At the risk of throwing myself at a wall of negativity.. My previous government job had me interviewing clients to determine what kind of assistance they would need post-injury/surgery. ACC, New Zealand's fantastic compensation system. My role was essentially in a glorified call centre, we got paid very well but had to turn over a shit load of clients to meet the expectations. 20 minutes an interview was the expected run-time, I could do it in 4 but the Case Manager who got my interview script would have sweet fuck all to go on, so it wasn't worth the hassle doing calls quickly and answering further questions the next day.

We were measured on all numbers of things - a large flatscreen in our open space office would display something similar to Klein's picture - current call time, current "mode" (if you take a piss, you had to dial 69), number of calls taken and number of calls completed, and if you were on outbound, number of calls made and number of calls connected. They'd track you daily, weekly, monthly and pull you up if things slipped. I made the mistake of learning quickly so my numbers were solid from the get go, but then any lull required a meeting.

We hated it, of course. Being chained to your desk in all ways but physically. I accidentally left myself in toilet break while on a nasty call and it looked like I had just passed out taking a dump somewhere in the building.

Current job? My Performance Review is now based on things a lot less... metric-y. There's no numbers to crunch, it's more a feel for how people think I'm doing. My interactions with others, how involved I am, how quickly I respond to problems or pre-empt them. If you wanted, you could coast in this job and never get a pay-rise or considered for promotion, but you would stick around for a decade. Or until they restructured.. But if you want to get more money, get more involved and offer yourself up to help newbies in different departments - failing money, I have been gifted at least 6 different times with craft beer from a thankful staff member or manager.

Our reviews are personally handled - before the review we get the chance to write as little or as much in the template, and our manager will go over it and add to it as they see fit. I wrote damn pages because I was so involved with things and I wanted to wax lyrical about everything I did. It helped, and my manager agreed with it all. So you are sort of put in the spotlight trying to justify the work you do, but you aren't held to straight up numbers that prove to be a detriment to you doing a good job, so that's nice.

I didn't really answer the question did I..