cristobal’s mess

We’re closing up our annual review process now, but a while back, while the feedback was being collected, Kelly shared with me some of the direct feedback I got from my team.  Specifically in the “needs to improve” section.

1. hair style
2. sportsmanship

Which was funny, but left me very curious.  Sure, it’s supposed to stay anonymous, but how could one not wonder?

With the hairstyle, I was a little surprised, cause all I had was a shaved head.  Well, a shaved head that was growing into my asian puff.  But it was pretty simple and not really that far out there.  I shower in the morning so I don’t go to work with bedhead.  I didn’t see my hair as a target I guess.  But, my initial reaction was to start looking around.  If you saw who I worked with, you’d see how this was the case of some serious kettles calling the pot black. It is like we’re making our own Flowbee brochure.  And that’s on a good day.

So the hair style one was easy to shrug off and use as an excuse to get a flattop. Which I’ve actually enjoyed more than I thought I would.  Maybe we’ll still do some team bonding later this year and all get make overs…

The sportsmanship was the one that I was more interested in.  At first, I thought it’d be EJ, because he was offended at one of the payouts for a bet I had with Travis and Ben.  The loser would have to turn the ball over in basketball, 2 times a day, when ever the winner asked for it.  It would change the dynamics of the game and would cause some tension within the team.  Not that turnovers are rare in our game, but being all alone on a break away with an easy basket (actually, neither of those guys have easy baskets) and then having to toss the ball out of bounds cause I yell “turnover” is a big advantage.  And EJ takes winning basketball seriously.  Even though I never used the turnover control I had, it was still a cloud looming over the game.

But EJ denied it was him that gave that feedback.

So I went to Ben and Travis – the guys stuck with the “turnover” curse.  I guess if you can’t win a bet, might as well get back at someone during their annual review.  But they denied it as well.

Then we’re talking about it during lunch and Klaus comes forward saying it was him.  And it’s funny, cause it’s so far from my mental model for him to make a comment like that in a review.  And I go on with trying to figure out the reasons other people would have to knock me for sportsmanship.  But he’s persistent that it was him.  Really?  What’d I do to deserve that from him?

Turns out, during one of our soccer games, I was passing the ball and instead of it going directly to a teammate’s feet, like it normally does, I hit the ref.  Then I laughed. At her.  And that’s something that stood out in Klaus’ mind.

Forget the fact that one game Brian nailed Klaus in the chest with a much harder shot.  While Klaus wasn’t even in the game.  Or even upfield.  He was square with Brian and standing in the bench.  It was as if someone had bet Brian, “Hey – I bet you can’t hit someone on the bench in the middle of the game!” and Brian actually took the bet.

But Klaus accurately pointed out, he was not asked to review Brian. He was asked to review me.

So, I couldn’t help but think of that last night, during our soccer game, when the other team cleared the ball and it went over the wall, into the netting, which has gotten a little loose over the years, and so it stretched a bit, and the ball actually hit one of their fans, who was standing close to the netting to get better video, and it made that hollow, slapping sound that when you hear it, you know it was a solid hit and it couldn’t feel very pleasant, and I started laughing.

At the kid.

So, umm…well, I’ve got a flattop now at least…