Work is love, work is life... (where-in I bitch at length about my first world problems)

So I've been at my current company for way too long.

And my supervisors keep trying to get me to take vacation time (even going so far as to create a use or lose scheme to keep me from accruing any more).

But, things being as they are, I've only had one solid period of time off (that being more than a week) since I started here, and that was earlier this year when my father died.

In fact, I've not had a straight week off from any job that didn't involve unemployment, illness, or a death in the family since 1997.

So anyway.

I was supposed to be taking a trip to visit my 82 year old aunt with breast cancer this week. 
I was supposed to leave on Friday, and be back to work next Tuesday.

But.

The flights got screwed up, and after three days of arguing with airlines and sleeping on benches I decided to say 'fuck it' and cancel the trip.

Went in to work and told them I'd be back this Wednesday (as it took a lot of tooth pulling, palm greasing, ass kissing and general chicanery to arrange for this Monday and Tuesday off, and I didn't want to waste the days as I couldn't be sure when or if I'd be able to pull of so monumental a feat again... seriously, almost five weeks of meeting with supervisors, asking people directly, and massaging schedules...)

Now I should say that the big argument that my supervisors use runs along the lines of 'just turn off your work phone and take the damn time already'

So I turned off my work phone on Friday.

And for most of Friday and Saturday, my immediate supervisor sent numerous texts to my private phone asking if the trip was still on.

On Sunday I texted back saying that it was off and I'd be back on Wednesday.

Today I turned on my work phone.  And found messages from three supervisors, two employees in my department, and an employee in another department, all wanting to know when I was coming back, if I was back yet, if I could cover for them, that they wouldn't be there today, etc...

It would have been day 4 of my 12 day vacation, had things gone according to plan.

And I'm already scheduled for a meeting tomorrow to explain why I wasn't available to cover for the unique special snowflake who decided to take an unscheduled 3 day weekend yesterday to balance out the scheduled 3 day weekend he has coming up at the end of the week...

And this isn't new.

A number of years ago I was dating a lady who I had hoped to marry and settle down with.  (she'd even talked me into kids if you can believe it, and I can't stand most of the little fuckers).  Anyway, as soon as my employees and co-workers found out that I was seeing this lady, they went out of their way to call in 'sick' every time I tried to take any sort of time off.  (often resulting in my having to drive back from wherever we were to cover a shift)

I'm still half convinced that one of them was trying to sleep with her while I was at work covering for his skeezy ass.

And it's the same for illnesses.
Family emergencies.
Any of it.

While my father was dying, the first time I got called out of town because the doctors said 'this is it' two managers and an employee used the three days I was in the hospital to work a deal behind my back and reduce my available manpower by 12%.

When he finally did die five months later I couldn't go more than a day without at least one message from work asking me to do something. 

I actually ended up having to go in three days after he died to run something for them.

And in the end they never did give me the company mandated bereavement leave (choosing instead to dock my vacation time for the time I was out, in spite of the fact that HR and the company manual both said that I was entitled to a full week for a first degree relative)


I know I'm not alone in this.

And I'm sure there are lots of folks who have it worse.

And I'm aware that this is the new business model.


Expect a master degree and 10 years experience for a $25,000/yr entry level job.

Run people non-stop.

Punish and or chastise them for not taking the agreed upon vacation time.

Contrive a way to steal said accrued vacation time.

Punish and or chastise them for taking what time they still have available.


And people wonder why the unemployed stop looking for work.

(to the point that they've had to change the official definition of unemployment... if you look at any of the federal reports from about 2005 on you'll see that 'unemployment' is no longer a representation of people who are unemployed and looking for work, but is now a representation of the number of people actively collecting unemployment [which runs out after about six months].  This, of course, is done because it wouldn't do for the general public to know that we're currently running about 21-26% unemployment, instead of the 7% that they keep quoting on television when the powers that be want to bullshit us into thinking that the economy has improved)

People wonder why the country is tearing itself apart.

Why nothing is getting done.

Why it seems that an entire nation is going insane...


Oh well,

Guess I should grab a shower and a shave.

I expect a phone call any minute now...

Happy vacation to me!