If loving my boss is wrong, I don't want to be right.

My boss is quite possibly one of the loveliest human beings to ever walk the planet. Really.

So the story starts back about a month ago, when he pointed out that we were about a month behind for my yearly review. He sent me the self-evaluation form and asked me to fill it out and send it back, and we'd squeeze my review in when he got a chance. (He's VERY busy.)

Now, about me and reviews. They are like cryptenite (sp?) to my self confidence and sent me into an irrational spiral of "I'm going to get fired and they're going to want all the money they ever paid me back!". See, the rational side of me says that I've never gotten anything but good feedback from him and everyone else and I know I've done a good job. But that gets drowned out by my own rabidly morbid self-image. I mean, normally, I'm have a really healthy ego, but when it comes to my work, I have this odd little perfectionist streak and think I'll never be good enough at my job.
Its this same issue that I have to thank for all my school honors. My English teacher used to laugh at me, because I'd be standing there begging for more time on my paper, and he'd ask, "Whats that in your hands?"
"My paper, but it sucks, can't just re-write once more?"
"How many times have you already?"
"Uhm, like, 8."
"You know, it's not hard to get you to DO your work, it's hard to pry it out of your fingers once its done. Let it go."
And then he'd give me an A+ and even though I knew I deserved it, I never expected it. Finally my English teacher hung a sign right over my desk, a quote by someone who's name I don't remember, "Give what you have, to some it might seem better than you think." I think that quote was in the back of my mind when I began blogging.

Anyhoooooooooo, so I filled out my review quickly and sent it back before I could second-guess myself. And by 'quickly', I mean I only spent a day, and had only two of my friends look it over. (Thanks guys, by the way.) If I hadn't sent it in right away, I would have re-written it over and over until I'd edited down to just the following sentence. "I suck, please don't fire me, I'll come in early and do more, I swear, although I'm not sure what, since I already do everything I can think to do......."
He mentioned it and I told him that I'd agonized over it after sending it in, he asked if I wanted him to send it back to me so I could re-do it. I gasped, "Heck no, that would KILL me. My agonizing, it's a permanant condition."

So he's a very busy guy and we had to reschedule a couple times over about a month. A month of quiet stomach ulcers and quiet self-pep-talks, "He's not going to fire you. You do a good job." and emotional eating.

Yes, I'm silly, I know.

When he finally put me into his schedule for today, and put it down for an hour long meeting, I almost passed out. "An hour!?!?" I thought to myself, "How long does it take to say, 'Good job'? He's SO going to fire me for ............. something."

So today was supposed to be my review. But he called me and

1.) Postponed my review until Sept. (New review procedures)

2.) Agreed to schedule the review on his own calender, but not to warn me about it until about an hour before hand, so I don't freak out for weeks beforehand.

3.) He gave me a raise. Not sure how much of a raise, I was too floored to ask.

4.) He made the raise retroactive for two months (back to my 1-year anniversary with the company), so that in my next check, I get a lump sum of back raise.

I love him so.