Why Is Your Schedule More Important Than Mine?

Due to needing to make the books look a little better at the end of the quarter, my employer decided that everyone in our division would need to take a one-week furlough. To avoid us being able to collect unemployment benefits during the furlough, the company stipulated that we would receive a third of our pay during the time we were out.  

To avoid labor law violations, all employees were instructed to leave their workstations at the office during their furlough and to disable any apps used to check work emails or messages via personal devices. Under no circumstances other than immediate risk to life and limb were we to do anything on behalf of our employer during that week.

To avoid the division being shut down, the furlough period would take place over two weeks, with half the people being out each week. The idea was that managers would arrange it that for critical operations, primaries and their backups would take opposite weeks. Non-critical operations would just have to wait until the correct person was back.

During this time, someone from another division decided he needed a non-critical task to occur on his very specific timeline. He sent me a meeting invite that would occur during my furlough week to kick off his task.  

Coworker: “Meeting request: there was no time available on your calendar that week so I just picked the best time for me.”

Me: “I am unavailable that week due to the furlough. I can meet the week before or after, whichever is easier for you.”

Coworker: “No, it has to happen on the week I selected. I have a strict schedule to keep. I won’t be ready for the meeting the week before, and I won’t be able to keep my schedule if we wait a week. You must attend.”

Me: “I cannot attend your meeting. It is a violation of the terms of the furlough.”

Coworker: “I don’t care that you are out. This is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. You MUST attend the meeting as scheduled.”

I copied my boss on the next message.

Me: “I don’t know what to tell you. Corporate has declared that we are forbidden from doing any work on behalf of the company during our furlough. Your options are before or after but not during that week.”

I then sent a message directly to my boss only.

Me: “If you think this is more important than it looks like, I can change my weeks, but that will leave critical operations A and B with no coverage during my out week since that is when my backups are both out.”

My coworker also sent a message directly to my boss.

Coworker: “[My Name] is being difficult. She must meet with me that week or the schedule is ruined.  

My boss then replied to both of us and my coworker’s boss.

My Boss: “[My Name] is correct that she cannot attend any meetings during that week. You will need to adjust your schedule to meet before or after she is out, or if the task’s timing is absolutely critical, you will need to have your executive VP talk to our executive VP about your department covering her salary so that she can be exempted from the furlough.”

Coworker’s Boss: “The week she returns from furlough is fine. We will adjust the meeting request.”

The “critical” task that my coworker was so worried about? Figuring out the logistics and timing to move a single server I managed from data center A to data center B about 100m down the hallway, something that could have been arranged in a single email and needed no prep for the discussion. Sadly, there were no repercussions against the annoying project manager of “extremely important minor server relocations” for wasting all our time.