You might recall that I asked originally asked my manager about taking Dec 20th-Jan 3rd off back at the beginning of November. The answer at that point was that it was “too soon to know”.
Well, last night I had a conversation with my coworker Simon, and we both agreed that if I’m going to go home for Christmas, I had better get an answer soon. Ticket prices for the return flight (TPA->YVR) are undoubtedly going to skyrocket soon. “Like, you’d better find out tomorrow.”
Until this point, I hadn’t looked at ticket prices for fear of them rising further while the decision is mulled over by management. Quite frankly I didn’t want to know how badly I was getting screwed. But I allowed Simon to look it up; the way I see it, it’s do-or-die.
Turns out I’m a lucky bastard. $660 through Continental on Travelocity; that low price might be because Simon’s a “preferred member”; if that’s the case, he said, he’d pay for it and I could write him a cheque or something.
So, this morning, moments after my manager walked in, I re-iterated my case. (1) I’d really like to go home for Christmas. (2) I think I’m going to be able to get all my work done. (3) In the event that it’s not all finished, I can work from remote. (4) I think either schedule, or project scope is probably going to slip, taking some pressure off of us.
On points 1-3, he just nodded. On point 4, he shook his head and told me there’s no way schedule is going to slip; at that point, we had to leave abruptly for a one-hour meeting, so I didn’t have a chance to finish. After the meeting, we resumed our discussion, and he explained his point of view.
“Yes, we’ve got a deadline of Dec 20th, but we’ve got a lot to do; and it’s not enough to simply do your part”. To this, I asked, “Well, how do you think I could help out?” “Lots of ways. There’s a lot of integration testing that needs to be done. I think it will be hard to convince management to let me give you the time off. Simon has had his vacation (Dec 16th-3rd) scheduled since the beginning of the year, and without both of you here between Dec 20th to Jan 3rd, we would be very short-staffed if any problems arise during system integration testing.”
This is where I interrupted. Last night Simon told me, if it absolutely comes down to it, he could come in and cover for me. In his words, “the few hours of coverage the company might need — I can certainly come off vacation if it means you can go home.”
This sort of took my manager by surprise. He asked if he could get back to me by tomorrow morning.
So now I wait.