Do you think I am wrong?

I had a meeting on past Saturday (10th of February) with my immediate reporting manager. The meeting also comprised few more participants, all of them my teammates, except a female HR. Though I love the kind of meeting where constructive discussions are basically the theme talk-points, not a place of “you stand corrected” disparage, but this one was way beyond what I tend to call - effrontery. To my ego, self-esteem.

If I say it deeply bruised my ego, that won’t be an exaggeration.

The reason the meeting was scheduled related to performance evaluation of each employee participated in it. It was actually KPI (key performance indicator) of everyone for which the meeting was held. We were asked to explain our performance delivery on a daily basis. The condition was - we had to vindicate if our output was actually not conflicting the performance parameters set forth by the management. Though some of us explained their standpoint (hesitatingly though), when it came to my turn to explain my KPI, I simply expressed my inability to comply.

Believe me, I could not understand even the purpose of such questions. But then again, I humbly put forward my viewpoint, explaining that my performance as a content writer must not be evaluated on the basis of their machinery timeframe. That said, my point was creativity should not be confined to specific time zone, for it would jeopardize congeniality of it. 

I was also asked to explain my stand as to how come I rated my skill sets 10 out of 10. Well, that was something I embarrassingly denied to acknowledge, as me too believed I just over-rated my skill set. 

But then again, what supervened afterwards in the meeting was disdainfully awful.

Here are the dialogues that supervened between me and my reporting manager (imaginary name X) and the lady HR (she's the wife of Mr. X and works in another company. She frequents this company where I work just to implement certain HR policies, including the one for which the meeting was held) –

X – Guys, the purpose of this meeting is to demand explanation from you regarding your key performance indicators. You are to explain your skill sets and convince us how the company should judge your performance output on a daily basis?

(Since I was the first one to explain, I, therefore, came forward to put forward my points).

Me – While I appreciate you asking me to explain my KPI, I can’t, however, find it appropriately relevant to my situation. You see I write content that involves brainstorming thoughts and ideas, curation of information from different sources on the internet, and then I write based on those inputs evaluated by me. So, basically it is a time-consuming process and so must not be confined to specific time zone, though I try my best not to do writing in a more-than-required timeframe.

HR (interrupting me) – Well, that’s understood you work hard to write an article or a blog, but still we want to know how your work should be judged in terms of daily output or anything that you would like to elaborate to us? Let’s just say, for example, you write 100 articles in a month, 20% of them get rejected by clients, 30% don’t yield engagements. In that case, how should we measure your performance yield based on your skill set? What parameters you have on which you base your skillset?

Me – Well, for starters, I fail to understand the parameters as I have not determined such things as yet. Because I do writing, I can’t tell you exactly how many articles I would deliver in a given timeframe. Sometimes some articles get completed faster while some take time, subject to the nature of the assignments. That said, most articles or blogs are research-sensitive; they take time as curation on substantial measures is involved. In simple terms, some write-ups take a lot of time to get done as I have to set all loose ends like grammar, contextual setting, placement of keywords in a right order, and so on.

X – I don’t know what you’re driving at. Can you be specific as to in what way you let us judge your KPI?

Me – I told you I can’t. The reason is – I don’t know how to judge my craft to your satisfaction. Just because you believe that some clients had disapproved my articles doesn’t necessarily mean to question my skillset. At least, in my viewpoint, I am efficient, and I understand what it takes to jot down words to make a quality write-up. It’s overall a time-consuming process. I do my best and do a lot of proofreading before submitting the done article to the client for approval. If the client disapproves it, I seek valid reasons on which it was disapproved. I request the client to highlight those issues which, according to him, make the article sound bad to him. What else am I supposed to do than that?

Frankly, I can’t answer your questions with certainty. To complete writing is entirely subject to time convenience, if I am to be specific to you.

X – If your work is not under parameters, we can’t evaluate your performance. That means no reward on your salary appraisal.

Me – I didn’t ask you appraise me, sir. But I can’t give you a definite answer that you judge my performance on certain parameters about which I am clueless and can't use to have my skill judged. Also, delivery of content in a specific timeframe can fluctuate based on the intricacy of topics involved. Problem is, the clients have rejected those articles which I wrote while simultaneously handling other key interdepartmental content tasks based on their priority consideration. Quality performance demands sufficient time and thinking. It needs to be done as opposed to a permissible time limit.

X (irritatingly) – I think you don’t understand your KPI at all. Go and use Google to find out KPI of content writer. If you don’t find it, (I sensed his scorn on me), I will let you know.

Me – That’s fine. But still I tell you that if there is such thing for a writer, I won’t approve it. Because my profession is not supposed to be perfectly consistent with those preaching about content KPI. For instance, if few of my articles are rejected by your client citing the reason that they did not understand the content or the content was ungrammatically written, that’s fine. I understand that. However, it should also be seen that how harder it was for me to create those articles while simultaneously handing in-house operations regarding content. If I am supposed to write content just for the client, believing it goes straight to his pedantic overview in anticipation of final consent, then, in that case, I must be given the carte blanche (freedom) not to undertake other assignments until those assigned by clients are done and sent to them for approval.

Finally, the meeting was concluded with the scornful outlook of my manager who sent me out of the meeting, commanding me to search more information about content KPI on Google. Yes for me, it was an outright effrontery.

Please share your overviews to let me know if I stand corrected under the situation unfolded in the meeting room with participants and my boss. According to my experience as a writer, I wholeheartedly believe that to create a good content, a writer has to brainstorm good ideas, curate relevant information from Google, and then write an informative article. Yet the process gets done in (sometimes in a week) one or two days, depending on the nature of content to be written. Sadly most companies in India, run by their pedantic and over-critic management team, don’t understand this.

Their thinking is if you are a content writer, you can write anything. Or you are supposed to write anything in any genre. You can be told to write sports news, content on health and technical things, apart from medical science, technology, finance, entertainment and many more. Once I was told to write content for a client involved in the stock market business. I wrote the content but the client was dissatisfied, saying the content stood no meaningful consistent with his wants. On being requested to elaborate me on his wants, he simply fumbled for words. Then I got this understanding – most clients are not well-read to explain their want comfortably and accurately.

I was enraged with the insult I felt there in the meeting. I was hurt how could someone have such a callous disregard for writing? Alright, I understand I am not perfect. I get that I wrongly overrated myself. I also understand clients reject my articles. However, why don’t people just try to at least spare a considerate thought as to the amount of intangible work pressure a writer has to go through before creating a content? Sometimes I believe I made a sin of being a content writer. Why? Because people who you work with (colleagues) and guys in upper management barely understand the enormity of mental pressure your work demands. They simply assume – since you are designated as a content writer, you are master of all trades.

I have not enough time to describe everything here about writing fearing it would make this grievance of mine a hell of a discursive subject on writing. To conclude, I solicit your feedback and let me know is it good to work in such environment where you are simply treated as a machine. On top of that, do you think is it wise to be judged good or bad based on the parameters set forth by your manager or you are forced to create such parameters by yourself? I mean in writing, is it even remotely possible?

I will never buy the logic that writer should work in a machine-confined framework. That's folly. More so, to keep everyone happy with your writing is also not possible. At least, I can't please everyone.

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