“You’re sick! Go home! If we needed you that damn much we’d pay you a hell of a lot more!”
Put everything in perspective.
Now I remember that when work demands 110%, they are only paying me for 100%. I can give 110%, but I’m going to ask for that 10% someplace else. Comp time - an afternoon off…
(Course, it helps that I’m a “valued” employee and on the special “retention list.” My 90% is apparently better than most of my coworkers 110%. But if the CEO wants you to specially do his Powerpoint presentation, when there are others that could, you are pretty valued and have a little power in the equation)
Libertarian, if I take your meaning correctly, and I 'm not sure that I do, you are correct at a basic intellectual level. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on making a decision based on personal integrity versus a very real risk of jeopardizing my ability to meet real world obligations (mortgage, bills, dependants, credit rating, etc.)
I appreciate all of the encouragement to take a stand but I’m reminded of the humorous epitaph “Here lies Sam. He was dead right.” In other words, years of experience with this man allows me to assure you my only alternative for improvement is a change of employment which I intend to pursue.
I did ask you all to comment on the situation and I want to assure you that all of your comments have expanded my perspective on the situation. Thanks ever.
What’s especially fun is when, after years of only grudgingly allowing you to take part of the leave time you’ve earned, your boss tells you you’ll lose the vacation hours if you don’t take them before the end of the year. Which, of course, you can’t do, since he can’t possibly spare you for two weeks at this time of year.
we have a form to fill in, specifying start and end dates, and number of working days off, as well as a running count of how much entitlement you’ve got left. If my boss doesn’t sign his name in the appropriate space, I’m AWOL
Oh, to be so in-expendible.
Seriously, iff you are as important to the company as your posts have me believin (or at least as your bosses seem to believe), then I think you have the leverage to work this time-off thing out.
Either you ARE as important as they think you are, and therefore they can’t afford to have you quit since it would take far longer to train someone else, or you AREN’T as important as they think you are, in which case they can spare you some time off.
Yes, there’s a gaping logical flaw there (extra points if you can name the logical fallacy I used), but with a good piece of firm BS and a typed-up resume…
You seem like a nice guy, so I’ll give it to you straight: you’ve convinced your boss, over time, that you want to be treated like a weeble.
Your situation sounds so much like the one I had ten years ago that it’s spooky. I held a corporate level management position. My immediate boss was the Senior Vice-president and Chief Financial Officer. His boss was the Chairman, CEO, and President (or as he said, “You can call me God.”)
This CEO was a very tough guy, a Stanford MBA and former Navy pilot. All that mattered to him was profit. He fired two Division Managers when they were late for his first ever company meeting (one by five minutes, the other by twenty). From then on, he fined us $2 per minute for every minute that we were early, and $5 a minute for every minute that we were late.
He had a whole list of rules that befitted his anal retentive, mildly psychotic view of what the corporate world should be like. But he followed them, too. When he was 15 minutes late for a meeting with warehouse workers, he shelled out the cash right there on the spot.
He recognized three kinds of people that he called: (1) pushovers, or people who would fall to his feet and pray whenever he cleared his throat; (2) weebles, or people who would wobble but not fall down; and (3) fighters, or people who would stand up to him and assert themselves. He sized people up very quickly, and treated them in accordance with whether they were a pushover, a weeble, or a fighter. And guess which one he respected.
But before you get the wrong idea, there is a trick to being a successful fighter. Some fighters got fired, even though he respected them. That was because they stood between him and his goals.
The key to being a successful fighter is to be 100% supportive his policiesANDhold him to them.
If he has established a policy for vacation, and you do not hold him to his policy, he sees that as a sign of disrespect and disdain for his policy.
The pushover says, “I don’t deserve a vacation, so I’ll just work on and keep my opinions to myself.”
The weeble (and that’s what you are) says, “I deserve this vacation, but I think I can see why you believe I shouldn’t take it.”
But the successful fighter says, “My vacation is a matter of your policy, and your policy should be enforced.”
He doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether or not you deserve a vacation (or raise, or morning greeting, etc.). All he cares about is that the policies he has established are policies that are for the good of the company. And the people he respects are the people who support them and hold him to them, just as he does.
He won’t fire you for following his policy. And that’s not just because he knows he can’t. (He knows that the fighter will avail himself of higher enforcement powers, like courts, if necessary.) The reason he won’t fire you is that he appreciates your support of and insistence on his policy.
Libertarian, again you are technically correct…almost. I do see myself in your weeble description, much food for thought. However, you did miss the mark on one crucial element. I’m really, really not a nice guy. Rather, I am a really nice woman.
No, nothing you said. It is apparently my cross to bear. When I first arrived here, I thought that DavidB and Gaudere were two male lovers. And my skills at sex guessing really haven’t improved.
