Oh, THAT Meeting. . .I Forgot

It was an odd sound. Odd, yet familiar. I used to hear it a lot. “Used to” meaning in November, before my vacation started.

It’s funny how hard it is to “get into” vacation mode. Sure, we look forward to it, but we often bring along our unfinished agendas and todo lists.

When I worked for Microsoft there were two unique aspects to time off. First, was that managers were evaluated by how much time off their team members took. If your team didn’t take enough time off, you’d get dinged on your evaluation. Managers were pretty motivated to make sure their team members were using their vacation.

The second unique aspect to time off had to do with FMLA time. That’s Family and Medical Leave Act time. It’s 12 weeks that every employee is guaranteed if they need time off to care for family. While at Microsoft I had a child born to us and we adopted kids. Each time I got to take FMLA time. Microsoft was really interested in making sure I didn’t try to work during my time off. They locked my network account and shut off my access badge. I couldn’t work if I wanted to.

My current job isn’t so restrictive. Not only is my access still active, but I’m still on call. I still sometimes have to work. Mostly if we have an outage. And if we have an outage I have to attend a 4:00 pm meeting to explain it. If we don’t have an outage, I don’t need to attend the 4:00 pm meeting.

I’ve gone a couple of days with no outages and therefore no four o’clock meeting.

Funny how I’d almost forgotten what the meeting notification sounded like.

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.

Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com

(c) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved