You Actually Let Me Go??

Getting off of work early for my alma mater's football game's this season has been sort of a challenge.  There was one time when I was not allowed to go, thereby missing the first half of a game-watching event for the first time in years, if not a decade.  (I wonder if this will be a growing problem as the years go by.)

Because my team was playing an afternoon game yesterday, and it was announced earlier in the week, I was in a panic to see if my time-off request would be granted.  I was really thinking that if this too was rejected, I would just call in sick.  But I got the time off.  Fair enough.

It was only a partial time-off request.  I know that many people ask for a Saturday off here and there, and so leaving in the afternoon just in time to get to the game was the best of all worlds.

I don't want to bore you with the set-up, but for this department (one that was different from the one I'm training on right now) there are between two and five of us lined up along a wall, desk touching desk.  The files we have to go through and check are passed from the middle people to the ends.  That's a lot of interconnectedness ... and that might lead to some friction, as I'm observing (and I might blog post about later).  The work that comes through has to get done, and even though we usually finish before our shift is over, there was one Saturday where we had to stay an extra 90 minutes.  I think that was because the work we had to get we didn't get earlier in the day, and so we were slammed at the end of the day.  There was also only three of us that day, but frankly, I don't think it would've mattered all that much if we were at the maximum of five.

That last thought I want you to think of as I go back to yesterday.  We started the day with only three of us.  One of them actually does not work Saturdays and came in to help out.  But -- and bear with me here -- it was only, like, the hour before I was leaving that I put two and two together.  Namely, that two other people took the whole day off, and with me leaving in the afternoon, that meant three regular people would not be around for the end of the workweek.

I blurt this out.  One of the two others, That Bitch (who, to be honest, was actually quite friendly to me yesterday ... maybe I should reconsider her being a bitch), said something I also didn't realize: "It was supposed to be just you and me."

Yeah, it was!  Go beyond the fact whether or not we two can work together, just us, side-by-side.  On a Saturday, where I have seen things go pear-shaped, there would have been just two people chugging through files.  And then I made my final no-shit realization: With me leaving at lunch, there will be  only two people chugging through files, one of them actually working overtime (I think) so that it wouldn't be only one person.

And I'm thinking, My boss actually let me go?  You know what?  He shouldn't have!  You need at least three people to go through this.  Now, maybe everything was fine yesterday.  But, you know, maybe everything was not, and it's always best to have enough manpower to get the job done.

Man, I skipped out on work when work needed me the most.  And my team lost, so maybe it was better if I just stayed at work!