Weekly Roundup Mar 23, 2012

Convincing a boss that you are valuable to the organization is important to keep a job. Assessing an employee is doing a good job is also tricky when there are no easy metrics. For my performance appraisals I have to provide goals and be assessed what are not at all quantitative. But then, identifying useful quantitative goals presents its own difficulties, namely wrong incentives. If I am assessed on creating databases, then the incentive is to create databases regardless of whether they are used. If I am assessed on closed tickets, then the incentive will encourage me when in doubt to close a ticket rather than leave it open. (This latter in the wrong headed behavior we complain about from vendors.) Along comes SabaÂ who will incentivize improving pQ scores by accruing followers, getting cited, and getting comments. Great stuff except no where in my job description does it talk about publishing, so I doubt anyone from my supervisor up will care.

Quote: ‘Chief Deputy Rusty Thomas defended the practice, saying [job] applicants have a right to refuse. But no one has ever done so. Thomas said that “speaks well of the people we have apply.”‘ Remember passwords for chocolate? Small incentives mean people give up small bits of privacy. Large incentives such as to get a job mean people give up large bits of privacy.

Comments

Comments