Performance review with nice comments

On Friday, I had my performance review with my manager. It was held online for the second year in a row.

It went well. My manager said a number of nice things. Some of them were the following:

• I am reliable and trustworthy. If he gives me a task to do, he can sleep well, knowing that it'll be completed.
• He misses our talks about food!

It was a nice way to kick off my weekend.

Posting from my new Chromebook

Yesterday, I got my new Chromebook. Setting it up was easy.

I like the look and its performance so far. The keyboard is noisier than my other laptops, but is comfortable to type on. I'm loving how straightforward everything is.

It's the lightest laptop that I have. It's cool.

Scheduling meetings and having my performance review

My first day back at work went well. I impressed myself getting up at 6:45 am for a 7 am conference call.

I had a performance review meeting with my manager just after lunch. Before I went on vacation, he made it for 3 pm for an hour. I had 3:30 pm onwards blocked off as being out of the office on my calendar due to my early start. I also had a meeting at 3 pm.

I got to love when folks don't look at other people's calendars to schedule meetings. My favourite is my diva colleague who asked me to specify what time would work for best for me for her meeting when she clearly knew that I was training our new intern for two weeks.

Dumb. Just dumb.

Anyway, my performance review went well. My boss called me a "rock star." Not to sound weird or pompous, but I have earned it.

A human resources person recently spoke to my manager and did a review of each team member's salary. This HR guy asked my boss why my salary was "significantly higher" than the rest of my team colleagues.

Here's my short list:

• Experience - I have been doing my job for years. I have the most experience on the team.
• Competence - I do my job well and take pride in it. I also complete many tasks with quality and at a faster pace than the rest of my peers.
• Education - I'm the only one with a master's degree in this field.
• Knowledge - I have a lot of it. It explains why I train new employees joining our team.

My manager said everything he had to say about my skills and performance. I am working at a different level than the rest of the team. It's true, which satisfied the HR guy.

I have earned my salary through hard work. It's nice that I have a manager who agrees. I am looking forward to a bonus!

Deleting large files is painful on an old Mac mini

I have an old Mac mini. It took nearly a day to move my 2.12 GB photo library to trash. I am now emptying this file from the trash. It is taking a long time. I suspect that it'll take another day.

On a good note, I got rid of roughly 3 GB of old files. I expect my Mac mini's performance to be a bit better.

It's nice that I can find activities to do while I am staying at home. One of these days, I hope to get a new Mac mini, but we'll see if I can make my current one stretch a bit.

My phone locked itself automatically - weird and good

I thought that Friday would be a quiet day at work. Nope. Drama and weirdness occurred.

I will go with my strange incident. After work, after a trying day, I went out to have a drink and a bite to each with a friend.

We went to a bar and grill close by our workplace. I was checking my phone while waiting for him and it automatically went into lockdown. I tried using my known password, but I couldn't unlock my phone.

After dinner, I had to drive to a different part of the area that I vaguely know. I am so glad that I have a GPS in my car. Otherwise, it would have taken me a bit longer to get there, especially when it gets dark so early in the evening.

I got home and called Google Pixel support. I must say that tech support there is pretty slick. You basically type a brief synopsis of the problem online, click a button, and in a minute, you get a phone call.

The person on the other end said that my phone had to be factory-reset. It meant that I would lose all my data.

The cool thing about this phone is that I have unlimited photo storage and my phone is automatically backed up. So, restoring my phone was straightforward. It went ahead and downloaded all my apps.

In some ways, my phone works better than before.

I asked the tech support person why my phone would simply lock on its own and not let me in. He figures that the cause was a bug somewhere, but he has noted the issue down.

I am so dependent on my phone. However, not using it for four hours felt pretty good.

B is for being me #AtoZchallenge

I have a unique relationship with my manager. We have a respectful employee-manager work relationship. It has also developed into a friendship, which still feels new to me.

Last Thursday, I had my performance review for 2016. Don't ask why it came so late. My company is messed up that way.

When it came down to what I could do to improve, my manager polled a rather toxic individual who naturally gave negative feedback. He hinted that both he and I dislike this person.

I flat out told him how I felt. This person seems to always have something negative to say about me and cannot back up her comments with factual information. She is highly toxic and is probably acting this way because I seem to be a threat to her. I ended saying that I would take her statement with a grain of salt, as she doesn't even know me.

I never asked why my manager asked this individual for feedback. We don't work closely with each other. After saying my two cents, he nodded in agreement.

My performance review was positive. My manager confided in me. He said that there are two writers whom he can count on to meet deadlines and get our work done. I am one of them, which is a nice compliment. The other compliment was that I was the only one on the team who received a comment saying that my work is of high quality.

The younger me would have been upset over the toxic woman's negative remarks. The person writing this blog post now is not. I am pleased with my performance at work. I balance the workload of at least two writers. These days, it seems like three. I will not let one idiot's negative remarks with no factual information to back her accusations up dampen my spirit.

I like who I am and how far I have come. It's good to grow.