Evaluation Forms

Useless.

I'm sure many of you have had the pleasure of having to fill these utterly pointless forms.You know the ones, the ones created by a "special" team of psychologists helping to probe the nether-regions of your performance and potential.

It was a standard and expected routine while I was at the bank that some middle-manager somewhere was going to ask you to answer the evaluation.

It always struck me as a "if you need me to fill this out to learn more then someone is not doing their job and it ain't me."

I always struggled with them. Heck, I struggled with anything relating to tests or evaluations all my life.

Questions like, "Do you feel stressed whenever your boss calls you into his office?" made me want to vomit. I barely could choose between 'Agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, disagree.' Or having to answer a number between 1 and 5 with 1 being designated as, say, strongly agree. Something to that effect.

When in doubt, I simply went for the mean. Kept looking for the "I guess" option.  I bet you it was a tool that left many a boss with a blank stare because they had no clue how to interpret it and how to apply it to their business.

One of the reasons that attracted me to the investment world was the independence and pay on commission. Never was a 'pay me steady' kind of guy. Knowing how much I made filled me with a sense of predictability and fear I couldn't cope with. I needed and need a non-linear life.

So when I hooked up with a senior partner years ago I figured great. I like this line of work (although there was a small issue of attracting assets without looking like a sycophant or dealing with hopeless clients but for the most part nothing I couldn't work out within my abiltiies) and I can spread my wings a little.

Na-ah. Unless you truly work for yourself, you always have to answer to someone and sometimes even the person who cherishes his independence strangely wants to take it away from you. I never understood how someone can say, well, the beauty of this business is the freedom and then turn around and say, "prove to me you deserve it even though there's no real reason for me to do it."

So it was in my case. The guy wanted to run the practice like it was a mini-bank. The very idea of it sealed my fate. I tried to work around it for five years but one day I just said, "fuck it." I know who I am, what I like and don't like, and what I do know is this is not for me. Not the job but the structure and its superficial ideas he seemed bent on imposing. Personally, "as long as your work is done and done right" you can take a three hour lunch. I don't care. That's me. I'm not tied into any rigid 9-5 constructs. I go with the flow of the person. Call me eccentric.

One day, he hired a consultant to, well, examine us. He plumped down one of those forms and asked me to fill it out. With one request my view of the investment world being a bastion of rugged individualism that eshewed bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo was shattered. I wanted to cry but I was no baby. I said, "sure" and shoved it in my drawer peaking at it every once in a while for two weeks shuttering at the idea of the content it held.

I figured he'd come to his senses and forget what he asked for (as he sometimes did) which I tended to ignore if I felt it was of no worth.

Alas, "the form" holds all answers disease bit him! He asked for it. I expressed disappointment in it and he asked me to humor him.

Ugh. I hate when people ask me to humor them. It means, fuck you do it.

I agonizingly filled it out.

Never did really get the full feedback from it. Just another one of those things that wasted my time.

And the business went on.

Funny how that happens.