Are you in a job where you have annual performance reviews? You know, where you talk about your goals and accomplishments. Mine tend to go a bit like this:

(c) 2014 Scott Adams, Inc.

In theory, it should be a time when you set lofty, noble aims of what you want to achieve in the coming year, and then your employer agrees to support you in your endeavour to realise these goals. But if you’re any good at doing performance reviews, in practice what you’ll do is list a few things that sound impressive, but have next to no chance of failing. So when reality takes hold toward the end of the year and you get no time to do anything, on paper you’ll still look like an achiever.

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