When this morning’s alarm clock went off, the radio was saying that Vicki’s place of work was closed because of an overnight ice storm. I looked outside and there was a good half-inch of clear ice on the trees, roads, and my car. And the local news web sites said that the state police were telling people not to drive if they could avoid it.
So I thought about what I’d be doing if I went to work, and it was just working on design documents. I have most of the documents I needed at home, so I thought “screw it” and decided to stay home.
I wanted to email people to tell them that I was going to do that, and I only had a few of their addresses. So I emailed the ones I had, and one of them emailed my new official direct supervisor (even though I really get my job assignments and direct supervision from somebody else, but she signs my time sheets).
She wrote me back. She’s evidently mad that I didn’t follow her new procedure, and phoned her for permission *before* I decided to stay home. In the past, I’ve always been trusted to work at home if I had work that could be done at home, so this seems like a real lack of trust on her part. But then again she’s new to the project and doesn’t know any of us that well – plus she has little to no day-to-day contact with us developers, so maybe she doesn’t know us well enough to know who to trust.
So instead of having a nice day at home where I could work productively but in a relaxed environment, I had to struggle to produce work while worrying if I’d just jeopardized my job.
Just for the record, I got more work done than I would have if I’d been at work.
I was about to WTF? And “What part of “ice day – police ask people to stay off roads if they can” did she not understand, but then I remembered that I have no idea where your official supervisor is located, and for all I know she lives someplace where ice is only something you put in a drink.
But still, assuming the added context of “ice storm” was provided, WTF?
You may very well ask “WTF”, since she sits about 10 metres from me. And today they sent out a “clarification” that emphasizes the official policy that 24 hours written notice is required to *request* to be allowed to work from home. When I said the National Weather Service rarely gives 24 hours notice, she updated that to say that “of course management can/will make exceptions”.
Hello? If there are exceptions, then don’t make the written policy document say that 24 hours notice is mandatory. You can hardly blame people for ignoring the policy document if the managers don’t follow it either.