“What do you hate about performance appraisals?” I asked, gazing into a classroom full of rolling eyes. The snickers and muffled laughter hinted that I struck a chord.

Each table created responses that sounded like these:

• They are a waste of time.
• They are supposed to cover a whole year, but no one remembers anything earlier than three weeks ago.
• My manager hardly knows what I do, anyway.
• My manager is just trying to remember the bad stuff, so he doesn’t have to give me a raise.
• The only score I ever get is a 3 out of 5, because any other score requires an explanation, and no one wants to spend the time on the paperwork.
• My manager is out of touch with the problems I face on a daily basis, and he uses some sort of rating system that doesn’t make any sense.
• Sometimes, I think my manager is wrong about the way he sees things.

If you are a regular reader of Dilbert, you can come up with another hundred observations. The reason they are funny is that they most accurately describe the truth.