A few weeks ago it rained. It was a hard rain and the office operated the whole day under a policy of “liberal leave,” where people could use unscheduled leave without penalty. Now if fairness, this was allowed because a mile or two north of our waterfront paradise the snow was falling to beat the band… but still here at the office it was rainy day.
Fast forward to this morning. The roads throughout the area were covered and snow was falling from the sky at a respectable clip. Driving conditions, while not quite treacherous, was considerably less than ideal. Because the snow had started falling more or less at the same time people start showing up for work, the parking lots, sidewalks, and pretty much every flat surface was an ankle deep puddle of slush that no one had gotten around to treating yet. It would have made for an excellent opportunity to announce liberal leave or to cut the first hour or two off the work day. It would have gone a long way towards earning a little bit of employee good will in an environment where that’s in pretty damned short supply.
I’m sure there’s some kind of logic to how such decisions get made at echelons higher than reality… though based on almost two years of observation, I’m beginning to think the process includes darts and a blindfold.
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