1) Why aren't you staying for the RTS meeting?
and
2) Your mom is coming to Israel for only 5 days? Why such a short time?
The answers being
1) Sigh. Ask my boss.
and
2) Yes, because I can only afford to stay that much longer after my work trip. Some of us only get a couple of weeks of vacation and have to use our days judiciously.
Some quick background on work. My official title is Applications Engineer. I work for the Customer Support department. There is one other Apps Eng in the company who also works for the CS department; he is in the Israel office. There are actually quite a few other Apps Engs around the world, we've got two in our office back home, but they all work for the Sales Operations department. Basically, they are the technical applications resources up until the customer signs the purchase order; and I am the technical applications resource after installation. We also have 3 Regional Technical Specialists in our office who also work for the CS department. They deal more with the "my machine broke, how do I fix it" side of things. Ultimately, we do all collaborate together, but we each have our own special areas of focus. Clear as mud?
So. Even though I work for CS and not SO, I got myself invited to the annual SO Applications Worldwide meeting (which is why I'm in Israel right now). That's this week. There is also a RTS Worldwide meeting next week. Back in December when we got the dates for both of these meetings, I asked my boss what he wanted me to attend: Apps, RTS, or both. One of the Apps guys in my office had already forwarded me the agenda for the SO Apps meeting; it's pretty heavy on the sales side of things. Nevertheless, my boss said I should go to that as it would be a good chance to mind-share knowledge. He also said that the RTS meeting agenda was focused on hands-on "how to fix the broken machine" stuff, and I didn't need to plan to go to that one.
So I booked my tickets and hotel. My mom booked her tickets and hotel. And the following week, I got the agenda for the RTS meeting, which yes, has plenty of "how to fix the broken machine" sessions, but also has several theoretical and applications-based sessions. That I really should be at. But now it's too late. Argh!
And yes, Mom and I would both love it if we could stay an extra 2 weeks. However, I only could manage to take 2 extra days of vacation. Maybe next time. You'd be surprised how much you can see and do in 4-5 days though, especially in a country the size of New Jersey.
Hiking exploits, experimental cooking, general nerdery, and cat pictures.
Seriously. Do not call me Katy.
4 comments:
You only get two weeks of vacation? Ok, maybe your company isn't perfect after all. :p
True! I tried negotiating for 3. No go. At least my sick time and personal time are separate banks, so that's another 9 days. And I actually have the hours right now, but need to save them for the big, extravagant, OMG I'm 35 trip in Sept!
9 DAYS of sick time? Which means, basically almost 4 weeks of total time off? Yeah, your company is pretty awesome again...
5 sick days and 4 personal. Which was why I didn't fight too much on not getting more vacay to start. I had 19 days of PTO at the last crappy job (3 weeks vacay, 4 "sick" days, but since it was all one PTO bank, everyone just came to work sick and used them as extra vacation days). And now I have ... essentially 19 days of PTO. So it mostly works out!
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