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I think you very much misunderstand me. If I was someone who would ask them to cancel their trip, then the scheduling would be easy. I like to think that my st

I think you very much misunderstand me. If I was someone who would ask them to cancel their trip, then the scheduling would be easy. I like to think that my staff thinks that this is a good place to work, and that I'm somebody good to work for. I've never asked somebody to cancel a vacation; the farthest I go is to make sure everyone is aware of when deadline pressure is going to occur, and let them make their own decisions about their own priorities. I fully subscribe to the idea "work to live, not live to work". And darn it, that's hard for me to do. The real world doesn't observe someone's wedding on the other side of the planet, so our customers still have needs, as does the rest of our company. I make sure my people get their lives, but it costs me headaches and I get flack when I have to tell others in the company that something will take more time than they think is reasonable.

zavulon 17y ago
"The real world doesn't observe someone's wedding on the other side of the planet" I think your definition of "real world" is not entirely correct.
patio11 17y ago
Are you my boss? I got gruff about taking off three days to go to my little brother's wedding, too! The new Mrs. McKenzie is a wonderful young lady. She started dating my brother after I arrived in Japan. I had met her once before the wedding. Please continue talking about how the real world is giving you flack for the grave sacrifices you are making here. I'll be sympathetic.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  OK, since this got voted up 7 times, it seems I'm being dense. Can somebody shed some light on where I'm missing something? On the one hand, an employee asks if it's OK to take 2 weeks to go to her brother's wedding in India. I say "sure, no problem". And on the other hand, I'm getting pressure from the CEO for some new features, and obviously losing one of 9 developers for 2 weeks impacts that, so I have to tell the CEO that's she's got to wait a little longer. Where am I getting things wrong, or being self-righteous or something?
  - Tichy 17y ago
    I can only speak for myself, but I find it a little bit difficult to understand your point. You might as well "complain" (I know you are not complaining, just stating facts) that employees need 8 hours of sleep, so you have to tell the CEO that they can't work 20 hours per day on the new feature. Or that humans can't multitask and work on two projects at the same time (imagine that, you could get twice as much work done with the same personnel). Humans have needs, so you have to take them into account. So "it makes it hard" sounds weird - it just is what it is, it is not being made hard. You are not losing a developer for 2 weeks, you never had that developer for those two weeks to begin with. Just as you don't have a developer who can work on two projects at the same time. Perhaps employing more people might be an option?
  - phugoid 17y ago
    You sound like a sadly stereotypical manager who cares more about making everything look peachy to his superior than about making the workplace tolerable for his subordinates. Your job is to get the best performance from your reports, and to shelter them from the often unrealistic demands of upper management while they get on with their work unhindered. One such unrealistic demand is that people only take vacations when it's convenient.

zavulon 17y ago

"The real world doesn't observe someone's wedding on the other side of the planet" I think your definition of "real world" is not entirely correct.

patio11 17y ago

Are you my boss? I got gruff about taking off three days to go to my little brother's wedding, too! The new Mrs. McKenzie is a wonderful young lady. She started dating my brother after I arrived in Japan. I had met her once before the wedding. Please continue talking about how the real world is giving you flack for the grave sacrifices you are making here. I'll be sympathetic.

CWuestefeld 17y ago
OK, since this got voted up 7 times, it seems I'm being dense. Can somebody shed some light on where I'm missing something? On the one hand, an employee asks if it's OK to take 2 weeks to go to her brother's wedding in India. I say "sure, no problem". And on the other hand, I'm getting pressure from the CEO for some new features, and obviously losing one of 9 developers for 2 weeks impacts that, so I have to tell the CEO that's she's got to wait a little longer. Where am I getting things wrong, or being self-righteous or something?
- Tichy 17y ago
  I can only speak for myself, but I find it a little bit difficult to understand your point. You might as well "complain" (I know you are not complaining, just stating facts) that employees need 8 hours of sleep, so you have to tell the CEO that they can't work 20 hours per day on the new feature. Or that humans can't multitask and work on two projects at the same time (imagine that, you could get twice as much work done with the same personnel). Humans have needs, so you have to take them into account. So "it makes it hard" sounds weird - it just is what it is, it is not being made hard. You are not losing a developer for 2 weeks, you never had that developer for those two weeks to begin with. Just as you don't have a developer who can work on two projects at the same time. Perhaps employing more people might be an option?
- phugoid 17y ago
  You sound like a sadly stereotypical manager who cares more about making everything look peachy to his superior than about making the workplace tolerable for his subordinates. Your job is to get the best performance from your reports, and to shelter them from the often unrealistic demands of upper management while they get on with their work unhindered. One such unrealistic demand is that people only take vacations when it's convenient.