Could’ve Been An Email

I’m one of three Disrupted Operations Supervisors (DOS) for my airline, which means when something goes wrong with a flight at my airport, I’m the final authority. For some stupid reason, headquarters (HQ) decided that at my airport, there has to be a supervisor on duty twenty-four hours a day, even when it’s closed. (I tried to find the logic in this but I gave up.)

I was picked for the night shift — 20:00 to 6:00 — despite my functions, due to scheduling isues.

One day, an executive at HQ summons us DOS to an emergency meeting there on the day of a major holiday, requiring two of us to fly there from our respective bases.

I’m supposed to end my shift and go on vacation that day, so I try to convince HQ to let me video conference in order to save them money and time on my part — both via phone and email with cost estimates. I’m told no way: be there or be fired.

Since the earliest flight leaves one hour after I clock off, I don’t have to actually clock off. I catch the flight — ninety minutes — arrive there, and wait for three hours to have a thirty-minute meeting with a young executive, who tells us he’s our new boss and that we have to run everything by him now. After that, I go to the airport, wait another two hours, catch my flight back home, clock off, and go on vacation.

The cost of this little power trip to the company, you ask?

Total number of my hours: nine hours and thirty minutes paid at twice the usual rate due to the holiday, multiplied by three due to vacation interruption, and multiplied by one and a half for out-of-base work. It came to 2565€.

Travel expenses, including meals: 450€.

So, just because a moron had to have a little moment of dominance over three women, I got an extra 3015€.