Tied to the job

I guess, but still. If my mother-in-law died tomorrow, my boss wouldn't know her burial wishes. Granted, mine would say "Go be with your family" so that's easy for me to say from over here.

 

Anyone ever been asked to to cancel a vacation? Happened to me about 10 years ago. I was the slot editor for the business desk, which was a specialized job nobody else particularly liked or wanted. My wife and I made vacation plans three or four months in advance. Scheduling was done by one of the other news desk slots, and he hated the job and didn't put a lot of effort into it, so there was always a lot of scrambling to fill in the gaps in the schedule.

Two weeks before my vacation, the chief news editor calls me in: "We're short-handed and having trouble finding someone to fill in for you. Would you consider rescheduling your vacation?"

Me: "Sure -- as long as the company reimburses me for the prepaid air fare and hotel reservations."

End of conversation.

 

I may have told this here before, but I had an editor who would always ask us what our plans were when we requested time off. It was so she would know how flexible we were if something came up.

That bothered a few of us because we earned the time off and it shouldn't matter what we planned to do with it. Someone else shouldn't get priority because they planned to go out of state and I planned to stay home.

I told a coworker I was going to tell her I was planning to stay home and sit on the couch eating Cheetos in my underwear. We still joke about that.

 

Yeah, that's BS. I'd tell her every time that I was going on a cruise. Not only would she not bother me, after a few times she'd be jealous.

 

I had a vacation planned, hell, I want to say a full year in advance. It was approved at least six-seven months before I went. Less than a month before I left, they fired both sports guys and I did sports layout in the interim (I was in news). Less than a week before I left, I was asked to cancel my vacation because it was the first week of high school football season. I refused, since I was going out of state (except I was driving).

 

I haven't been asked to cancel, but wife has. Back when we were both stupid enough to work at a paper. Me in sports, she in circulation. She was asked the day before we flew across the country to see my family for the first time in two years. Her boss had a meltdown when we refused. Wife started looking for another job immediately, and it started her on an amazing career path.

Recently, my folks asked if I could meet them in Vegas for a few days. Dad wants to see the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon, and it's a 90-minute flight form me. Of course, the trip is in late September. I've been doing this for a little more than a decade, and the folks still don't understand I can't take off during football season.

So I ask the boss anyway, assuming he'll say no. He said yes. Said there are things more important than football. Holy shit. So I'm going.

As someone who is also living far from his family, he's also tired of not being able to take time off when he likes.

I certainly don't disagree with the attitude. There's always something going on (a tournament, a rodeo, a race, etc.) so there's never a good week to take vacation. But we can't work endlessly either.

 

I'm no longer in sports journalism, but that happens at my place.

 

I'm no longer in journalism, but I continue to work on pages at a newspaper.

Journalism left the building a few years ago.