the why of fry

So it’s been pointed out to me the name of my blog has the word meat and sex next to each other. This is an oversight I assure you. As proof I will tell you the origins of meats expectations.

When I was working at my job pre-going to France we, like other big IT companies, had annual reviews. Based on how well you did you got one of three rankings. DNE (does not meet expectations) ME (meets expectations) and EE (exceeds expectations). Now you’re prolly thinking that a girl who can control the flow of water with paper clips and a hair ties of course is going to get an EE but sadly I did not. I got an ME. Twice.

The problem with this is when I see an ME I see a big, fat ‘C’. And I’m not a ‘C’ student. Did I deserve an EE? I read my review and everything sounded like I did a good job. Was this not enough? Since I was unsure I decided to ask. I posed the question: “How does one get an EE?” to my supervisor.

“You have to do something outside of your job description. Something we did not expect of you.”
You mean if I answered the phone for the secretary for a couple of hours I’d get an EE? No maybe they expect I would do something like that. What about murder? I’m sure nobody would expect that AND it’s not part of my job description.

You see my problem here? What does that even mean? After many inquires I realized what they wanted. They wanted a superstar. A person that goes above and beyond the call of duty. Top 1 percentile.

Yeah that’s not me. A co-worker I know who got an EE uses his paid vacation on his timesheet when he’s not doing actual billable work. Um. Yeah. That’s not how I roll.

So accepted my ME status. Until the following occurred.

So there’s a guy on my team that everyone knows is a slacker and doesn’t do much. We’ll call him Mr. Slacker. So I asked my supervisor, Mr. Supervisor what did Mr. Slacker got on his annual evaluation?

ME.

This infuriates me. Is it b/c I’m getting lumped into the same category as Mr. Slacker? Partially, yes. But what infuriates me the most is that I could be slacking off a heck of a lot more and get the same grade.

If you were to quantify DNE, ME, and EE into numbers a DNE would be 0-59, ME would be 60-94, and EE would be 95-100. Let’s say I’m putting in enough work to get 85. Do you see what I see? Slow down sucker. All you need is a 60.

Now maybe you’re thinking it could be worse, I could get a DNE, the worst of the worst. Well apparently nobody at this company gets fired and that’s what happens if you get an DNE so it’s very very hard to get a DNE.

Actually one might even say it’s harder to get a DNE then it is to get an ME. So really it doesn’t go DNE, ME, EE in the order of difficulty. It goes ME, DNE, EE.

In other words I’m getting a big fat ‘F’.

Yeah yeah, what about work ethic and personal integrity, blah blah blah. All that stuff is important too but is it me or is the system absurd and maddening?

And that pretty much sums up how I feel about life sometimes. ME.

Oh and the meat part? Well the name meetsexpectations was taken so I changed it to meat b/c, well, to know me is to know that I love meat.

So there. Definitive proof that I did NOT in fact mean for meat and sex to be a part of the name of my blog and I do not in any way, shape, or form endorse or sanction such misconstruing of a perfectly innocent naming of my blog.

Having said that. I hope the mix-up gets me more hits.