Friday – Whatever That Means
TGIF – but not sure what that really results in – other than a little more frustration over work. Read on.
One of the key responsibilities of an expat is to coordinate vacation time to ensure adequate coverage during absences. One of my colleagues (who also has children at JIS) is very bad at this – last year he booked absences/flights for every school holiday. By the time I came along from Angola there was no flexibility for me to be gone – thus, I got screwed in picking good vacation days. All this year I have been trying to coordinate with him – with my request having been ignored. Now, I find out that he has again already booked the “fall break” and all of Christmas … tickets already bought. I am again screwed on flexibility. There is only 1 weekend in December when Chris and Paul are here and the girls are out of school – that we might be able to go somewhere. Now – once again – I am going to have to beg, borrow, and steal favors in hopes of getting an “extended weekend” as a Christmas vacation. ARGH !
Shorter term, I’m also frustrated. Another key colleague goes on vacation/training today for a month. I work closely with this one and we work together cooperatively. As coverage for her work she is trying to reassign responsibilities. Due to the “pecking order” I will pick up some key management responsibilities. This will add about 20-30% more work for the next month on top of my already crushing schedule – I accept this as it is “part of the territory” when it comes to rank. However, she is also trying to allocate her other day-to-day activities. In spite of having some 20-30 people at her disposal she tried to allocate many of her projects to me (and only a few things to the “other guy”) ….. I had to push back on this one … there is no way I can also take on projects – I can’t even get my own work done. Besides – when I went on vacation in July, I allocated all my work to the national staff so as to not be a burden on other expats. We as expats should always try to do that – otherwise, the national staff does not learn to accept responsibility for their actions.
As for this weekend – I have a gazillion work-related things to do … plus college-related things to do. We are definitely doing the 10k and 5k runs on Saturday and Sunday (both early morning) – primarily stress relievers. We are definitely NOT going out this weekend, as (a) we need to save energy for the runs, and (b) we don’t have the time. Bonus for this – we save money by not going out – which will almost exactly offset the costs of registering Chely for two TOEFL tests. Somewhere in there we are going to sneak in 1 or 2 massages (the girl will come to our house to save time [and money]) as our bodies will be crying. Also, somewhere in this I probably need to do 10 hours work. Hmmmm, I think I have run out of hours as I forgot to add the “sleep component” … story of my life …
ciao ciao.
