to tell my boss she is very mistaken?

[MatarPaneerYUMYUM]

Sigh.

Had a very difficult year at work with all sorts of s**t hitting the fan, reorganisation, relocation, you name it, nothing has gone smoothly. I would jack it all in tomorrow if I could, but cannot find anything else with same salary, hours, perks and so on.

My (new-ish) boss has put on my appraisal that she thinks I am much happier than I will admit to. Am a combination of at this as nothing could be further from the truth - I bloody hate every minute.

I am torn between wishing to tell her exactly how I feel, and thinking it would be career suicide.

There are ways and means of saying these things at work. Do you know what could be put in place to make you happier? If so suggest these changes. Going in and saying you hate your job and are miserable never goes down well!

Erm...can't say as I'd advise telling your boss you hate your job, no.

Sympathies. I am similar, just hanging on in there to see if things improve. I think you have to think tactically at this point and, whatever you do, don't speak the truth until you are sure it won't rebound on you.

When it comes to appraisal or performance management, I think it is always best to remove emotive comments and judgements. I would always ask the colleague What do you think about... What's your view on... How do you perceive that has developed... etc. I avoid feeling comments and quotes because of its subjectivity.

Therefore, you could go back and work on the appraisal from an objective, emotion free viewpoint. It is not your manager's place to judge your "happiness" at work within an appraisal. By all means talk about happiness in a general sense at other times, but not within appraisal.

I'm not sure I even understand her point.

Is she saying that you're pretending to be miserable, that it's all an act?

Sorry if I'm being dim but I have never in all my years of being appraised or doing the appraising heard that comment.

As a manager, I would prefer my team to tell me if there were things I could do to change the situation if they were unhappy.
I have had people moan to me about things I couldn't change, and then it all felt like a waste of their and my time.
But yes - if there was something as a boss I could help with, I would want to know.

Think about your approach. A "I hate this place and every body in it" approach wont go down as well as "recently, I have been unhappy and x/y/z has been bothering me".

I don't understand her point either Tippi. But yes, the implication is that I love it really despite appearances to the contrary. I feel narked at being misread in this way and I suppose that's what it boils down to. So probably no point saying anything. I have made many constructive suggestions over the years but they're mainly ignored, ours is a huge multinational and often there's not much we can do to change things, it's very top-down management.

Why is your perceived happiness or lack of it a subject for your appraisal? Is it affecting how you do your job? If not, I think it would be in order for you to ask her to remove the comment. You don't need to go into whether she's right or not: the point is that it's a conjecture about your state of mind and not relevant or appropriate in an appraisal.

If you had a trusting relationship and you thought that confiding in her was going to make things better then there would be a point in talking through your dissatisfaction and how things at work might change to make you happier. But it doesn't sound like that's the case in which case, least said the better. Asking her to remove the comment on professional grounds will probably signal to her that all is not well without you having to say anything that might have a negative effect on your career. Good luck.

Maybe it's to protect her back?

If you leave and tell them at your exit interview how miserable you've been she might get a rollicking for not spotting that or doing anything about it. Perhaps by writing this in your appraisal she can say that you weren't really all that miserable.