Wednesday, March 10, 2010

It's Time for Our Annual Performance Review

I got sick again. Luckily I'm on the mend in time to run in Dallas, but for the last few days my chest has been a raspy cavern of sticky phlegm. These repeated bouts of colds annoy me greatly, because I’ve always been a wonderfully healthy person.  Immune system, why hast thou forsaken me?

At work, I’ve spent the last few weeks writing and delivering performance reviews. It’s a necessary part of my job, but after awhile you start writing everything as though it was going to be reviewed by HR. If I had to write a review for my immune system, this would be it.

Immune System, while you’ve continued to stave off big diseases, your attention to day-to-day details has been poor.

This year, you’ve allowed a lot of germs to sneak past your defenses. There was a sinus infection in September, a cold for New Years Eve and the current illness. Also, the duration of illnesses is unacceptable. In the past you were motivated to knock out an problems in a day or two. Now things linger for days and weeks despite the support of antibiotics, Mucinex and hours of rest on the couch reading trashy novels. As an example, the latest cold has lingered long enough for me to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Of course, any performance improvement discussion should include behavior changes for both you and me. I commit to continuing to provide support in the form of annual flu shots, fastidious hand washing and sound nutrition. I’ll further commit to getting a reasonable number of hours of sleep and trying to reduce my stress level.

Immune system, you need to step up your game. In prior years, you were a stellar performer; therefore, I know the high level of quality that you’re capable of delivering. Lets target having the remainder of 2010 be free of flu, infection and colds.

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