Professional Evaluations Question

[Bone16]

For those of you that have supervisors, how many of you have had to write your own evaluations or input yourselves for professional awards or recognition?

How did you handle having your boss tell you to write your own?

[Bendersquint]

For those of you that have supervisors, how many of you have had to write your own evaluations or input yourselves for professional awards or recognition?

How did you handle having your boss tell you to write your own?

I did that for years and years as a .gov contractor.

I liked it better than if THEY wrote it because I could word it the exact way I wanted it.

Had to do justification for pay raise statements as well. They thought pattern for this was that if I couldn't convince them to give me a pay raise then a manager/supervisor surely couldn't either. That left my financial destiny alwas in my hands.....you learn to write these things FAST!

The first time I had to do it my eyes were rolling(thankfully told on the phone) and I had no idea what to say or do, after that first one it was easy.

[Russian]

xx

[jreinke]

The Army's been doing that for years. They have what is known as an Officer Evaluation Support Form. You prepare one at the beginning of the rating period and list the goals or tasks that you have set for yourself. Then at the end of the rating period, you state how many of these tasks were completed, how well you did them. The key is not to list everything you need to do and save 1 or 2 high profile items, to make yourself look better than your peers. This may sound like "brown nosing" but when you understand that the top ratings are limited, you have to fight for the top. For example, a commander rates 5 senior warrant officers, he can only give the top rating to the top 20%, only one guy gets it. So in answer to your question, we basically write are own reports as the commanders pretty much cut and paste from the support form when writing our report cards.

[Libertarian_Geek]

The Army's been doing that for years. They have what is known as an Officer Evaluation Support Form. You prepare one at the beginning of the rating period and list the goals or tasks that you have set for yourself. Then at the end of the rating period, you state how many of these tasks were completed, how well you did them. The key is not to list everything you need to do and save 1 or 2 high profile items, to make yourself look better than your peers. This may sound like "brown nosing" but when you understand that the top ratings are limited, you have to fight for the top. For example, a commander rates 5 senior warrant officers, he can only give the top rating to the top 20%, only one guy gets it. So in answer to your question, we basically write are own reports as the commanders pretty much cut and paste from the support form when writing our report cards.

The "Phone Company" does it this way too and has for many many years. Those top slots earn the higher pay increases and bonuses. The bottom slots are 1st in line for job cuts.

You take your bosses goals, and plan out how you're going to support those goals. At the end of the time period, you document how you did those, and the benefit that it had to the company. Your boss then reviews everyone's and applies a rating to them. A good boss can spot work from BS.

How did you handle having your boss tell you to write your own?

I prefer it. I need to know what my boss's priorities are prior to writing them, but I have the ability to converse and ask questions. It also give me plenty of latitude to determine how I'm going to solve issues of the business. It may be my libertarian nature, but I prefer to be a self-starter to one who only works when given very specific direction.

[Bone16]

The Army's been doing that for years. They have what is known as an Officer Evaluation Support Form. You prepare one at the beginning of the rating period and list the goals or tasks that you have set for yourself. Then at the end of the rating period, you state how many of these tasks were completed, how well you did them. The key is not to list everything you need to do and save 1 or 2 high profile items, to make yourself look better than your peers. This may sound like "brown nosing" but when you understand that the top ratings are limited, you have to fight for the top. For example, a commander rates 5 senior warrant officers, he can only give the top rating to the top 20%, only one guy gets it. So in answer to your question, we basically write are own reports as the commanders pretty much cut and paste from the support form when writing our report cards.

jreinke,

Dash 1s are one thing; I've used that as the statement of work "contract" between me and my Soldiers for years and I agree, it works well especially if you use it as it was intended (actually do the quarterly counsellings on a regular basis). I've used them, along with spot counselling statements to justify awards and promotions as well as reductions in rank and OML input for schools.

Specifically, my question is, if you went through the process of sitting down with your rater and together wrote a Dash 1 that you both know is effectively executed during that rating period, would you feel comfortable completely writing your own OER versus them cutting and pasting from the Dash 1 and their own individual inputs?

Thanks,

-Bone

[jreinke]

Could I do it, yes. Would I do it, NO. For the most part I've been pleasantly suprised at the comments most of my commanders have made about me in my OERs and there is no way I could ever tell one of them how they "feel" about me. On the other hand, I have been asked to write up many of my PCS awards and was not afraid to "toot my own horn" in these situations!

[Bone16]

Yeah, I'm in a situation right now where not only was I asked to write my own OER, but also my own 638. Nothing like having to not only do your job, but your supervisor's too!

[jreinke]

What, are you guys like getting ready to deploy or coming back from one that they have him in briefings 20 hours of the day or is he just lazy?

[Bone16]

Believe it or not, it's a TDA assignment and unfortunately, it's the latter. Have I told y'all lately how much I hate REMFs, especially now that I am one! BTW, I'm glad to see someone's keeping the memory of the squashed bug alive in the likes of your avatar.

I wish we had some old school CW4s left in the Army. Everyone now seems to be bucking (aka ass kissing) for a CW5 slot and has lost the professional edge that was the domain of the Warrant Officer Corps.

[jreinke]

When I went warrant, I was an E7 w/14 years in. At the time I told myself that if I liked being a warrant I'd stay until 30. That would be enough time to possibly make W4. Then back in 2002 all hell broke loose at PERSCOM (personnel command for those non military types.) Seems that when they brought out the CW5 rank they had to change Title 10 to allow for the new rank. It seems that the terms for length of service were changed but nobody noticed until the Army got sued. The rules say you have to hold a grade for 2 years in order to retire at that grade. Well there was this guy who got promoted to W4 and then decided he wanted to retire with that rank 6 months later. PERSCOM told him to pack sand and he sued...........and won. He quoted for is claim, Title 10 USC which stated: W5s can stay for 30 years of WARRANT service or age 62, which ever happens FIRST, W4s and below and stay for 30 years of FEDERAL service or 24 years of WARRANT service or age 62, which ever happens FIRST. This guy had 25 years of warrant service and they were forced to retired at the grade he held. So with that being said, PERSCOM did a records review and discovered that there were a s--t load of warrants (in the high hundreds of people) who had to be manditorily retired ASAP. Someone high up the food chain gave them 90 DAYS after being notified to pack their bags and hit the road! So in my situation it went from a personal decision to one being forced on me. There was a period where I got a little indignant "What I'm not fucking good enough for you anymore?" But as time passed, and the deployments to Iraq and Afganistan started to increase significantly, I decided that it's a fantastic time to get out of the Army! So I popped smoke in 2005. BTW, my below the zone look for CW5 would have been released 2 months after I retired had I not removed myself from consideration.

[Bone16]

jreinke,

I've been working some personnel issues in my unit and if you want to see something that'll really piss you off, read the following:

As of today's date, HRC has over 280 CW5s in the Army promoted against a total authorization of 70 slots, but now they cannot get rid of them due to the Title 10 statutory requirements that you mentioned earlier.

We almost got a real oxygen thief of a CW5 assigned to us that has been in TDA billets since 2001, never deployed, and from what I've been told, has to be spoon fed every single detail of his job taskings before he attempts to complete them. Between that and the B.S. with the rest of the personnel issues we have here its almost enough to bring out the old school E-5 in me and conduct some NCO business with the "leadership" here.

[mhuffman]

I have asked folks I've rated to provide me thier -1 and comments they'd like to see. Sometimes the -1 doesn't cover everything or even the things that I know will make a difference to a board. Anyway, I take both, mix it with a conversation (counseling) and make a nice write up. Unless, of course, they're a S-bag. In that circumstance we've already had quite a few conversations (counselings) and they know what's coming.

[jreinke]

280 vs 70 You're right, that's (FUBAR)². What needs to happen is the assignment manager for W5s should put all of the loafers on orders for Afganistan, the majority of them would retire, most ricky ticky!