…
I haven’t bitten the bullet and started my annual appraisal yet, but I have just been writing a couple of individual job appraisals. In particular, I have written a rather lengthy one for the two clients I audited in London in April. I have been talking to one of my friends today about life, the universe and why it’s all making me so terribly unhappy, and I’ve reached the conclusion that if I get nothing but negative comments for those particular audits, then I am going to quit my job.
That may sound a little melodramatic, but I am actually trying to be rational. I worked so hard those two weeks, you wouldn’t believe. I couldn’t have physically tried any harder than I did. I set my alarm for six many mornings and did two hours work before breakfast, I stayed at the client until seven or half seven an awful lot of nights, then after dinner I went back to my room and worked until gone eleven. This can all be verified by reference to the logs of our electronic audit file. In other words, the work I produced was of the best possible volume and quality which I was physically and mentally capable of producing. Hence, if I get an appraisal back which tells me that my best is actually crap and I need to try harder, there is no point continuing in this profession. I *can’t* do it any better than that, I *can’t* try any harder, and if what I have done is woefully short of the mark still then there is absolutely no logical sense in trying to pursue this career any further.
This is a completely soul destroying job at the best of times. To be so bad at it is soul destroying beyond words. I appreciate that if I lose/leave my job it is rather spoils all my future plans, but I’ve come to the realisation now that perhaps it has to be like that. If I go on like this much longer, I think I’m going to have a breakdown. More and more often these days I find myself showing weird signs of stress (I have this weird thing that my jaw locks and becomes incredibly painful when I’m uptight) and it really came to my attention the weekend before last when I was supposedly on a restful weekend away with friends, yet getting intensely irritated at the tiniest of things which didn’t actually matter. I even used the F word at someone. That’s not normally me, and it’s not how I aspire to be.
This, in case you are wondering, is the milder, post-Jaffa Cake expression of how I feel 
In other news, today has been as crap as I anticipated. We started the course with one of those excruciating getting to know each other sessions. Everyone had to stand up in turn, state their name and office, how long they had been an audit, what their greatest auditing achievement since their last course had been, then finish with a fact that makes them unique from every other person in the room. I was at least in luck with that one; I speak a weird fake language none of you have ever heard of One of my other friends was also unique as the only person whose girlfriend has a six year old. My second friend, however, discovered that she was depressingly commonplace and had to resort to distinguishing herself as the only person in the room wearing flipflops 
That was followed by a day of excruciating role plays. In my particular favourite, I had to play the role of a purchasing assistant who was on the phone to an angry production manager. He was complaining about his inability to manufacture a certain widget because I had not ensured the correct materials were in stock. My character was supposed to offer to order them now, but warn him that they wouldn’t be here for two months because they were coming from China. He expressed annoyance and asked if they could come quicker, I said that was unlikely, “you know what the Chinese are like, very unreliable” … no sooner had the words exited my mouth then I realised that the lady who was teaching us was.. Chinese 
I may delete this post tomorrow if I unexpectedly cheer up, but the loneliness of this place is oppressive. It is rather like being in prison, but without the consolation of seeing naked women in the shower.