By now you'll be tired of other people's snow day stories. So I won't bore you with mine as I didn't really have one. Got up, no trains, tubes or buses, the car was snowed in so Mrs F-C and I stayed home.
To be honest, I was bored to sobs. She was hogging the computer, working, and I couldn't go anywhere, do any itunes stuff or ebay etc, so I watched endless DVDs (Misery, a great snow film, much like The Shining) and put away clothes. I'm quite good usually filling my time, but yesterday was severely limiting.
It would be different if I lived in the heart of the country. We could go out walking in wonderment. It's not really like that in south London, though I do always enjoy the silence that snow brings. It was pretty, I'll give it that. but then it gets all nasty and sludgy and I'm back at work today watching everyone struggle in from Dagenham and Brighton.
I recall 1991, the last time it was like this. We were all sent home from work at lunchtime and didn't go in for the next two days. I didn't even bother to phone in, it was a given. Things have changed. Look at this email a friend forwarded on. Some people get it all out of perspective. There's only one word for this guy... Names have been changed to protect the dull.
From: The Boss
To: The Team
Sent: Mon Feb 02 14:26:13 2009
Subject: Normal Working Hours
Dear All
We are working normal office hours today (xxx will be providing reception cover, because xxxx in its wisdom is shutting the front desk).
If anyone is worried about getting back today because you live in particularly a difficult/distant area could you come and see me personally and I will give a sympathetic hearing to a request to leave early on a case by case basis.
I am expecting everyone to make a big effort to get in tomorrow, by which time I hope our transport system may have learned how to cope with some seasonal weather!
If you believe you cannot make it - could we either agree a relevant work programme for you with team leaders or let you take the day as holiday.
Many thanks
The boss
8 comments:
Nice one. I suppose The Boss lives in a flat two streets away from the office then?
Alone, obviously.
I quite lost the will to live reading that.
"a relevant work programme". Super.
I got two sets of three (home phone, mobile, home email) creepy automated messages from an American robot woman telling me that the weather conditions had made public transport "inconsistent" so not to bother. Inconsistent with what, exactly? Curious, and slightly Big Brother (as in Orwell, not Endemol). Especially the one at 10.30 last night. WAY past the cut-off...
I made it in, but we were allowed to bail after 1pm. I overheard someone on the train home telling a friend, how she'd walked out after being told staff were expected to stay on and sleep in the office overnight.
What gets my goat is the way the news media make ludicrous pronouncements about how many millions (billions?) the disruption has cost the economy.
On a basic level, surely if you were going to buy something in a shop yesterday and couldn't get there, you'll go today instead? Similarly, businessmen who would have flown to meetings yesterday will rearrange and fly another day. You get the idea.
I don't deny there's an effect, but it's not as if all this money has suddenly disappeared from the economy, never to reappear.
God, I love not having a boss.
The boss from Hell, that's for sure. I agree, ITV, I don't see why a couple of no shows at work should cost billions of pounds to the economy. Work still gets done.
Think you’re all being a bit unfair here. OK, her/his way with words leaves a little to be desired, but is it really that unreasonable to expect that the people you employ make an effort to do some work in return for being paid?
She/he acknowledges that some people may have difficult journeys home and says they will allow them to leave work early if necessary. That sounds perfectly reasonable enough to me. The rest can get the tube, bus or walk home. Diddums.
She/he also recognises that the next day’s journey may be awkward, and says – admittedly in a rather cackhanded way – that they will look at ways of them working from home for the day. What exactly is wrong with that?
At the same, though, she/he lets it be known that those workshy sods who can’t be arsed to walk a few miles or get up a little bit earlier and are just looking for an easy excuse to stay at home and watch DVDs and tidy up their wardrobe might want to think again. Again , this sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
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