Hints That My Boss Discovered ChatGPT
Sometimes people just want to hear your authentic voice
Something's up with my performance review this year. My manager Dave – yes, the same Dave who consistently hits "reply all" with messages like "done with kid dropoff can someone resend zoom link not seeing it in my calender" to the entire global workforce – has suddenly developed the uncanny vocabulary of a McKinsey associate who moonlights as a poet.
Last year's review was Dave at his peak: "Good team player. Helps others. Meets deadlines mostly." Beautiful in its simplicity, much like his famous all-staff email about the "broke microwave situation in kitchen area."
This year? My review went from normal manager-speak ("Good team player") to suddenly hitting me with "demonstrates unparalleled prowess in facilitating collaborative ecosystems." I had to check the sender twice. This is the same man who once sent the entire department a meeting invite titled "Disscusion about thing from yesterday."
The transformation is stunning. Somewhere between last year's "shows up on time" and this year's "exemplifies exceptional temporal commitment to organizational punctuality objectives," Dave discovered GenAI. The review reads like Shakespeare joined a management consulting firm. Each paragraph is a masterclass in corporate poetry that would make a strategy consultant blush.
Look, I get it. ChatGPT is perfect for crafting those tricky emails that make us all sound like we have our lives together. But performance reviews?
Some conversations deserve the human touch, even if that touch comes with questionable spelling and accidental company-wide emails about missing Zoom links. Because while AI can generate perfect prose about my "exemplary collaborative mindset," nothing beats Dave's authentic "ur doing great keep it up :)" followed by an email explaining that he meant to just send that to me, not the entire Southeast_USA division.
Remember, AI is an amazing tool that's transforming how we work, not a replacement for your personality. Use it to enhance your corporate eloquence, not to hide the wonderfully imperfect human.
Maybe, just maybe, I'd prefer the authentic Dave – typos, reply-alls, and all. Sometimes the most meaningful feedback isn't about demonstrating "unparalleled prowess" but rather hearing your boss say, in their own wonderfully imperfect words, "Hey, you did good this year."
Don't get me wrong, AI is fantastic for many things. But sometimes people just want to hear your authentic voice, even if it's just to say "Thanks for not microwaving fish in the break room this year, you're a real one."
#CorporateLife #AIAtWork #BringBackReplyAllDave