[12:13pm]
Haven’t gotten a chance to talk to my manager yet; I’ll try this afternoon.
[update: 3:14pm]
Caught him as he was getting ready to leave (he was going house shopping). So apparently the CEO said there’s a 90% chance the company will close, but there’s no definite answer yet. I pondered out loud to my manager. “So it’s a bit of a gamble.” “It’s a bit of a gamble,” he said back. He had to leave quickly; he asked me to call him on his cell later if I wanted to talk about it more.
[update: 5:52pm]
My manager’s manager — Nigel — stopped by today and had a couple pieces of news. First, the software department might be getting another person soon! Alright!!
Second, Nigel said it’s “almost a sure thing but there’s no guarantee” the company will be closing between Christmas and New Year’s. So, hmm. Now I’m somewhere between 90% and a sure thing.
I called my manager on his cell to speak to him about this and a couple of other things; unfortunately, got the voice mail, so I only talked about those other things. I’m going to call when I get home.
[update: 6:55pm]
Got a hold of him on his cell. Unfortunately, he told me couldn’t say for sure if I could go yet. He did recommend I do something I hadn’t investigated yet: check the ticket cancellations policies. He told me that some airlines give up until 48 hrs before the flight to cancel without penality.
He also said to “tell your family I’m not a bad guy; I just don’t have the full authority here.” Apparently he’s in the same boat as I am. His sister is going to be in Miami over Christmas; they haven’t seen each other for four years. If we don’t get the time off he won’t be able to see her either. Although most of the remaining issues regarding the product relate to the hardware side of things, if something unexpected goes wrong, all of us — hardware and software — might need to be back here.
He added that it’s very likely that our CEO is going to make a formal announcement at the Christmas dinner that’s happening next Thursday. That’s a quite the wait; I’m going to look into those refundable ticket prices/policies when I get home.