Holiday Request Form Blues ....

Saturday 25th July 2009
Was an interesting time with the holiday request form recently. Yup, as you have predicted already, it involved delays and bureaucratic, infuriating nonsense. Ohh but the kind that, if my hair was weak enough at its roots, would have involved a large amount of hair LOSS during the two weeks it dragged on.

So what happened? Well, I finally got around to filling in my holiday request form. No, I hadn't done it before now despite the warring mood I was in when I mentioned it before. Now was the time. The filling-in process wasn't too horrific itself despite confusion over what the hell Arure Days were (was a mistranslation and/or mis-spelling of Accrued Holiday Days so far).

Ohh I don't really want to drag on about this as it is really not worth the time and effort. So I'll distill it rather. So ….. I gave it to the HoD to sign which he duly did. I then took it “upstairs” with the SIX PHOTOS that were required for, I presume, Personnel Department approval or whatever. There it stayed for a few days. In the meantime, my colleague had got his all done. How DOES he do it? Actually he seems to have got this place sussed and knows how to get things done. He sure does have a way with people here that nobody else does. Gift Of The Gab? A Way With Words? Insider Knowledge? A Nod and a Wink?? Who knows, but he has lived in similar chaos before. In fact, he said at the start just how surprised he was how quickly everything went!! Bloody hell!! Don't even THINK about what he is normally used to!! For SURE I don't want to. I do still have a lot of useful hair STILL standing on this head of mine. Please let it remain!

Anyway, where was I? So a few days passed with no word on where my form was. Then I had a call from a woman in the Personnel department upstairs. She “kindly” informed me that the number of holiday days I had requested was more than what I had accrued so far. Just to explain that, as a new staff member, the number of holiday days IS stated on the contract BUT you kind of “build them up” the longer you are here in the first year. It is, I suppose, to prevent people who have just joined, taking all their holiday in the very first month and, therefore, never being here. Perfectly reasonable. Anyway, I knew that this was the case. So, she informed me, my only option was to take the “extra” days as Leave Without Pay. OK, no problem, I thought, and that was the end of that phone call. No further action had been asked of me. Just a clarification that was, I thought.

HAH!! TEN MORE DAYS passed without anything more being heard of my holiday request. I mean, WHAT could they have been DOING with the blasted thing? Eventually I felt I HAD to go over to the Leave And Travel department because this was where I thought my holiday request was now.

Can you guess what is coming now? Ah, well, no you might not be able to. Although you surely realise that it is not a straightforward thing and that this is NOT the end of this blog entry.

Well, I hate to drag a story out. Basically next the young Filipino lady in Leave And Travel looked up my Leave Request on her computer system AND she found my paper request form. Good – so they hadn't LOST IT at least. She told me, first, that there was not even a photo of me on the system! Despite handing over a total of EIGHTEEN photos to these people, NOBODY had bothered to take the few seconds to scan my picture and get it on there. But I doubt that I'm the only person who has been ignored there. So THAT was dealt with first which involved going to this person, that person and then this office person here. Fine.

Now back to L&T and again after much faffing around where nothing concrete was found they said I should phone. Gave me the number and a strange name which I'd never heard of. Phoned, and it seemed the woman knew me. AH! It was that woman in Personnel back in the college building – the one I'd had the phone call from to ask about my “extra days”.

OK, now it gets really silly. I was told this: I needed to write a memo to my Head of Department to inform him that I intended to have these extra seven days over and above my currently Accrued Holiday Days and for him to agree that this was all OK and above board. Or strike me down with a lightning bolt I presume.

A MEMO?? To the man who is only ONE PARTITION AWAY and ask him what he already knows? What the BLOODY HELL do I need to do THAT FOR??

More to the point …. WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T THAT WOMAN TELL ME THIS WHEN I TOOK THE HOLIDAY FORM UP TO HER??

Ten days had passed with nothing having got done. As I had been asked the question of what I wanted to DO with these 'extra' seven days, I naturally assumed that this was all I needed to do. I was certainly NOT TOLD of any stupid memo to be written!!

Just imagine if I had NOT gone over to L&T to check on this!! I would and COULD have NEVER KNOWN that this was required of me and nobody would have told me till way too late!! And then BANG would have gone my holiday!!

IDIOTS!! IDIOTS!! IDIOTS!!

When I went back down to the English department it was nearly home time. So in the morning it would be dealt with.

Went in the next morning and told the HoD about this memo. He didn't react with surprise, and his response was one of the type, “Well, yes, that's obvious and normal” ….. as if I should've known this. HOW COULD I HAVE KNOW ABOUT IT?? I've never done a holiday form before and nothing about any memo was ever mentioned.

OK, so I knocked up a quick memo – gist of it was to inform him that I was having these 'extra' seven days and was it alright and that I would take them as Leave Without Pay as I had been advised was the option. Seemed to do the trick, gave it to him, he signed then it went upstairs for “further approval”.

End of story? Noooooo!! Soon after it had gone up, a phone call to the HoD from the secretary up there. She asked him to ask me if I actually wanted Leave Without Pay or to Borrow From Future Holiday. What?? BORROW from Future?? I'd been told that was NOT an option! But apparently it was now so I said yes, I'll Borrow. End of phone call.

Ah, but NOT end of story (of course!). A few minutes later ANOTHER phone call from the same person informing me that I now needed to write YET ANOTHER MEMO with this new information on it that my Option Of Choice was to Borrow From Future.

GRRR!! OK, you morons I'll do it. Just get this done please! So I did the memo, and the signing and delivering procedure was repeated. Up it went.

Before you ask ….. NO it was STILL not the end of the farce. Some minutes later YET ANOTHER phone call came from upstairs. Can you believe it? THIS TIME they wanted to know when the Start Date of my contract was. Well, I didn't have this off-hand but got it in the end and had to correct myself after the HoD had put the phone down which annoyed him a bit that he had to phone again.

SO MUCH STUPID BUREAUCRACY for a holiday request!

I am just so unlucky with this kind of stuff. Sometimes in the past I've had help with doing this which is always welcome, but THIS kind of thing only serves to INFURIATE me and I am NOT a patient man in such situations.

I didn't rate my chances of getting anything done. A few days later still no word so I went up again. No, still no signed form and it was STILL on the desk of the useless man who has to sign so much and yet delays everything.

There was nothing I could do but wait. Well, anyway, I decided to go ahead and book my flights and get my plans in order. Surely this WOULD come in eventually.

And so it did ….. early this week.

You know, people wonder why bureaucracy grinds on so long in some places. One answer here seems to be plain, simple lack of communication and with all sides blaming each OTHER for not getting things done.

I mean, if such a simple thing as a holiday request causes so much organisational pain, then WHAT is the point of trying more complex things like getting them to send my salary direct to my bank account? May as well save the bother and continue to take the cheque down the bank every month and pay it in myself. More reliable that way and I KNOW that it's gone in the right place.

Just want to finish with one more word ….. AAAGGGHHH!!

There. That's better.