Stone Cold Memo
One thing that riles any boss, especially during times of economic hardship, is providing unnecessary concessions or time off to their most expensive resource, their staff. It’s the age old battle of an employer who tries to get the most out of an employee at the least possible cost, and an employee who is determined to get the most reward for the least amount of work.
I first came across this memo from an employer to his employee years and years ago, and hadn’t seen it again until this week – and thought it was still an excellent piece of diplomacy. I must remind myself to use it some time.
From: Team Leader
To: (Enter employee’s name here)
Subject: Your request for a day off work
Thank you for submitting a request for a day off work. I’m concerned though, that you haven’t looked at things from my point of view, so I think it’s important to examine what you’re asking for.
There are 365 days in a year, and out of these, you only work during the week, leaving us with only 261 available working days.
Out of these 261 days, you are only theoretically available to the company for at most 8 hours a day. If you take the rest of the 16 hours a day as a whole and calculate them into days, then you don’t work for another 174 days, technically leaving you with 87 working days in a year.
If we then subtract all public holidays and the period between Christmas and new year when the company is not open for business, you will see that you only have 74 working days.
We haven’t even considered the time that you have off for lunch, tea and coffee breaks in the morning and afternoon, and the down time that you have for chit chat and office gossip. Take all these in totality through the year, and you effectively have 52 working days left to offer the company.
You will also be aware that the company has a policy of setting aside 1 day a month for staff training. Add to this, the time you spent travelling during the day to and from company clients, and we clearly see that there’s at least another 24 days down time through the year, technically leaving us with 28 working days.
Now, I’m reliably told by the folks in the IT department that on average, you spend 30 to 45 minutes a day browsing websites that have nothing to do with why we employ you. We don’t want you to consider us anal, so we normally overlook this sort of down time for most employees, but give or take, I suggest that this leaves us with 26 working days in a year.
Apparently, the government requires that we give you a mandatory 25 days off work for annual leave, leaving you with only one working day in the year.
I’LL BE DAMNED IF THAT’S THE DAY YOU HAVE IN MIND!
August 6th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Darius,
I was shocked when my boss told me I needed to take leave a number of weeks ago. I usually have to fight to take time off. She was concerned, and felt I needed to take time off. What I don’t like, is that I can only take two weeks at a time, which is not enough if I want to go home. So, I am trying to plead for three weeks.
August 6th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Tamtam.
Actually, What you’re going through is quite common. While your annual leave time is mandatory, how and when you take it usually is at the discretion of your employer and most will suggest that they don’t want people away for periods longer than 2 weeks.
I know some folks who ahehm, “fall sick” while on holiday abroad and use this to “extend” their time off with a combination of holiday time and sick leave.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:38 am
Can I take that ‘one day’ off and go home for a whole year then, with pay. I’m sure the boss will understand, ama I sue. Si u’ll rep me.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:37 am
And there goes our boastings hala! Those ones of how hard we work and how tired and worn out we are at the end of the day! Building careers and stuff.
Funny that I’m reading this today of all other days. It’s lunch time and I’ve not done a single thing that could benefit employer! How time flies. This is the day I came to work in jeans and T-shirt and hit my I-tunes first thing in the morning to sort out music and make a selection for home listening. In my defense, I worked harder yesterday and boasted that Friday was MY day. That’s some defense right? But that does not mean i don’t have something on my tray. I do. I’ll work harder again on Monday. After all after lunch I need to catch up with friends on chats and blogs.
There was that general mood in the office. Someone even brought a cake and icecream! I’ve been sure to forward this link to my fellow offenders who are all currently on facebook doing what facebooker do.
Meantime I’m rocking away with Meredith Brooks!
August 7th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
lol
August 7th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
I have one question- Shikomsa WHERE DO YOU WORK?
Mr.Stone, when you get my CV just “return to sender”- harsh employer LOL!
August 9th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I now wonder after this if any work ever gets done in any office, or people just work for 24 hours in a year? Something must be wrong with this calculation…it sounds right but not correct. I should try to find out the problem with this reasoning, but then that will take the fun out of it, right? Very funny though.
August 10th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Well..I don’t know what my boss would say to this, seeing as for the last one month, I’ve been showing up at 11am and leaving by 4pm. Technically, I haven’t worked a single day I gather?
Well…
August 10th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
@Shiko – you’ve been living it large at work…why lie…LOL! Like 3TOC says, where exactly is this so that we can submit our CVs….
Office cultures are a fascinating subject in looking at how things actually get done in any given company, and who runs what I call “the shadow” organization and its mob office politics and power struggles.
@3TOC, I’m not a bad employer…honest….I swear….LOL
@Kellie, having your flexi time (well, part time actually) and Shiko’s working environment is what I call a cool job…
@Savvy, I think by the time you get such a memo from your boss, you really won’t be thinking about arguing a case…LOL
August 11th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Hehehe 3TOC, Stone Cold, did I mention we have 2 hour lunch breaks 12 noon to 2.00 and don’t work on Saturdays? Anyway, they here have taken a kinda radical route if what I gather from other organizations is anything to go by. They’ve invested heavily in employee comfort and deliberately created a laid back atmosphere. So far I think it works. As far as I can tell, we operate like a tight mean machine and are not in any way left behind by the rest of the industry in terms of performance. When time comes for back breaking work, duty on Saturday, and longer than usual hours, we happily oblige.
I think I smell an article here Stone Cold no?
August 11th, 2009 at 9:45 am
LOL Shiko.
You guys are not laid back – you’re horizontal.
I think the technical term at the coast would be wazala.
…And believe, you could write a novel about office culture and politics…
August 20th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Mr Stone (you should have your own show. LOL), as much as I’d appreciate the above sent as a forward (and I did LOL when I first read it), you’d have a pissed-off employee (and possibly a resignation letter… depending on the time of the month. Possibly apocryphal but I’m told men PMS too) on your hands were you ever to send it to me as a response to a request for a day off. And I’m usually very easygoing. Nonetheless, days off… those are serious business.
*seriousbussinessemoticon*