Amazing! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

For a long time I have resisted placing any form of advertising on this site. I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of it and I wanted to keep CoffeeBear.net “pure”. However I realize now that is something of a very silly notion and decided to give Text Link Ads a chance to make this site pay for itself.

Does this mean I’ve sold out? Well I am trying to make a small amount of money from this site now; however CoffeeBear.net will not become some advert laden monstrosity with hundreds of annoying, flashing banners. Just two little links in the sidebar. So you’re free to think what you like, but I’m not thinking this counts as selling out.

¹ Readers of my RSS feed will also eventually be seeing some text link ads as well. How long it takes depends on how quickly Text Link Ads sells the advert slots.
² All links to Text Link Ads in this post are in fact affiliate links and if you use them to go to their site to sign up, then I am supposed to get 25 smackeroos. :)

Adverts by Text Link Ads © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

• No matter how hard you want it to, money does not grow on trees.
• Respect is never given away, only earned. And the easiest way to earn it, is to give it.
• Changing the oil & filter in your car can be a rewarding and bonding experience between a father and his child. And when it’s not, at least all the yelling and swearing should entertain the neighbors.
• Plumbing is a noble art, best left to the professionals. As what you can destroy in minutes fix over several hours, they can fix in one (though they’ll probably charge you for more).
• He really wasn’t kidding about that money/tree thing.

Oh and to my faithful readers out there, feel free to add something your dad taught you in the comments.

Father’s Day © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

2005. May. 7th. Ariesna and I were joined in wedded bliss. Unfortunately with her just finishing her degree and paying for a wedding money was tight so we didn’t have the cash to go some place exotic and we couldn’t really afford to spend more than a night away. So I picked a B&B just a few hours drive away. A helpful friend had recommended it as the most romantic B&B in the area. After the ceremony & reception, we drove out and enjoyed our one night there.

2006. Ariesna and I went back to the same B&B for an entire weekend. We ate out at a couple of nice restaurants, did a little shopping and hit up an art museum while we were there. It was a grand time, but by the end of it we were both tired. We got home, chilled for a while and eventually went to bed. Blissful slumber was interrupted at 4:30 AM by me waking up feeling like I was choking and/or drowning. I ran into the bathroom and spent the next 15 minutes or so kneeling in front of the porcelain throne. After getting myself cleaned up, I tried going back to bed but woke up a while later with the same problem. Again, I eventually got cleaned up and tried going back to bed. Later, I got the intense fun of making a trip to the doctor on what was supposed to be the last day of my vacation. I got weighed¹, poked, prodded and a q-tip was shoved down my throat². The doctor confirmed I had the flu combined with a sinus infection. However he was worried that I was severely dehydrated and wanted to put me on an IV to get some fluids in me. Alas after much poking (in both arms), they realized I was too dehydrated for the needle to go in properly. Eventually, they gave up on the IV and let Ariesna take me home. Though they did tell her to keep pushing fluids down me and recommended she get me to drink 2 liters of gatorade that day and keep pushing the fluids at me the next. She did so, continually waking me up from some of the best sleep I’ve ever had to drink, drink drink. And I don’t even like gatorade! *sigh* I mean the fruit punch version isn’t too bad but the rest.… yeck.

Anyhoo, I ended up spending the entire week home sick and now the night before I finally go back to the office I am feeling much better. I’m just not at 100% yet. My sinuses throb (and continually drain down my throat) and on top of that I’ve got an evening cough³ which feels like it’s going to rip my throat in half. But I’m still taking the anti-biotics the doctor prescribed and I’m hoping when the pills are gone so will be the last of my health problems.

Oh yeah, if you’re wondering about the title on this post that’s pretty much all the food I’ve eaten in the last week. It’s been thrilling. :(

¹ No, I’m not repeating what that lying hunk of metal claimed was my weight.
² Apparently, that’s part of the test for strep throat. Only nobody warned me in advance. Incidentally, the test came back negative but it has a 15% chance of failure.
³ It only happens after 5. No idea on why that is, but there you have it.

Banana, Crackers and Gatorade… Oh my! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Why? Because every cellphone I see out there sucks. The cellphone manufacturers are rushing to build in all sorts of extraneous functionality. This adds to the phone’s weight, size & complexity without providing any meaningful benefit.

Let’s look at a similar product for a moment, the iPod. In a field of hundreds, if not thousands, of MP3 players the iPod is the industry leader and it has the least functionality of the lot. While the other manufacturers have added FM tuners and recorders and god-only-knows what else; Apple has kept the iPod simple and it’s making them money hand over fist.

But what does the iPod have to do with cellphones? Besides that hideous ROKR thing? That’s simple, literally. By restricting the functionality of the device to the bare minimum, Apple gave consumers exactly what they wanted. While cellphone manufacturers keep throwing function after function into their phones in hopes that more people will plunk down $500 for their latest toy.

All those functions sound great, but really how many people actually use all of them? I cannot speak for everybody, but I would greatly appreciate a cellphone that simply promises:

• Superior battery life
• Excellent Reception
• Easily fits in my pocket

However from all the adverts I see for cellphones; I have a feeling that is just too much to ask for. *sigh*

Cellphones suck! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Another thing I like is Magnatune. This is a website that allows you to listen to MP3s of all the albums they offer for sale as CDs, plus they let you podcast with their music without paying for some ridiculous license. They’ve got a wide selection of music (e.g. blues, ambient, rock, medieval, etc…) and when I’m looking for something new to listen to; they’re the first place I go.

In fact tonight, I started poking around their site for some new music when I ran across this post on their founder’s blog:

A few months ago, the developers of amaroK (the amazingly gorgeous music player for Linux and Unix, that really does give iTunes a run for its money) asked me about Magnatune cooperating on their new release of their version 1.3. Their idea was to make a self-booting linux image, that boots into a linux desktop, with amaroK running and some Magnatune music included.

It’s like Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, they’re getting peanut butter (Magnatunes) mixed in with my chocolate (amaroK)! Nice move people! :D

amaroK & Magnatune © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

CB.net: Who is WebKeyDesign?
WKD: Essentially, it’s just one person. Francisco Olaguez.

CB.net: What inspired you to start your own company?
WKD: At first it was boredom, because I felt that there was not enough challenging things in my life, but now that I reflect on it more. Even though the business has made my life more stressful, it has improved my health. I have less time and what time I do have is more focused. I am definitely the type of person that produces more in chaos, than order, so if lots of things are happening, I end up doing more, not less.

CB.net: What is WebKeyDesign?
WKD: Well, the WebKeyDesign.com website serves two purposes. The main one of course is for people to purchase simple web hosting and support for their websites.

My customers are mostly average people who have modest hosting needs like bloggers and of course non-technical clients who need a web site, but who have very limited budgets. The original market for WebKeyDesign was suppose to be for daycare organizations that wanted to create a web presence. Once the school season starts again, I will actually start to work on a couple of daycare sites.

CB.net: Daycares with a web presence? Where did you ever come up with that idea?
WKD: My son’s daycare is a non-profit business and I found that their primary way of communicating with parents is through paper flyers. Most school children bring home a lot of paper already from the school, and young children are very good at losing things like papers. I suggested to them that they use a web site instead to publish their information, this way even if the child lost it, the parents could access everything online.

The daycare was interested in this, but the local school system does not allow for things like MySQL and CGI on their webserver, so the daycare would have to purchase hosting separately to make a nice dynamic site.

Eventually, it was they who pushed me into taking care of everything, from hosting, to site design, to support.

CB.net: I’ve noticed lately you’ve been reading a lot about SEO (e.g. in magazines and on websites). How does this fit into your company’s mission of providing simple web hosting & support for the non-technical crowd? Also, what is SEO anyways?
WKD: SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. Coming from a technical background, I knew that quite a bit of hacking takes place on the Internet, but in the SEO world, you will find a lot of it as well.

What good, harmless SEO means, is that you make your site popular by doing such things as analyzing your web traffic, finding the right search phrases that people use, and monitoring your competition to see what makes them popular.

Some SEO is expensive, like using a Google AdWords campaign to market your site to the Internet at large.

Then there is the spammer SEO, some of this came to light with the WordPress.org website. Spammer SEO is all about cheating the search engines like Google and Yahoo.

WordPress.org has a very high Google PageRank which is what Google uses to rank a site important. By WordPress.org linking to your site or collection of sites, you instantly attain a higher PageRank, which makes your site higher on Google’s search results. Search Engines believe that sites should be important because of their content, not their links, and so stuffing a bunch of invisible links into a popular site to make other sites popular is not something they condone.

However, spammer SEO does happen every day and the search engines are getting better at ignoring it, but from a business point of view, if you can drive 10,000 more visitors to your site, the temptation is hard to resist.

In some cases though site owners do not understand that what they are doing is borderline unethical, and if you break Google’s policies enough, they will ban your site and possibly your business.

CB.net: Just to clarify, when you mentioned “hacking”, in your previous answer, were you meaning it in the same blatantly wrong manner as the mainstream media (e.g. as a reference to illegally accessing other people’s computers and/or networks) or are you actually using it in the correctly (as a reference to programming a computer in a clever, virtuosic, and wizardly manner¹)?
WKD: I mean it more in a general way, that hacking is something you do that you know is wrong, but you do it anyway because you can. In other words, not hacking for the sake of curiosity.

CB.net: That doesn’t make much sense…
WKD: It’s like stealing a pack of gum. You know it’s wrong and don’t really need the gum, but you’re doing it anyway. Basically, I’m using it as a negative term.²

CB.net: Sorry about digressing there, but the way the mainstream media misuses the term is one of my pet peeves. Getting back to talking about SEO, you gave a good overview of it but you have not yet told us how it plays into your company’s strategy.
WKD: I myself don’t have the time to do much SEO. I rather make WebKeyDesign.com popular by adding content than by researching a new key phrase every day. Plus, the big strategy was there from the beginning, when I switched to WordPress to drive the site’s main content. WP has some great plugins like SiteMapper and Jerome’s Keywords that make SEO easy for everyone³. Blogs in general have some great built-in features that helps search engines index them.

RSS being the most important and obvious one that I can think of.

CB.net: What do you find most enjoyable about having started the company?
WKD: There is a sense of empowerment in being able to say that you run your own little enterprise, and then there is the occasional moment when a customer is really happy with your business and lets you know it.

CB.net: And what’s the worst part?
WKD: For me it has always been sales and marketing. Even when I was younger and sold audio equipment, I was never that great of a salesman. I hate to bother people in general, but when you are a small business, marketing is everything. You have to open your mouth and introduce yourself, give strangers your business card, and so on, because you never know when you will hit upon your next customer.

Some clients end up buying your product after they thought about it, and other clients make up their mind immediately. So far, when I have kept in touch with potential clients, it has not worked for me; I have had better success with being less of a salesman.

CB.net: Doesn’t that make the choice of starting a web hosting company rather awkward? After all, there are thousands of companies out there already doing this sort of thing.
WKD: Yes, the market is quite flooded with overnight hosting companies, but what I found out through research is that the majority of companies doing webhosting are not interested in talking to small clients. The major hosting companies only want clients who can pay around $35 or more a month for services.

Their business is also very automated. Any time they actually have to communicate with people, even through email cost them money, and cuts into their profits, so the majority of companies would rather not deal at all with small websites.

It is actually the same thing with domain names and other internet services. Companies see support as a negative, so they rather not have these clients at all.

This is where WebKeyDesign comes in. We only service small clients and we give them the same product that they could not afford otherwise. The biggest benefit is that they talk to a real person and they get actual support even though they are paying less.

CB.net: It certainly sounds like a noble goal and we wish you luck with it. I’m afraid that I’ve run out of questions for you. Do you have any closing remarks that you’d like to make?
WKD: I would like to thank you, Manzabar for your time, and say that starting your own business really requires three things: Money, Patience, and Determination. You have to be careful that you use what little money you have wisely and that your grow the business gradually as best you can. Thank you.

Well faithful readers, that’s it for this interview. If you liked this sort of thing, please let me know in the comments and perhaps we can see about doing again sometime in the future.

¹ Definition taken from the Urban Dictionary.
² The majority of this interview was done via IM; however this question/answer was just chatter back&forth through the cube walls of our office. As such, the wording used here may not be 100% accurate.
³ I checked with WKD after the interview to get the links to the plugins he mentioned and found when he said SiteMapper; he was actually referring to the Google Sitemap Generator plugin.

WebKeyDesign Interviewed © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Teacher: Mark keeps talking during class and it’s very disruptive.
Mom: When is he doing all this talking?
Teacher: After he finishes his assignment.
Mom: Did you give him something to read?
Teacher: Yes, but he finished that book.
Mom: Did you try giving him another one?
Teacher: Yes, but he finished that one too.
Mom: *glare*
Teacher: In fact, he’s already read all the books in the room.
Mom: Why don’t you get him another one from the library then?
Teacher: I did but he finished it already.
Mom: *glare* Then why don’t you let him go to the library and get another one?
Teacher: Wha.… I can’t do that!?! He could get into all sorts of trouble walking down the hallway.
Mom: *glare* If you let him go to the library; he’ll stop talking in class.

Eventually, I was allowed to walk those halls, wander the shelves of the library and seek out new books to read. As Mom predicted, once I had something to read; I was quiet in class. This is a habit that has stuck with me over the years and I ended up spending much of my youth in school & public libraries. I bring this up today because for the first time in a long time; I went down to CPL and checked out some books. This sudden trip to my local public library was prompted by their advertising of an adult summer reading program. The basic idea is you have to read 6 books, turn in a log and then you’ll be entered to win a gift certificate to a book store. I never could turn down free books; so I decided to go sign up².

As I wandered around the library looking for some books to read; I felt a sense of nostalgia and loss. There were entire summers in my youth were I barely went anywhere else besides the library. These days, the rarity is when I do go. I miss those fabled days of yesteryear when life was simple and I could relax with a book in my hand all summer long. *sigh*

So why haven’t I been going? Partly because I’m an ornery cuss who doesn’t like having to wait and if the library doesn’t have the next book in a series I’m reading; it irks me. Partly because I can afford to buy more books for myself than I could when I was younger. Having my own copy of a book means I can read it whenever I like 24/7/365³ and the copy of the book I’m reading is likely to be in better condition (plus it’ll stay that way). *shrug* Not sure what else I have to say, except that I hope to be making visits to my public library more often. It’ll let me relive parts of my past (and beat some of this summer heat).

¹ For some reason, employers don’t like it when you read books all day instead of testing their software.
² Besides, money has been a bit tighter of late and borrowing books from the library is cheap entertainment. :D
³ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (366 in a leap year).

Public Library © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

• Copy the whole list into your blog.
• Bold the things that are true about you.
• Add something that is true about you.
• Optional: Add a comment after answer in italics

Survey Meme

1. I miss somebody right now.
2. I don’t watch much TV these days.
3. I love olives
4. I own lots of books.
5. I wear glasses or contact lenses.
6. I love to play video games.
7. I’ve tried marijuana.
8. I’ve watched porn movies.
9. I have been in a threesome.
10. I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.
11. I believe honesty is usually the best policy.
12. I curse sometimes.
13. I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.
14. I have a hobby.
15. I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.
16. I’m TOTALLY smart.
17. I’ve never broken someone’s bones. Just my own
18. I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal.
19. I hate the rain.
20. I’m paranoid at times. It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you. Alas, for me it REALLY is just paranoia!
21. I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free.
22. I need money right now.
23. I love sushi.
24. I talk really, really fast.
25. I have fresh breath in the morning.
26. I have long hair.
27. I have lost money in Las Vegas.
28. I have at least one brother and/or one sister. 3 older brothers.
29. I was born in a country outside of the U.S.
30. I shave my legs (females) or face (males) on a regular basis.
31. I have a twin (or a triplet, or somesuch).
32. I have worn fake hair/fingernails/eyelashes in the past.
33. I couldn’t survive without Caller I.D.
34. I like the way that I look.
35. I have lied to a good friend in the last 6 months.
36. I know how to cornrow.
37. I am usually pessimistic.
38. I have a lot of mood swings.
39. I think prostitution should be legalized.
40. I think Britney Spears is pretty.
41. Slept with a Suitemate.
42. I have a hidden talent.
43. I’m always hyper no matter how much sugar I have.
44. I have a lot of friends.
45. I am currently single.
46. I have pecked someone of the same sex. (given that pecked means kissed…)
47. I enjoy talking on the phone. I wish I knew someway to reverse bold this answer; as I HATE talking on the phone.
48. I practically live in sweatpants or PJ pants.
49. I love to shop.
50. I would rather shop than eat.
51. I would classify myself as ghetto.
52. I’m bourgie and have worn a sweater tied around my shoulders.
53. I’m obsessed with my Xanga or Livejournal. Nope, but I do like updating my blog an awful lot…
54. I don’t hate anyone. I dislike them. To hate somebody requires you to know them on a much more personal level than I get with people I don’t like.
55. I’m a pretty good dancer
56. I don’t think Mike Tyson raped Desiree Washington.
57. I’m completely embarrassed to be seen with my mother.
58. I have a cell phone.
59. I believe in God. Though not necessarily your God or in the same way that you do.
60. I watch MTV on a daily basis.
61. I have passed out drunk in the past 6 months.
62. I love drama. (Somebody else’s, not my own) In books and movies only.
63. I have never been in a real relationship before.
64. I’ve rejected someone before.
65. I currently have a crush/like someone.
66. I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life.
67. I want to have children in the future.
68. I have changed a diaper before.
69. I’ve called the cops on a friend before.
70. I bite my nails.
71. I am a member of the Tom Green fan club.
72. I’m not allergic to anything. At least, I’m not aware of having any allergies and somedays I really wonder if I might have some.
73. I have a lot to learn. I ain’t dead yet, so this has to be true.
74. I have been with someone at least 10 years older or younger.
75. I plan on seeing Ice Cube’s newest “Friday” movie.
76. I am shy around the opposite sex. Still true, though I’m not nearly so bad as I was back in my high school days. I got over most of this by making friends among the opposite sex and learning they’re actually people too! :)
77. I’m online 24/7, even as an away message.
78. I have at least 5 away messages saved.
79. I have tried alcohol or drugs before. If you live in an industrialized nation (particularly in the U.S.A.), then you almost have to have this marked. The majority of our food is loaded with chemicals and if you’ve ever been sick; you’ve probably taken cold medicine which is a drug!
80. I have made a move on a friend’s significant other or crush in the past.
81. I own the “South Park” movie. *shudder* NO!
82. I have avoided assignments at work school to be on Xanga or Livejournal.
83. When I was a kid I played “the birds and the bees” with a neighbor or chum.
84. I enjoy some country music.
85. I would die for my best friends. I’m answering this yes, but I cannot say with 100% confidence it’s true. If I saw them in immediate mortal danger; I’d like to believe I’d leap to help them without thinking about myself.
86. I think that Pizza Hut has the best pizza. None of the big chain pizza joints are any good and many of the little places around town suck, but Pizza House is great!
87. I watch soap operas whenever I can.
88. I’m obsessive, anal retentive, and often a perfectionist.
89. I have used my sexuality to advance my career.
90. I love Michael Jackson, scandals and all.
91. I know all the words to Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story”.
92. Halloween is awesome because you get free candy.
93. I watch Spongebob Squarepants and I like it.
94. I have dated a close friend’s ex. Nope, but there was one back in high school that I really wanted to.
95. I like surveys/memes.
96. I am happy at this moment.
97. I’m obsessed with guys.
98. I am bisexual.
99. Democrat.
100. Conservative Republican.
101. I am punk rockish.
102. I am preppy.
103. I go for older guys/girls, not younger.
104. I study for tests most of the time.
105. I tie my shoelaces differently from anyone I’ve ever met.
106. I can work on a car. I can change: tires, batteries, oil and possibly spark plugs.
107. I love my job. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! No.
108. I am comfortable with who I am right now. More so than I have in any previous part of my life.
109. I have more than just my ears pierced.
110. I walk barefoot wherever I can.
111. I have jumped off a bridge.
112. I love sea turtles.
113. I spend ridiculous amounts of money on makeup.
114. I believe in prophetic dreams.
115. I plan on achieving a major goal/dream. Someday I’ll buy a house.
116. I am proficient on a musical instrument. Nope, but I’d like to be
117. I worked at McDonald’s restaurant. Does 3 months at a Hardee’s count?
118. I hate office jobs.
119. I love sci-fi movies.
120. I’ve never been in love.
121. I think water rules.
122. I am going to college out of state.
123. I am adopted.
124. I like sausage.
125. I am a pyro.
126. I love the Red Sox.
127. I have thrown up from crying too much.
128. I have been intentionally hurt by people that I loved.
129. I love kisses.
130. I fall for the worst people and have been hurt every time.
131. I adore bright colors.
132. I love Dear Abby.
133. I can’t live without black eyeliner.
134. I think school is awesome.
135. I think pigtails serve a purpose.
136. I don’t know why the hell I just did this stupid thing.
137. I usually like covers better than originals.
138. I don’t like multi-textured ice cream
139. I think John Cusack is adorable.
140. I f**king hate chain theme restaurants like Applebees and TGIFridays.
141. I watch Food Network way too much.
142. I love coaching youth sports.
143. I can pick up things with my toes.
144. I can’t whistle. I say I can, but my wife doesn’t agree with me.
145. I can move my tounge in waves, much like a snakes’ slither.
146. I have ridden/owned a horse.
147. I still have every journal I’ve ever written in.
148. I can’t stick to a diet. I’ve never really tried to diet before. A while back I got a physical and the doctor recommended I try losing some weight, but so far I’ve not had much luck at doing so.
149. I talk in my sleep.
150. I’ve often thought that I was born in the wrong century. But I’ve never been able to settle on what century I should have been born into.

Survey Meme © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Employee Self-Appraisal Form

Instructions

To complete electronically, use the Tab key to go to the next field. To complete analogly: print this off, pull that pen out of your ass ear and scribble in your answers.

Name: Mark
Enslavement Date: 02 June 1997
Department: Crappy Code Catchers
Job Title: Intensification Whiz
Appraisal Period: From — Then, To — Now

Objective

This form is designed for you to explain to management how you’re screwing the company out of it’s money. It’s your chance to step back from the day-to-day pressures of your thralldom, and take an honest look at where you’ve been, where you are and what other company you might want to go to in the future.

Appraisal Procedures:

1. Complete this Self Appraisal Form, print out, and return to your manager via CONFIDENTIAL Interoffice envelope. Do NOT send your via diskettes or Internet email! Do NOT save this form to either the corporate LAN or your corporate PC hard drive! If you must save the document, please do so on a floppy disk. This way we can be sure that the original copy of your review can never be recovered should you decide to disagree with management’s assessment of your worthlessness.
2. Your supervisor will complete his appraisal of you. Most likely, this will take next to no time at all as they’re just going to blow you off exactly like they did last year. Management will then review your self appraisal and your supervisor’s evaluation to develop a GOALS & PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN for you to review before they fire you.
3. Supervisor meets with you to give you your termination notice. During this exit interview, you and the supervisor will discuss each appraisal topic, areas that need to be addressed, your career path, and the steps that need to be taken to get you on your way to your next employer. Specific goals will be set for the next review period; if you are so fortunate as to be staying with our company.
4. The original form must be signed and then placed in your permanent record. That way when your mind finally snaps; we can turn it over to the NSA.

Elements of your Job:

Describe your primary responsibilities and duties — your job description, as you understand it. While we’ve changed your job description approximately 8 times in 6 months; if you get this wrong, you will be fired.
Avoiding as much real work as possible.
Maintaining the illusion that I’m doing real work whenever under direction observation by either a supervisor or a manager.
Collect paychecks.
Eat the free donuts.

Accomplishments:

List your major accomplishments and contributions during this past review period. If you didn’t have any, don’t expect to be getting another pay check from us.
Avoided being downsized during reorganization.

Improvements made since your last appriasal:

What have you done to make it worth our while to keep you around instead of hiring a chimp to do your job?
Photographed company CEO “boinking” his secretary, but haven’t given copies of the images to his wife.

Self-Management:

Face it, you’re a screw up and we know it. So be honest and tell us exactly how you’ve been screwing up this year.
Failed to find another job.

Job Satisfaction:

A) What part of your job interests you the most?
Payday.
B) The least?
Coming to work every day.

Training:

Is what part of your job do you feel particularly inferior?
Coming to work.

What got in your way:

Find something (or somebody else) to blame for your shortcomings this year.
It’s all Wally’s fault.

Fully Utilitized:

How can we more fully exploit you?
I plead the 5th.

Personal Influences:

Note any personal factors that you feel should be considered in your present assignment or future jobs.
Do you mean beside that bong I smoked after chugging down my martini lunch?

Leadership/Employee Development

List for us all the ways you were able to bully your cow-orkers and/or underlings into doing your work for you.
See my answer to “Improvements made since your last appriasal:”

List project goals you are currently focused on:

• Collecting my paycheck.
• Building up vacation/sick time.
• Calculating the maximum amount of belly-button lint that will fit in an empty Coke can.

Personal improvement goals:

Since we know you’ve spent the past year screwing around on company time; can you list some things you could do to improve your productivity (if you were still working here next year)?
I could try actually working for once.

Where do you want your career to go:

What company do you want to be working in one year? In three years? In five years?
Screw all this, I just wanna win the Powerball and be independentally wealthy for the rest of my life.

General management comments:

Since we all know you’re going to be fired; here’s your one real shot to blame management for your failures. Note to secretary: Please cover this section in white-out before passing on to management. Thanks!
You’re all a bunch of bleepards!

Additional comments:

Any parting words?
Piss off!

Self-Evaluation © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.