I should be docked a day's pay
Nov. 4th, 2002 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisBecause I haven't done shit all day. Well, that's not true. I've been here all day and that counts for something. And I have done about 20 minutes worth of real work. But I have pissed away the rest of the day and I might do the same tomorrow. I have vacation-itis. Which is rare for me.
I am a vacation violator. IBM had a rule that every employee must take at least 10 days of vacation every year (in addition to, I think about 14 holidays). Different IBM locations had different ways of abiding by that rule. Most just ignored it. But the Rochester, Minnesota plant thought it was carved in stone.
Now I am a vacation violator from way back. I have gotten much better as I get older. I don't take vacation days because of mainly two reasons. The first is that I'm afraid I fucked something up and if I'm not there to defend myself and or cover it up fast when it's discovered than my ass is grass. And, the second is that I hate to miss anything. I mean anything. So I tend to accummulate vacation days in a big way.
When I worked at the Rochester plant, it got serious. It was October. I had taken 0 vacation days that year. I had been working pretty much 24/7 on a product announcement since about January. I loved my job and I absolutely did not want to miss one second. I was the communications assistant to the Lab Director, Tom. I was in on the action. Hell, I helped script the action. I was in the know. I was not about to be anywhere else.
This was in the mid-80's and we called Human Resources, Personnel. Tom, as my manager, started getting notices from the head of Personnel about me - the vacation violator. We laughed - a lot. He was a vacation violator, too but his boss was in New York (odd reporting structure). The notices came every week and began to escalate. The Personnel guy we soon took to calling Paul the Prick was not a fun guy (shocking, I know) and Tom was a way fun guy. A battle was a' brewin'.
Thanksgiving. Both my secretary and Tom's secretary (yep, those were the days of secretaries, too) got called by the Paul the Prick's secretary. It was now getting really funny but also beginning to eat up valuable time. I suggested to Tom that I fill out a vacation card and he sign it and we just pretend that I was gone for those days. He would have no part of it. He was getting angry now about the whole thing.
Finally a show down. Tom met with the Paul the Prick in December. He carried with him a letter signed by me that I would be taking a month off in February (after our big January meeting) and going to California. The Prick back down and went away.
In February, Tom moved to California to his new job and I went with him to mine, working for him. They didn't give a shit how many vacation days you took in California.
I am a vacation violator. IBM had a rule that every employee must take at least 10 days of vacation every year (in addition to, I think about 14 holidays). Different IBM locations had different ways of abiding by that rule. Most just ignored it. But the Rochester, Minnesota plant thought it was carved in stone.
Now I am a vacation violator from way back. I have gotten much better as I get older. I don't take vacation days because of mainly two reasons. The first is that I'm afraid I fucked something up and if I'm not there to defend myself and or cover it up fast when it's discovered than my ass is grass. And, the second is that I hate to miss anything. I mean anything. So I tend to accummulate vacation days in a big way.
When I worked at the Rochester plant, it got serious. It was October. I had taken 0 vacation days that year. I had been working pretty much 24/7 on a product announcement since about January. I loved my job and I absolutely did not want to miss one second. I was the communications assistant to the Lab Director, Tom. I was in on the action. Hell, I helped script the action. I was in the know. I was not about to be anywhere else.
This was in the mid-80's and we called Human Resources, Personnel. Tom, as my manager, started getting notices from the head of Personnel about me - the vacation violator. We laughed - a lot. He was a vacation violator, too but his boss was in New York (odd reporting structure). The notices came every week and began to escalate. The Personnel guy we soon took to calling Paul the Prick was not a fun guy (shocking, I know) and Tom was a way fun guy. A battle was a' brewin'.
Thanksgiving. Both my secretary and Tom's secretary (yep, those were the days of secretaries, too) got called by the Paul the Prick's secretary. It was now getting really funny but also beginning to eat up valuable time. I suggested to Tom that I fill out a vacation card and he sign it and we just pretend that I was gone for those days. He would have no part of it. He was getting angry now about the whole thing.
Finally a show down. Tom met with the Paul the Prick in December. He carried with him a letter signed by me that I would be taking a month off in February (after our big January meeting) and going to California. The Prick back down and went away.
In February, Tom moved to California to his new job and I went with him to mine, working for him. They didn't give a shit how many vacation days you took in California.