Performance Review

Two weeks ago, I proposed a little something to spice up our married life: a performance review dinner! So instead of just plain old dinner -- a la date night -- we would review each other's performance the past year as spouses and parents.

I know, you were expecting something more romantic like a surprise gift or some activity involving sand and champagne right? Well, that's not how we roll.

Plus, the one who fared worse had to pay for dinner. We hadn't worked out the KPIs, but we agreed to list all the things the other one has done well and 5 areas that needed improvement. Why five? It's easy to criticise endlessly over the smallest things, so we should at least pick the 5 most important ones we want addressed.

And since we agreed that the PRD would be on Thursday, the review period would be from the time Ju was born until Thursday. We both had to write the list down before going to dinner so we had to use some time to think about it. Perfect. 36 hours to do a little gerry-mandering, you know, offer a free massage (no strings attached) and do the dishes to put Daniel in a nicer mood so he doesn't remember the not-so-nice stuff I've done recently.

So when I sat down and thought about my review of Daniel, this was what I came up with:

THINGS YOU DID WELL WHICH I APPRECIATED
1. Taking care of baby like his bath, diaper duty, bottle-feeding and assisted breast-feeding.
2. Taking leave to stay home with me and baby the first month. That was not only a big help, it made me feel good and that I wasn't the only schmuck at the mercy of Ju.
3. Cooking dinner and doing the dishes when I didn't want to.
4. Doing the dishes when I didn't want to (this one counts as a bonus).
5. Sharing the chores like laundry and cleaning the bathrooms which I hate.
6. Being the one to come kiss me after we've had a fight because I won't do it anyway.
7. Washing your feet when you come into the house and not wearing dirty clothes in bed.
8. Being punctual.
9. Not getting angry (most of the time) when I lose my temper or snipe and snap at you.

THINGS YOU CAN IMPROVE ON
1. You rarely offer to massage me and when I force you to, you could put more effort into it.
2. You still complain too much.
3. Don't drive like a moron (sometimes) and stop saying "chao chee bye" and "fuck" when driving.
4. You can eat less candy and cheese so that I can have some too (the cheese, not the candy).
5. Forgetting that I require meals even if you don't (this applies to when you are out at football or working late)

So we both brought our lists (mine was typed) to dinner and we exchanged them. Here was Daniel's list:

So apparantly I got 4 nods: for being a good Mummy; for being cool with Tobi and his parents staying with us (note: Tobi lived with us for half a year, I deserve a medal for that); for not sulking and resorting to emotional blackmail when he goes to football; and for not blowing up like a whale after giving birth to Juju.

Hmmm. I didn't know what to think for a moment. Number 4 had nothing to do with "performance" per se, since I did nothing to lose weight after my pregnancy, it was all preordained in my genes. I thought 3 pluses was a little stingy, given my 9 accolades to Daniel. Now to the minuses:

I rejected number 1 because I had good reasons to lose my temper; number 2, mood swings go under number one; number 4 is ridiculous and we didn't even have to discuss 5 (my identity card now reads "Mrs Vivien Schmidt" under my original name but that is just so I can enter the European Union with Ju without immigration asking me pesky questions about my relationship to him, as if there is any doubt from the way he looks). 

So we both agreed that I would work on not stressing out over "small things" and keeping my temper in check, and he would work on my list of things he should improve because they were entirely legitimate of course.  

Marriage is really easy if you simply live life the way you did as a single with the exception of sharing a bed and the mortgage. It's much less complicated when you have the resources to subcontract the chores to a low-wage helper, a lot of negotiation and conflict resolution is instantly redundant. But when you've got to make room in your life for a baby who is completely reliant on you for his every need, who develops sleep issues after 7 months of tranquil all-night sleeping, then your relationship is put to a stress-test. 

We are lucky in that we get to go on with our work almost as per normal, as our parents have taken over child-caring so that we can do our jobs with the 100% concentration that other parents who need to contend with day-care arrangements probably can't afford. We are also lucky that we had lived together for 3 years before the baby came along so we've worked out our system for getting along with each other (and each of our inherent idiosyncrasies) and getting things done before the ultimate relationship stress test. We are also lucky to each have a sense of humor so that in spite of all other bad habits, we end up smiling somehow. That's really important, humor.

And of course, the final piece, somebody should usually get their way most of the time in order to ensure a healthy relationship. That's why Daniel paid for dinner that night.