Vacation Time

“Hey, I wanted to check with you about vacation time. I am thinking about taking my week vacation from Sept. 6th through the 10th. I wanted to see if you or Sonjia had anything planned for that time”, I said to Buffoon.

“Wayl’, I need to check with my wife ‘cause we may have something that week. I know she was thinking ‘bout trying to go to the beach before the end of summer and that may be when she was thinking”, he said in his stumbling manner, clearly making up every word a second before it left his mouth.

The following week I more or less recited the exact same thing to him, to which he gave me virtually the same response. Then, the week after that, we once again repeated this conversation. That led me to say, “I guess I’m not sure what to do here. I am requesting to use vacation and would need to make arrangements should I be able to go on vacation during the dates I’m requesting. I have asked both of my co-workers and you are telling me ‘maybe’ because you may use that time yourself, however, you won’t know for certain anytime soon. I’m not really sure what my options are”.

“Well, you cain’t jus’ walk in and get first pick of the vacation days you wont’. You want to jus’ say ‘here, I need this, this and this’ before anyone else has had a chance to look at a calendar’. You don’t get first choice”, he quickly replied. I could tell he’d previously formulated this response in anticipation of moment.

“Well, I understand that you and Sonjia both have seniority over me and thus I’m essentially 3rd in line when it comes to requested vacation time. However, it is July. We’re seven months into the year which should be plenty of time for each of us to think about possible vacation options. I am requesting time two months from now and am clearing it with the two people who are senior to me. Sonjia has no problem with the dates I am requesting. You don’t currently have any conflict with those dates, however, you are claiming that you need to talk to your wife because you believe she may want to do something that very same week, but, you haven’t been able to talk to her about it as of yet and she has not expressed this idea to you. I guess this goes back to my original statement in that, I’m not sure what to do here. Do you think you will know anything with in the next few days?”, I said, failing in my effort to not sound condescending.

“I’ll try to find something out this week”, he said nodding his head as if he’d just figured out the best solution to our problem. He would just put it off another week. That was the answer. He flashed his goofy, bad-teethed grin and looked at me as if he were expecting praise or gratitude for his problem solving abilities. His look then shifted to that raised-eyebrow, wide-eyed expression someone uses when they are expecting a ‘thank you’.

I said, “Okay”, and walked out of his office only to hear him utter, “you’re welcome” under his breath, yet purposely loud enough to ensure I heard him. I froze for a second, my internal response system triggered by this agitation. After a brief pause, however, I relented and continued my exit, knowing I had to pick my battles and remember what I was trying to accomplish. He was illogical and quite ignorant and thus, logic and common sense were useless when it came to negotiating with him. Showing him up would, in the end, only hurt my cause. Instead, I had to cater to the Buffoon and attempt to reason and deal with him on his level, no matter how trying it was at times.

That night before I closed up I went in his office and unplugged his keyboard and mouse from his hard drive. It was silly and petty, but I had to release my aggression in some form, no matter how passive it may be. I felt a small sense of victory the next morning as I watched him bitch and gripe about his keyboard and mouse not working. I secretly laughed as he spent an hour on the phone with Tech Support describing the problem, restarting his computer time after time.