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chuck woolery

Performance Review and future planning time...

by chuck woolery at 04:30 PM on March 25, 2004

Ah, spring is here, and a young man's thoughts turn to the annual ritual of the government performance review. Well, amongst other thought anyway.

I went through this process this morning, with a 1/2 hour casual meeting with my Chief Crown. A fascinating experience, mainly because the supervision in my office is, at best, lax. The nature of my work is such that, left to our own devices, the work in the office gets done relatively efficiently. Other offices withing my province are run in a much different manner (read: micromanaged), but not mine.

Most of the comments / contents of the performance reviews are generated from brief glimpses, self-reporting and offhand comments from fellow (more senior) prosecutors. All in all not a bad way to go. My boss apparently is quite happy with me, so the next few months (or years) should be relatively smooth jobwise anyway..

So for the next 6 months I have the following experiences to look forward to:

A week in May in a nearby major city learning the intricacies of sudden death investigations. This course should be particularly fun as it is hosted in a hotel that has one of the best, sleaziest, strip bars across the parking lot from it.

A three day conference in my home city that prosecutors from across the province will be attending. There are some young, cute (female) prosecutors in some of the other centres… And me with a girlfriend. Oh well.

A week in June in another nearby major city taking a course on Intensive Trial Advocacy, basically a course for refining techniques in examination and cross-examination as well as related presentation skills. Should be fun…

A week in early August in a resort town in the mountains for other educational experiences. This, unfortunately, is my last year on this three year program, so I won’t have this to look forward to next year. I do have a interesting story or two from last year’s that I’ll try and put up as a post sooner, rather than later. Again, with some of those cute prosecutors.

Somewhere in there I will have to find some time to take a few vacation days, I have 2 ½ weeks built up that I will need to take…. Hmm…

Nice to be coming out of the midwinter work stretch… Anyone else have anything interesting on their professional plate for the coming months?

comments (9)

yeah dude, i'm quitting soon and touring grad schools. whooopee!

best of luck keeping your hands off the strippers at that flea-bag, thong joint across the street.

by lajo at March 25, 2004 4:51 PM


Yeah I assume the GF won't be around and if so who's the wiser?

But I'm more interested in the performance appraisal of a prosecutor. I used to be in a position where I was judged by my performance in the litigation arena. This had the effect of encouraging me to settle iffy cases out of court. Same in Canada?

by anna at March 25, 2004 8:12 PM


I have 30 days of vacation built up and I need to start using it. I also got one of my layout designs published in Step into Design magazine.

by MrBlank at March 25, 2004 11:03 PM


I have two industry certification courses next month. The pass rate is around 30%. If I pass both I'll be one of ten people worldwide who hold both of them. I'm looking forward to that. Then in June is my industry's trade show in Atlanta. I get to hang out with Linz and Sean! Yaaaaa!

by Ezy at March 26, 2004 9:50 AM


Congrats on the good review--- looks like you have some interesting stuff coming up.
My office is a really odd combination of really lax management and micromanagement. Every few weeks, my boss decides that she needs to know how everyone does everything, and that our processes are all wrong. So, she talks to all of us and leaves us all alone for a month or so. She drives us nuts.
As for things coming up on my professional plate, I'm going to quit my job, travel around Central America (definitely Nicaragua, maybe Honduras, maybe Costa Rica) and look for a job around there. I'm excited.

by Leaffin at March 26, 2004 9:58 AM


I'll be graduating Junish, but if I decide to walk, will be donning the robe in May. That'd be pretty exciting. That'll also mean I'm going to have to find a job, which I guess counts as an exciting professional thing.

by mg at March 26, 2004 9:59 AM


that's funny mg.....you didn't look like a June.

by lajo at March 26, 2004 12:38 PM


i just had my performance review last night...basically, i just went down to the bar on the corner and slugged back bombay and tonics w/ the boss. she's a very hands-off manager, which is perfect for me. leave me alone and i'll get my shit done. fun stuff in the coming year will be taking classes to learn new stuff...mostly locally, but with a bit of luck i might be able to swing taking a class out of state or even out of country. we'll see.

by JC at March 26, 2004 12:49 PM


My evaluation has nothing to do with my win loss percentage or the like. The government doesn't seem to track that.

They do track less directly attributable things, like the time it takes a case to go to trial, or the the amount of applications for samples of DNA we ask for, stuff like that. Those concrete things don't come up in our reviews though... hmmm....

Anyway, I still have an hour left in my workday to get a couple more things done, before I head off to work on the list of things my girlfriend has for me for the weekend.

by chuckwoolery at March 26, 2004 5:27 PM