Long-winded bosses, asking employees to evaluate themselves and their peers, and other American job nonsense

Ever have a boss who asks you to keep them on track, then when they start droning on about nothing at a meeting and then when you signal them to stop, they ignore you? I would think I’m not the only one.  I guess whatever the boss was saying (I don’t remember anything of what they were talking about) was just too critical for them to say, that they couldn’t stop talking. Some people just need to make themselves feel important, I suppose.

Can anyone tell me what the point is of having workers evaluate themselves? How silly. Someone who is doing an excellent job is going to wonder why you, as a boss, don’t already know that. Someone who is doing a lousy job isn’t going to give themselves a poor rating, obviously (or not obviously to people who think these things up). Instead of self-evaluations why not ask workers what the organization can do to help them improve their skills – which would benefit the organization as well as the employee.

Maybe worse are “peer” evaluations. It doesn’t matter if the evaluations are confidential or not, who wants to work with someone who is critical of them? That’s hardly the best way to develop a “team first” attitude among your workers.

Does anyone have any proof that the above concepts actually do produce positive results in an organization, and I’m wrong? Let’s see it…