The Annual Friendship Performance Review

Write your friend a performance review. Not for their job — for their performance as your friend, over the last twelve months. You are the reviewer. The review period is the year you just spent together.

Use the whole apparatus: a competency framework, a five-point scale, dated evidence, a signature line. Rate Responsiveness (Texts) at Meets Expectations and Responsiveness (Plans) at Needs Improvement. Split Listening into Active and Waiting to Speak, and score them honestly. Note the birthday: Meets Expectations, late card noted. Every rating carries one line of evidence, and the evidence is accurate — that's what makes it a review and not an accusation.

Close with development areas ("initiating plans rather than approving them"), a goal for next cycle ("one unprompted phone call per quarter"), and the acknowledgment line the document prints across the bottom:

Signature indicates receipt of this review, not agreement with its contents.

Overall rating: Valued Contributor. That part is sincere. They are valued — you've now got it in writing, on file, calibrated. They'll read the whole thing twice before they say a word, and the next review cycle has already started.