PPR

PPR = Performance Planning and Review... at least it did the last time I bothered to look at what it stands for. It may have changed now. As Scott McCue says, QUT is an acronymathon.

This is a meeting all staff members have, individually, with their supervisor to discuss their performance over the last year and to plan for their work over the coming year. Traditionally I've not really worried too much about these meetings and this year was not much different. I've now had PPRs with three different bosses: Tony Pettitt, Sean McElwain and Ian Turner.

Tony was bizarre. I'm pretty sure we didn't actually follow the rules for about 3 years, but it didn't seem to matter. Sometimes you'd be in his office for the meeting and nothing would be said for about 5 minutes and then he'd walk off to a smaller side office he had back in our previous building. Not knowing what the hell was going on, I'd gradually make my way to the door presuming the meeting was over only for him to reappear asking where you are going. Odd.

Sean was much more normal and very much about the matter at hand. He was quite good actually, really hammering down on what you needed to do to make sure you did your job well and eventually got promoted.

Ian in my opinion has changed over his three years - becoming more of a "coach" in the Kaplanian sense. He tries to get you to do the talking, get you to come around to a plan that both he and you can agree on (in other words, that you are happy to do the work that needs to be done...this is "coaching"). On Friday, this didn't happen - I'm not sure what it was, perhaps he was tired, perhaps I was sharp, maybe both - Ian did most of the talking and not much of it was even about what we were there for (ie planning and review)...mostly we talked about work. He gave me a couple of great ideas though, not important here, but related to PPR. The weird thing was that he just seemed very distant. That concerned me and still is concerning me.

Anyway, I had been feeling rather concerned about my future now that I am no longer the Director of Studies (aka "Promotion in a can"), but I think it's ok... I'm ok with Associate Professor - and besides, who knows what's around the corner in our next new faculty!