A Great Compromise 3/2/10
2009 Co-Worker Feedback for Maggie 1/16/10
Strengths
Maggie is an enthusiastic office manager with a keen interest in the details of what goes on around the apartment. Her broad range of interests is perhaps her strongest asset – from tackling tissue paper to folding laundry to changing the sheets to whatever seems to be going on under the stove, her passion reminds us not to take the details for granted.
Maggie sees tasks through to their completion. For example, on several occasions I’ve seen her work late simply to defend a pile of laundry from being worn or put away. This drive to go above and beyond the call of duty – and indeed beyond what anyone actually wants her to do – is admirable or possibly irritating.
In recent months Maggie has focused on developing an extremely fuzzy winter coat. While the associated shedding can be problematic, the entire team appreciates the resulting increase in cuddliness.
Development Areas
In 2010 Maggie should work on her periodic tendency to become confrontational. While I admire her passion, I would encourage her to find a more effective and professional outlet than leg-biting or drive-by swatting.
In past peer reviews I’ve commented on Maggie’s progress in lap-sitting and purring; in 2010 I’d encourage her to build on those skills and turn her attention to hugging.
Maggie would also do well to cultivate team-oriented traits like staying off the table, vomiting only on non-porous surfaces, and increasing her “face time” by restricting incessant meowing to normal business hours.
Additional Comments
It’s been a pleasure working with Maggie over the last ten years, to see her grow professionally and socially. While her performance in 2009 was excellent, I am not yet convinced she will reach her overall career goal of remembering what she was doing ten minutes ago.
Dialog Box #723: Humor Alert 4/25/09
Trusting Designers 3/23/09
Some concise and worthwhile thoughts on design and designers from Kevin Fox, taken somewhat out of context:
Data-driven design is a vital tool for hill-climbing iteration of a site, but you should take great care not to use it as an appeals process whenever you and your designer reach an impasse. It sidelines the designer into being no more than a brainstormer, devoid of design ownership…Also please keep in mind that everyone has opinions on design, and that your UX professional has devoted years of their life to learning to separate their subjective opinions from their objective understanding about how the larger audience will interpret an interface. It’s not as demonstrable as code that passes unit-tests, but trust in it anyhow.