My Cats Conducted A Performance Review For My 2 Year Old Son And It Was Brutally Honest

Please take a seat.

Thank you for joining us today.

It’s been 2 years since you joined us. We decided to forego the performance review in your first year as everyone needed to adjust to your arrival. We have to say that you have made quite the impact here. You have displayed some strengths but also some areas for improvement but, if we’re being honest, your performance has gone downhill since you arrived. In your first year, we appreciated the fact that you kept to your own space as you navigated your new surroundings. But that is no longer the case.

We have my co-cat counsel (CCC) joining us today. He has voiced some concerns over your performance and I thought it would be a good idea to have him with us so he can articulate these concerns.

We’ve based your performance on 3 main categories:

• Quality of work;
• Ability to work collaboratively with others; and
• Communication skills

Quality of Work

Sleeping (Needs Improvement)

We prioritize sleep over everything else. This was made very clear when you first came onboard. Ideally, you would sleep about 15 hours during the day. We’ve noticed a considerable decline in this. In the last few months, you have only managed to sleep 2–2.5 hours during the day, some days even less. While you do manage to sleep about 8–10 hours at night, that still falls short of the required minimum 15 hours for us cats. Sleeping is a vital part of your development here so we do recommend that you try to sleep earlier and wake up later whenever possible.

Petting (Needs Improvement)

Your petting skills are somewhat to be desired. When you have some time, please shadow your colleagues as to how this should be done. Petting requires gentle strokes, preferably from head to tail and not the other way around as you’ve been doing it. It also does not involve any kind of tail pulling, body slaps, or petting with the feet.

We have high hopes for you in this area. You can perform even better than your colleagues if you put in the effort to learn the proper technique. Once you have mastered this very technical skill, you could be promoted to the petting of the belly which is very important if you want to advance in this organization.

Playing (Exceeds Expectations)

You have performed beyond our expectations in this area. There are days when it seems like you play non-stop. We appreciate your enthusiasm, energy, and creative ingenuity in this area. You have demonstrated that nothing is off limits.

We also appreciate that you make the effort to include us in your activities. Many employees would not feel comfortable with their bosses watching over them as they play and even less would try to include us.

While you have exceeded our expectations in this area, there are still some areas of improvement:

You are not fully aware of your speed and you have on occasion lost balance. We, cats, pride ourselves on having great balance, agility, and prowess when we move. Need I remind you of the time you tried to hug my CCC but lost your balance and did a full body slam on him instead? He is still traumatized from that event. However, that was a one-time occurrence and we haven’t seen anything like that again so we appreciate that you learned from that experience.

As mentioned, thank you for trying to include us in your play time. However you need to learn to read the mood of your audience, as they say. For example, if you see us busy sleeping, that is not a good time to invite us to play as we are on a tight deadline to meet that 15 hour sleep target.

Working Collaboratively

We pride ourselves on our ability to work collaboratively with each other. We operate on a you lick my ears, I lick yours kind of mentality.

Milk sharing (Needs Improvement)

To start off, this is not just you. This extends to the entire office. We don’t understand why this is the case but your colleagues will not share any milk with us either. We have read that milk can be bad for our digestive systems, however, you need to be able to think critically and independently about things you find on the Internet. We would appreciate full bowls of milk rather than having to jump up on the countertops to find potential milk splatters that haven’t been cleaned up yet. We will have this conversation with your coworkers as well.

Grooming (Shows Improvement)

You have tried to do your part in this area and have attempted to lick us on a few occasions but, for some unexplained reason, your coworkers always stop you. Because of their interference, we’re not able to fully evaluate your grooming abilities. Based on what we’ve observed lately, you seem to be making a real effort in this area. The fact that you constantly have your tongue out, trying to groom Alice’s face when she holds you, is a true testament to your commitment to improve in this area.

Keep at it.

Snuggling (Exceeds Expectations)

You have exceeded our expectations in this area. This is a real strength of yours. Your ability to be picked up and snuggled by your coworkers never ceases to amaze us.

Keep up the good work.

Communication Skills (Needs Improvement)

Your communication skills are lacking in several areas. Your “meows” need some work. It’s a hard language to learn as there are a lot of tones involved but your ability to learn this is crucial for your development here. When you add extra “eee”s or not enough “eee”s in your “meows”, it can misconstrue the meaning of what you are trying to say. In fact, there were a few occasions when they were downright insults.

Lately, we have also noticed that you have tried communicating by flailing about and screaming at the top of your lungs. Your colleagues seem to respond to that kind of communication tactic but we noticed that it is not particularly well received.

If you want to advance your skills as a top cat communicator, you need to learn to use your meows in a more effective manner. Being the loudest does not always work. As you work on your meows, some other acceptable forms of communication tactics you could try are rubbing against their legs incessantly or flashing them your butthole while they eat in order to get their attention.

Overall rating — Needs Improvement

Overall, there are areas for improvement. It can be hard to adjust to a new environment but given that you have been with us for 2 years, we expected an improvement from your first year rather than a decline. We do see potential in you. If you take this performance review and our suggestions seriously, we fully expect a turnaround come your next performance review. We definitely want to help foster your growth here.

Thank you for your time today and if you need anything, you can usually find us sleeping on the couch or on the ounters.

Can you please send Alice in for her performance review now?

Original article published on Medium.