Appraisal Blues :-)

"Usually towards the close of appraisals people tend to go through a lot of stress. If you ask them what their appraisal would be majority would answer in the negative - their answers would range from "I will have zero hike" to "I might lose my job" . These are the set of people who have not done anything significant during the year (not everyone though - some people who have done good work forget that part because what they lack is self confidence - they are a little low on self esteem) and since they themselves realise this they tend to get anxious.

This is the time you would find people thinking a lot about their career, meaning what skills they need to learn, what career they need to have after few years etc etc. Two category of people do not go through this - first one, people who are very close to the movers & shakers of the company and by some means have a fair idea that they will have a good appraisal (infact they have ensured through their work or interpersonal skills that they will have a good year) second category of people who are immune to this anxiety are the ones who have lost hopes from the company and thier career, these are people who know anyways they do not have much of a future here.

Rest everyone else I think go through this phase of stress and career planning :-) . So far so good ! People can use this stress for their benefit if they continue this tempo of self learning even after the appraisals get over and their worst fears have not turned out to be true but what they do is they start taking it easy after that. Forget self learning they get into the habit of complaining and cribbing about company resourses and all. Post appraisal you would find these people involved in a lot of company bashing, somehow they are now self assured that job is safe so no need to bother about learning, time to find gaps in the company.

This goes on till next appraisal and the cycle keeps repeating :-) . How I know this ? I learned it through observation - both by observing others and my own self ;-). "