Anybody working tonight? Ugh. (Warning-- whiny rant)

Even James Dean is aghast!

 

tried that this year. in fact, well in advance of halloween, i offered to work the entire thanksgiving week, new years eve, new year's day and super bowl sunday (normally an off day for me) if i could get christmas eve and day off. basically, traded in all my holiday's for one.

here's what happened: the request was approved. two guys in our five-person staff had the entire thanksgiving week off. i worked my butt off, especially thanksgiving thursday and friday, and a couple days after thanksgiving, one of our staff announces they are leaving for another job.

by this point, i had already scheduled a three-hour drive home for my families' christmas eve and day festivities. it was to be the first time i had brought my girlfriend of 3 years along with me for the holidays. i had to beg, plead and look like a jerk to get her to snub her own family. a tough ordeal indeed.

lo and behold, the powers that be schedule me to work christmas eve to cover the shift of the person who was leaving. with the exception of one person in the newsroom, nobody responded to my pleads to allow me the day off. and the one person who offered to do my work was blocked from doing so.

so here i sit, disgruntled and pretty much doing nothing. waiting for the final gun in the chargers-broncos game. my holiday plans were ruined. my girlfriend's parents think i'm a dick.

i worked that whole shorthanded thanksgiving week from hell. i still have to work new year's eve and new year's day. my only silly consolation is that i plan someday to tell my coworkers that i'm refusing to work super bowl. at which point, they'll say, "so?"

i seriously considered the upper tank idea, but our toilets don't have them.

sorry for the whiny post. but i needed an outlet. i want to start a blog, something like screwedbyworkingchristmas.blogspot.com or something like that. wht do you peeps think?

hope reading this didn't spoil anyone's holiday cheer. and yes, i know there are people going hungry and less fortunate bla blah blah. i still got screwed and my soul will never be the same.

 

Your soul will never be the same? A tad bit dramatic, aren't we?

 

JDC, it sounds like some seriously unfair management decisions there.

 

Not really. Someone left. Shit happens. The only BS here is that the person who offered to do his shift was rebuffed, but if that person wasn't qualified to JDC's duties (that isn't clear in the post), what were they to do?

The only thing I can think of was to make one of the other people who had been off work, but it's not always that cut-and-dried. Seniority, timing of requests, etc., all play a role in those types of decisions.

Sorry to be so blunt, maybe I was put off by your upper tank idea, which would have punished someone equally as innocent as you make yourself out to be. I'm sorry your Christmas sucked, JDC, but this happens to everybody in nearly any business at some point. Hopefully one of these days karma will pay you back.

A better idea would be to go to management and ask them to give back at least one of the holidays you gave up for them.

 

Good. Fuck them.

 

and Meeerrrry Christmas!

 

tough shit is easy to say and hard to eat.

my duties: i'm laying out the sports section (which technically is not my job.) the person who offered to lay out the section is a designer who worked in sports for more than a year but is perceived to have a limited sports knowledge by management.

my family does a HUGE christmas eve celebration where all the aunts, uncles and cousins meet at my grandma's for a big feast and a massive gift-opening. it's a significant cultural tradition i wanted to intriduce my future wife into. now it will have to wait at least two years because i'm on the hook to go to her family's next year.

maybe i'm being dramatic, but (perhaps irreparable) damage has been done to my relationship over this. i feel like i got hung out to dry when there were other options. but no one cared. would you have any holiday spirit in my place?

 

Seriously, if such damage was done to your relationship over this, you might want to think twice about continuing your career in this business. Working desk for a newspaper (the irregular hours and weekends) can put a strain on any relationship, and if things like this (which, as Bubbler said, happen often enough in the biz) cause that much trouble, a lot more problems are coming your way.

As for holiday spirit, I'm 1,200 miles away from my family tradition, which I haven't been a part of in more than half my life, and right now I'm sitting at the office listening to CDs and watching cable, neither of which I could do if I go home. But, as Annie says, the sun'll come up tomorrow. Sometimes you get fucked over, but that's life. Gotta roll with the punches and try not to get knocked out. OK, my Christmas cliche rant is over.

 

Sure, dude.

 

I can tell you from experience that there's no way in hell I'd put someone incompetent on the desk, especially a sports desk. ESPECIALLY on a slow day. Slow days are easy if you know what you're doing, slow days are a disaster waiting to happen for someone who doesn't. Lord knows what would have been put in your section.

It sucks massive balls that this happened to you, but that's life.

 

Am I the only one concerned about Super Bowl Sunday being considered a holiday?

You don't work in Bristol, Conn., do you?