More tales from vacationland
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My boss's wife probably had a miscarriage—her second. She goes in tomorrow to confirm. She was fairly far along this time; at least enough that they felt comfortable making an announcement about the pregnancy.
He asked our HR person about our bereavement policy, and copied our dept head on the email. He got word back, and then said he'd be out for half of today and tomorrow to be with his wife at the doc's. Filed for leave, dept head signed off, said no problem in writing.
He proceeds to get about a dozen emails and phone calls from the dept head about work shit until 730pm tonight. In one such exchange, a group of folks were trying to plan a live virtual meeting tomorrow. Without knowing my boss's situation, another person offered to run and moderate the meeting. Dept head, 3 hours after signing off on my boss's leave, told the group no that's okay, my boss will do it. He'll be available. So now he has to decide what he's going to do. (He's going to be with his wife of course but for fuck's sake. )
Just to be clear, there's no one to talk to about this. Absolutely no one cares.
I suggested that maybe it's time to tell people outside the organization, but I have no idea what that would look like. I doubt there's much to do.
He's going to be called out for negligence tomorrow, guaranteed.
@Aqua-Letifer said in More tales from vacationland:
"bereavement policy . . . "
There is something bizarre and awful about this very phrase, and as soon as I wake up I'm sure I'll figure out what it is.
" . . . dept head signed off, said no problem in writing . . .
Dept head, 3 hours after signing off on my boss's leave, told the group no that's okay, my boss will do it."Wut? How could something like this even happen?
Your boss kept the written "no problem" memo, I hope.
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@Mik said in More tales from vacationland:
You work with idiots.
Yeah, but they're so dumb it's hard to diagnose which kind.
@Aqua-Letifer said in More tales from vacationland:
@Mik said in More tales from vacationland:
You work with idiots.
Yeah, but they're so dumb it's hard to diagnose which kind.
Well a few weeks ago I'd say it was a pretty clear diagnosis of Covidiocy. Now it seems like it's General Idiocy, which is far harder to cure.
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Oh, here's another fun one: we started up this ad-hoc task force with another organization. Has 5 members, of which my boss is one. By the way, he was born in Germany.
During the first virtual meeting, when introductions were made, a woman from the other org asked my boss, "so you're their resident Kraut, right? You're the Kraut?"
Awkward laughter.
Then she showed some WWII photos of Poland on the webcam. I shit you not, she said, "you see this? That's what you destroyed, That's what we all had to build back up."
Laughter and a polite suggestion that that might not be very appropriate.
He did tell HR about this. HR said they'll look into it. They of course have not and neither has anyone else.
I keep telling him he needs to just quit.
@Aqua-Letifer said in More tales from vacationland:
During the first virtual meeting, when introductions were made, a woman from the other org asked my boss, "so you're their resident Kraut, right? You're the Kraut?"
Then she showed some WWII photos of Poland on the webcam. I shit you not, she said, "you see this? That's what you destroyed, That's what we all had to build back up."
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@Aqua-Letifer said in More tales from vacationland:
"so you're their resident Kraut, right? You're the Kraut?"
Insert any other group, preferably with a racial overtone, and see what happens, amirite, spearchucker?
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Wow!
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You should ask her point blank “are you the Polack? You the polack here?”
And then point to pictures of Kielce or some equivalent massacre of Jews by polish citizens and ask her to account for it.
@jon-nyc said in More tales from vacationland:
You should ask her point blank “are you the Polack? You the polack here?”
And then point to pictures of Kielce or some equivalent massacre of Jews by polish citizens and ask her to account for it.
Well, for crazy reasons, it was more about hatred for my boss's Germanic background; the Polish stuff was just a way to manifest it.
Think of the logistics, though: she had to print those images out ahead of time, before the meeting. And she'd never spoken to him before, but other people at our organization had. He doesn't have a German-sounding name.
So, somebody in our office "tipped her off." They had a conversation about my boss's background, and likely complained about it.
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At our place, we'd refuse to work with somebody external who behaved like that, and if she was internal she'd be spending large amounts of time with HR before you could say 'sensitivity training'.
If she went to that much trouble prior to the meeting, this stuff must rule her life to some extent.
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At our place, we'd refuse to work with somebody external who behaved like that, and if she was internal she'd be spending large amounts of time with HR before you could say 'sensitivity training'.
If she went to that much trouble prior to the meeting, this stuff must rule her life to some extent.
@Doctor-Phibes said in More tales from vacationland:
if she was internal she'd be spending large amounts of time with HR before you could say 'sensitivity training'.
Our HR person once complained about how smelly Asians were. It's also been told to me by many that prior to my starting work, they fired someone on disability by removing her position and then hiring someone else with a different job title a month later. My understanding is that the woman was on maternity leave.
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It's like you work in bizarro world. Where I work everybody would bend over backwards to support the person.
@Horace said in More tales from vacationland:
It's like you work in bizarro world. Where I work everybody would bend over backwards to support the person.
That's the way it is in normal, healthy organizations. I suspect they may be more difficult to come by near our nation's capital.
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There are some horrible companies out there. My SIL was let go whilst being treated for a serious illness, and then again when she asked for a reference as she was adopting a baby as they didn't want to give her the maternity leave.
