This past Saturday, the 11th of November was of course Veterans Day in the U.S.A. and in observance most Federal and State offices were closed on Friday, including my son’s school. I share custody of my son with his mother, and he spends every other week with me.
Veterans Day is a very important holiday for me, and is a day I deeply regard, as my father, three of my uncles, my grandfather, and great grandfather are all veterans. I myself am a veteran, as are some of my closest friends… Veterans day is a day filled with many memories for me, and though a solemn celebration, it is nonetheless just as significant, if not more so then Thanksgiving.
Since separating from the service in 1989 and entering into corporate America as an IT professional I have taken a vacation day to observe Veterans day when I worked for an employer that did not observe the holiday by closing shop. Fortunately I spent several years in the Banking Industry doing IT work so this was not an issue every year.
Currently I work for a very large manufacturing organization… At it's core, it is a very blue-collar organization, though I work in the corporate headquarters. Typically organizations such as this are more in touch with the sacrifices made by soldiers and are inclined to show appreciation even if they don’t close-up shop in observance…
Not in the alternate reality of my work environment… I had a person who is a peer with my boss send an email to HR which cc’d my boss, inquiring if there was legal grounds for demanding that I be at work on Friday… Can you believe that? No exageration, that is axactly what he "Demanded." Like the whole damn company would not be able to function if I observed Veterans Day along with the rest of our nations patriots...
Mind you I average between 50 – 60 hours a week on the clock, and I spend a week on call for free every 6 weeks. What really makes this gut wrenchingly disgusting though is that I had already coordinated with my boss to take the day off and got her approval.
Normally on this day my son and I make a trek to the Veterans Memorial in a local park, and lay flowers, burn incense, and say prayers, then we go to see my father, and call my best friend who I served with in 25th Light Infantry Division, and who is now a police officer in rural Virginia.
After coordinating the day off with my direct supervisor, I sent out an email to the other members in my department that I would not be in the office, letting them know what my son and I were planning in observance of the holiday. On this email I copied a few other key people I have been working with related to a specific project for which I am the technical lead and network design architect. In addition to this email I had to decline participating in a meeting for the project that only involved me indirectly… There was no reason for me to participate as two days earlier I had told the PM to schedule the meeting for Monday as I would not have anything to provide before then anyway. When I declined the meeting the PM got his feathers ruffled and I can only imagine what kind of email he sent to his direct supervisor… the one that is a peer with mine?
So Thursday afternoon the whole department is in our weekly staff meeting, and our boss has the projector hooked up to her laptop as she does every staff meeting, and low and behold the Outlook pop-up notice of the contrived email that was sent to HR came floating across the bottom of the screen… Long story short my boss was furious, and both the PM and his manager apologized… to her.
Though this was a transgression committed against me on a deeply personal level, as I am the veteran, no one has apologized to me… Except for my boss, but then she is an exceptional leader who understands people, has integrity, and is not a passive-aggressive chicken-shit.
How would this make you feel? What is your take on this type of passive-aggressive contrived activity? Would you work in this kind of an environment? What is your experience with this kind of unprofessional behavior? Let me know what you think… Especially all you fellow Vet's
Namaste
Veterans Day is a very important holiday for me, and is a day I deeply regard, as my father, three of my uncles, my grandfather, and great grandfather are all veterans. I myself am a veteran, as are some of my closest friends… Veterans day is a day filled with many memories for me, and though a solemn celebration, it is nonetheless just as significant, if not more so then Thanksgiving.
Since separating from the service in 1989 and entering into corporate America as an IT professional I have taken a vacation day to observe Veterans day when I worked for an employer that did not observe the holiday by closing shop. Fortunately I spent several years in the Banking Industry doing IT work so this was not an issue every year.
Currently I work for a very large manufacturing organization… At it's core, it is a very blue-collar organization, though I work in the corporate headquarters. Typically organizations such as this are more in touch with the sacrifices made by soldiers and are inclined to show appreciation even if they don’t close-up shop in observance…
Not in the alternate reality of my work environment… I had a person who is a peer with my boss send an email to HR which cc’d my boss, inquiring if there was legal grounds for demanding that I be at work on Friday… Can you believe that? No exageration, that is axactly what he "Demanded." Like the whole damn company would not be able to function if I observed Veterans Day along with the rest of our nations patriots...
Mind you I average between 50 – 60 hours a week on the clock, and I spend a week on call for free every 6 weeks. What really makes this gut wrenchingly disgusting though is that I had already coordinated with my boss to take the day off and got her approval.
Normally on this day my son and I make a trek to the Veterans Memorial in a local park, and lay flowers, burn incense, and say prayers, then we go to see my father, and call my best friend who I served with in 25th Light Infantry Division, and who is now a police officer in rural Virginia.
After coordinating the day off with my direct supervisor, I sent out an email to the other members in my department that I would not be in the office, letting them know what my son and I were planning in observance of the holiday. On this email I copied a few other key people I have been working with related to a specific project for which I am the technical lead and network design architect. In addition to this email I had to decline participating in a meeting for the project that only involved me indirectly… There was no reason for me to participate as two days earlier I had told the PM to schedule the meeting for Monday as I would not have anything to provide before then anyway. When I declined the meeting the PM got his feathers ruffled and I can only imagine what kind of email he sent to his direct supervisor… the one that is a peer with mine?
So Thursday afternoon the whole department is in our weekly staff meeting, and our boss has the projector hooked up to her laptop as she does every staff meeting, and low and behold the Outlook pop-up notice of the contrived email that was sent to HR came floating across the bottom of the screen… Long story short my boss was furious, and both the PM and his manager apologized… to her.
Though this was a transgression committed against me on a deeply personal level, as I am the veteran, no one has apologized to me… Except for my boss, but then she is an exceptional leader who understands people, has integrity, and is not a passive-aggressive chicken-shit.
How would this make you feel? What is your take on this type of passive-aggressive contrived activity? Would you work in this kind of an environment? What is your experience with this kind of unprofessional behavior? Let me know what you think… Especially all you fellow Vet's
Namaste
