needed to be careful. I told YM about my supervisor's comments, talked with him about fraternization, and told him that I would not take this job when my contract expired. I thought he understood that I was not "breaking up" with him; instead, I was finishing one thing before I could start another, and it would be several months before I finished.

In the following weeks, my supervisor frequently sent me out of the office--much, much more than was necessary. I was angry about running her errands, because it took time away from the students who rely on my tutorial assistance and mentorship. I learned later that during this time, YM came to the office several times while I was out. Each time, my supervisor assured him that she would tell me he'd stopped by, and then did not give me the message.

In the meantime, when I saw YM on campus or heard about him through mutual friends, I saw and heard things that caused me to become concerned that he was experiencing a mild depressive episode. Six weeks passed before we were able to talk with each other. When I saw him, I was shocked, and became even more concerned than before.

When I learned that YM had come by the office while I was out and my supervisor had not passed along the message, I was furious. I assured YM that if he or anyone else stops by while I am out and he does not receive an "I'm sorry I missed you" email, I did not receive the message. (I found out later, through other students, that any time any of the students my supervisor perceives are my favorites stopped by, she did not give me the message.)

In the meantime, at several meetings/training sessions where she and I were the only ones present, my supervisor made a point of mentioning YM. She either made direct reference to him or used his file as an example. This made me very, very uncomfortable and strengthened my concern that she'd botch his paperwork, make a data entry error in the student database, etc.

I also learned that my supervisor is/was not a permanent employee--she held her position on an interim basis. She recently interviewed for the permanent position; I do not know, nor do the other people I've asked, whether or not she has been offered the permanent position. Her position will be filled by the end of the month; my contract expires at the end of the summer.

Okay, now that I've seen all of that in black and white, there's a whole lot about this situation that's blatantly obvious to me.

Man, I'm glad you guys are here and willing to let me work this stuff out. :o

If I understand correctly, you perceive you have received a bad evaluation for two reasons: the perceived relationship with your YM friend, and a certainly jelousy this perceived relationship may cause to your current supervisor.

It's true that workplaces can be very complex with all the different dynamics going on between co-workers, and up and down the organization hierarchy. I gather you work in an educational institution as a tutor or teacher assistant. I have also done this work in the past in the engineering faculty of a university, and yes, as you also mention it's a delicate job when you're dealing with students.

One thing I remember very clearly is a professor mentioning that they had to let a tutor go because he/she was not taking their job seriously enough. He pointed that at the end, there can be serious implications in the future life/career of a student, so every mark, question, etc. has to be measured with the sole purpose of helping the student with his/her work in school. Nothing less, nothing more; and definitely no favouritisms whatsoever.

I don't know if you will continue working as a tutor, but I think that in this capacity, you need to be and be perceived as impartial not only by your superiors, but by your co-workers, and above all, by the students. By all accounts, you cannot control what your supervisor does, says, etc. You cannot control whether she's going to be hired or not. What you can do is to protect your integrity at the work place.

I'm not sure if this helps or not...

People always seem to want what they can't have.

There was a lot to read there and I ate too much as me and Big Will ordered way too much food from Pizza Hut so I am tired and I tried to scan the best I could.

So lemme wing this and feel free to straighten me out if I am misinformed.

I think you said she likes YMs. That's why I opened up with what I said at the very top. Since she is a control freak, as long as she continues down that path she stacks the odds against herself.

I too seem to want what I can't have. I seem to hover around a lot of beautiful, outgoing and busy women despite their age. They do like me being around and that is very clear by the smiles they give me. However by many attempts in the past those types of women do not want to date me. Why, I do not know nor do I care. I continue to show myself as I am with love and kindness to the best of my abilities and I observe a millionaire's philosophy. Although it applies to becoming a millionaire I feel it also applies to my situation.

He said: "I have tried to become a millionaire what seems countless times and failed almost as many. It was all risky, all of it. But no matter how many times I failed I knew I only needed one idea to work."

And so it is that which is "the search". You only need one to come to their senses and date you. The rest get rid of themselves so you can move to the next person you "find".

"No" is not heartbreak, it is the liberty to seek after the right SO.

But to get back on track. She seems as a very bitter person. From what I have seen they bury themselves emotionally and financially 6 feet under instead of getting to what they want.

If you believe this evaluation was not "spot on" you need to address it accordingly through your employer's procedures. Typically that means escalating to your supervisor's boss first, and depending on how he/she addresses your concerns then you escalate to HR if necessary.

I always recommend going over one's head up the direct chain of command first, because most times higher up managers want to keep (and resolve) problems "within the family" without involving HR. But if that person doesn't investigate and make a reasonable determination, by all means, knock on HR's door. But give your boss' boss the opportunity to make it right, or at least agree with your supervisor before you throw grenades at them.

Most managers I have run across in my career (whom I worked for, worked for me, worked in parallel to) are unfortunately very similar to Dilbert cartoons. This is becasue of the human factor - fear of losing their job combined with their inability to seperate their personal relationships with you, their peers, and their manager from their evaluation of your performance and how it relates to the success of the company. Technically, that's why any company hires us - to move the company objectives forward - period.

I've personally been on both sides of this coin, and it's important that you give your boss' boss the opportunity to do something... and be prepared when you do so.

A little story....

Many moons ago I had one employee five levels down take advantage of my open door policy.

In a nutshell, she received an incredibly harsh review from her manager, and after that manager's refusal to adjust anything she escalated to his boss and so on, and then to the manager reporting to me (who never mentioned this to me BTW), and finally, she scheduled a meeting with me, which I entered blind.

She walked in with several file folders, and pulled out two summary sheets. The first summary sheet was essentially a tracking list of her escalations to date, with the responses from each layer up until this time. We didn't discuss this much at all, as I had nothing to compare it to. I took it on face value.

The second summary sheet was more detailed but also brief, outlining the concerns expressed in her review, with her refuting each and every point one by one, giving what appeared to be solid examples of quality work, done on time, and so on.

This woman was very careful and practiced with her words, and while she stayed focused on addressing the individual negatives within her review, she did elude that her manager was dating one of her peers, and based on how she "mentioned" this, I was to conclude that the dating relationship appeared to be in exchange for a promotion, as the expense of everyone else.

I committed to get back to her within a calendar week, and started investigating the whole scenario. I wasn't really interested in the "personal relationship" because even though it's generally considered bad practice to eat from your litter box there's no law or corporate policy against doing so. It's also very hard to prove and use appropriately within the policies of any company.

So, I started with HR records. I pulled the quarterly reviews of the manager in question and all of his staff, for the past 12 months and read them all on the train to/from work for a couple of days. The woman who escalated to me clearly was a consistant, top notch performer until this review, and the woman whom is supposed to be dating the manager, was evaluated exactly opposite across the past year. Most of the other evaluations seemed to follow suit... all the other employees in that group (who weren't on written warning) ranged from "average" to "well above average" until the very last review.

The review of the manager from his boss over the past year was consistent - gets things done overall but had to work out a few minor things that don't really matter to this investigation.

I then called several of my peers whom are provided IT support by the woman who escalated to me, and pretty much the perception of her ability, quality of work, aptitude, attitude, were all "way" above average and none of my peers mentioned any sudden dip in performance, not even after receiving the lousy review from her manager.

Based on what I discovered thus far, I had pretty much decided this woman's review *had* to be inaccurate, but time was running out and I needed to respond to her in a couple of days, and I still had some missing puzzle pieces. Then... as luck would have it... my admin walked in to show me the spreadsheet she just finished, with a list of all employees in my organization being recommended for promotion - this list containing names, current pay/grade, suggested pay/grade, and so on. I glanced at it quickly then did a double take - the name of the woman whom it was suggested was having an affair with her boss, was on that list - and the recommendation from this manager was jump her two grades, and increase her salary by about 1/3 of her current salary.

This is what I would call a "red flag" and what most people uninvolved would call "a gift".

We had an afternoon meeting - the entire chain of command between myself and the woman who escalated to me - and I tossed the promotion recommendation list on the table and asked for an explanation. The higher level managers all passed the buck downstairs, eventually to the bottom guy who made the recommendation. He had no words whatsoever - he sat there with this interesting face which I remember to this day even though this occured about a decade ago - much like a deer in headlights.

Words actually weren't necessary, so his boss was instructed to write all new reviews for this manager's staff within seven calendar days, and turn them into me directly, copying the two managers in between. I of course instructed all these folks to not rubber stamp stuff without looking at it, and that was pretty much it.

Coincidentally, all the employees of this manager who received good reviews in their history, but the last one was negative, received good reviews in place of the last one.

This is where things get good (at least to me)... I didn't stop the investigation there - I kept going, but didn't advertise this fact - and found that the guy on the bottom made a whole bunch of stupid, expensive mistakes costing the company much money over the past year, and the three managers in line above him were blindly rubber stamping these mistakes, and when they realized what happened, instead of addressing the issue(s) they buried them deep into other things.

So, within six months, all four managers were either let go for cause if there was something specific/tangiable to point at, or simply "downsized" as belts were tightened. The end result is the same - out!

BTW, I never involved HR nor did I intend to, unless my investigations found something illegal or severe enough to expose my employer to legal action from any direction.

And I cannot tell you how much I appreciated the woman (who was given the unfair review) coming to me and giving me the opportunity to do the right thing. While she certainly had everry right to go to HR immediately, her not doing so allowed things to work out much faster than if HR was involved - because HR 's involvement would have been burdensome at best, and I would have been forced into a defensive position rather than offensive - which would have essentially cut me at the knees and unable to do what I'm supposed to do - fix these very kind of things.

Anyway, good luck.

If I understand correctly, you perceive you have received a bad evaluation for two reasons: the perceived relationship with your YM friend, and a certainly jelousy this perceived relationship may cause to your current supervisor.

Kind of yes and kind of no. I received a bad evaluation because my supervisor's job is on the line and she needs to take potshots at someone in order to feel good about herself. I'm the only person she supervises, so she reckons it's safe to snipe at me.

Bringing up YM was her way of insinuating that he'd only used me for tutorial assistance and we weren't really friends, otherwise he would have been back this term. In other words, she was taking a potshot at me.

There is nothing whatsoever remarkable in the situation when a student finishes a course satisfactorily and does not return the following term for tutorial assistance. That my supervisor felt YM's "failure" to come back this semester was worthy of comment is absolutely astounding to me.

It's true that workplaces can be very complex with all the different dynamics going on between co-workers, and up and down the organization hierarchy. I gather you work in an educational institution as a tutor or teacher assistant. I have also done this work in the past in the engineering faculty of a university, and yes, as you also mention it's a delicate job when you're dealing with students.

I'm in my 7th year as a writing tutor; 3 of which include working with non-native speakers of varying levels of proficiency. In addition to the ordinary level of caution I have to use when dealing with students, I also have to be certain they are acquiring the language themselves instead of relying on me.

One thing I remember very clearly is a professor mentioning that they had to let a tutor go because he/she was not taking their job seriously enough. He pointed that at the end, there can be serious implications in the future life/career of a student, so every mark, question, etc. has to be measured with the sole purpose of helping the student with his/her work in school. Nothing less, nothing more; and definitely no favouritisms whatsoever.

That is how I see it, too...every thing I do at work has to be measured according to whether or not it is going to help this student get through school.

I refuse to play favorites. I've had it done to me, and I flatly refuse to have any part in knowingly doing it to someone else. It doesn't matter whether I like or dislike a student; a student that I don't especially like expects--and receives--the same quality of service from me as all the others. "Be careful whose neck you step on as you climb the ladder--you'll see the same people on your way down."

One of the benchmarks in my friendship with YM--and one of the things that showed me perhaps he was worth my time, once the term was over--is the way he responded when he complained to me about a low mark he received. I told him flat-out that he got the grade he deserved; I would have given it the same grade.

Believe it or not, one of the things my supervisor is unhappy with me about is that I take my job too seriously.

I don't know if you will continue working as a tutor, but I think that in this capacity, you need to be and be perceived as impartial not only by your superiors, but by your co-workers, and above all, by the students. By all accounts, you cannot control what your supervisor does, says, etc. You cannot control whether she's going to be hired or not. What you can do is to protect your integrity at the work place.

I don't know, either. It's how I'd hoped to put myself through graduate school, and I am considering other opportunities to work as a tutor next year.

My program has known for months that I cannot remain under this woman's supervision, and I've already informed them that I am going to respond to the evaluation.

There are so many other things about this situation that I don't want to go into here, that do not involve YM.

If eponavet had not posted about Mercury in retrograde causing communication SNAFUs, I would not have known to ask for clarity. I think the only reason my supervisor mentioned YM was to either bait me or to cloud the issue, depending on the situation.

She's always trying to get a rise out of me and make me lose my cool--I once had to tell her that I was leaving the room because I was so angry with her that I was not certain I could maintain my professional demeanor.

The topics she's trying to distract me from involve things such as the maximum number of hours I am supposed to spend fundraising and what they do with the money I helped raise, in comparison to the percentage of my time I am supposed to spend providing (or preparing to provide) assistance to students.

I'm not sure if this helps or not...

It does. It confirms my suspicion that I needed to watch my back. Apparently I needed to watch it more than I was initially aware.

It also confirms that I made a very wise decision to stick to my principles and not pursue a relationship with YM while I was under this contract, despite the fact there is no program or institutional policy against it.

Thanks Cuteguy and TM. I like your insights. :)

MissMuffins,

I think I understand your situation better. Just as TM suggested, if you feel the evaluation does not reflect your work, it is important that you act quickly and firmly. Follow the chain of command as he suggested, but if you feel it's not resolved in a satisfactory way, go to HR.

I warn you however, that educational institutions usually have their own culture about these things. Some would go to great lengths in order to "keep the dirty clothes at home", and home means either a department, a faculty or the entire university. What is scary at times is the amount of independence the general administration gives to smaller units, meaning that higher administration will not interfere o second guess decisions made within a department or unit. Please find about this before you proceed, and act accordingly.