Report Cards Still Suck, Even When You're a Grownup

Seth Godin has a great post up today about "report cards" (or performance evaluations).  It's very short and it's worth a read.

Back in the day (a former life, former job), we had supervisors that took great pride in giving everyone terrible performance evaluations.  But those evaluations seemed to have little bearing on whether or not you were promoted to the next rank or "perfect" position.

Some of us came up with the expression, "The only way you can hurt me with that [performance evaluation] is to roll it up and poke me in the eye with it."  That's still pretty much what I think of them. 

Report cards can be different because let's face it, if you flunk a test, it's a pretty standard way of measuring and for the most part it's objective (unless of course it's an essay, in which case it's completely subjective...or can be).

By the way, Seth's post isn't really about report cards and performance evaluations - it just struck a nerve. ;-)