I do media development (video production, graphic design, etc) for online classes, and our team has been working from home since covid. The only time we have to come into the office is if we have a video shoot at our on-site studio.
I love working from home, especially because I’m not micro-managed. I go to meetings, get my work (which is always high quality) done on time, and am reachable during business hours; I also don’t log on until 9:30 or 10, go to the gym and run errands during the work day, and fuck off when I’m done for the day, sometimes at 3 or 4. Vacation “requests” aren’t really requests, more of “heads-ups” to our supervisors; we just put them on the team calendar and send our direct supervisor am email notifying him. Last week I took off this Friday afternoon and all of next Monday, as I often do when I go out of town for the weekend.
My direct supervisor returned from vacation on Wednesday, but has been out sick with a bad flu he caught on the way home. He sent me a message today asking if I could work a shoot on Monday as he’ll likely still be contagious. I reminded him I’ll be out on Monday, to which he simply said “no worries!”
A few hours later, our team supervisor (different guy) called me and told me that another coworker was exposed to covid and likely won’t be able to work a shoot tomorrow. When he asked if there was any way I could come in to help, I asked when we would be done, as I had scheduled the afternoon off. He said it would go too late, and he didn’t want to jeopardize my vacation time, so he would probably just cancel or reschedule the shoot. I said it sounded like we had the perfect storm and he laughed and said he was surprised it took this long to happen. I apologized that I couldn’t make it in (because despite my values I am still unfortunately a people pleaser) and he emphatically said I had nothing to apologize for.
Even though they both asked me to work a shoot on my days off, I don’t think they were trying to manipulate me into cancelling them; judging from past experiences, I think they truly don’t keep track of vacation days that much because they trust us to keep track of them ourselves.
This is how simple it should be. No one should have to beg and grovel to keep their vacation days or to schedule them in the first place. I love working for people who realize that, ultimately, reworking a project or a work day is not a big deal, especially working in a corporate environment like higher ed where things move pretty slowly. All of this to say, I’m really grateful that I work where and with whom I do, and I wanted to share a positive story here, where I often find myself angry and sad at the stories I read.
I hate laboring under capitalism, etc, but a good scenario within it does exist!