Inconsiderate Considerations

One of the things that really get on my nerves is the degree of inconsideration that some people might reach.

When it comes to leave days where I work, we have a 'USE IT or LOSE IT' policy. Meaning: if you don't use up your vacation days, they will expire by the end of the year. And you don't get to carry any of your leave days over to the following year. And we can't take our unclaimed leave days in cash, (that would've been sweet).

The only problem was that i got to know all these details when I got back to work after the National Day holiday (which we took Sunday and Monday off btw). I was told that i have till end of December to use up 17.5 leave days.

I was like "Great! I am taking 2 weeks off starting tomorrow." It was perfect timing for some time off.

My wife had a knee surgery. And on the same day the Mrs was going thru the procedure in Emirates Hospital in Jumeirah, Baby M was showing signs of a bad flu and I had to take her to her doctor, who is based in Sharjah. (That day deserves a post on its own)

So, I spent the rest of the day pulling together a quick handover document. Tightening up loose ends and wrapping up whatever I can wrap up before I hit home. I stayed till 12 midnight that evening.

That was about a week ago. And in this week when I was supposedly on my personal time off, I had people calling me at 8AM, people from work calling me on Thursday night and Friday morning. I had people SMSing me asking for meetings. All sorts of work related annoyance that you can imagine.

The aggravating part of all this was the fact that my wife was in real pain and could barely move from one place to another, my daughter was going thru a really really bad cold and her cough was so bad I was almost in tears at one point.

It was so bad, my mom flew in from Kuwait to give me a hand with. I also started to feel terrible/guilty for her not leaving the house for almost a week since she arrived from the Airport.

Here I am, going thru all off the above, and then having to have this conversation with someone from the office at 8pm on a Thursday night and who is supposed to be a "senior" manager

Senior manager: person X cancelled the meeting
Me: he postponed it
Senior manager: Why did he postpone the meeting?
Me: He mentioned in his email to you that he was traveling
Senior manager: But I am confused now, when am I supposed to meet him?
Me: Umm .. I don't know, when he comes back maybe?
Senior manager: When will he come back?
Me: He said in one week
Senior manager: But in one week, i will be traveling
Me: (silent)
Senior manager: (silent)
Me: (more silence)
Senior manager: What do you think?
Me: Baby is crying .. sorry, gotta go.

CLICK

I see a full post dedicated to baby sitting managers… stay tuned.