It’s that time of year again – yearly performance reviews.  We have to submit a self-assessment and our manager also submits an assessment on us.  Hmm, let’s see, this is kind of odd.  If I’m evaluating myself on my performance which dictates my possibility of a raise or promotion of any sort or even if it is purely just to rate my performance, I should rate myself nothing lower than outstanding.  To rate myself anything less than outstanding is to say that I did not do my job and I did not do it well.  I find self evaluations quite interesting, they would like to see how we perceive ourselves.  I think it is more important for the manager to submit their evaluation of us in first and then we submit ours in without them being able to change theirs.  This way the manager cannot use what we wrote and just copy it.  They should think for themselves, create their own opinions, while we create our own.  This way the reviews are not biased.  To each his own.  If we are able to do self-assessments, we should also do peer reviews and manager reviews.  How does so and so work in a team project, do they communicate and contribute?  Is the manager doing a good job in the perspective of their team members?  All of these things should be taken into consideration – otherwise I think a lot of people who do well are never rewarded and those who do poorly are not reprimanded.  I turned in my review and marked myself as outstanding in every way possible and I believe I deserve the best raise possible.  We’ll see what happens in a few months.