workaday Wednesday

[marcicat]

We use outlook at work, and we have the ability to have other peoples' calendars show up on our calendar -- pretty standard, as far as I know, and helpful if you want to know what the rest of your team is doing.

Before yesterday I would have thought that went without saying, AND YET. I was yesterday years old when I learned that my boss hasn't set their calendar to show their team's calendars. (Note: there are only THREE of us.)

(This came up because they messaged me to ask why I was working, since they thought I had the day off, even though it was clearly marked on my calendar that I was doing a half-day. Also they were the one to approve the time off request just last week. Also I emailed them specifically about it asking if we could move a meeting.)

*Do they not KNOW you can view other calendars??? (They MUST know, right???)

*Is it not standard practice to put your team's calendars on your calendar??? (I thought it was! But it's true that the company has no company-wide SOP for that stuff, so maybe not???)

*APPARENTLY some people think it is easier to deliberately initiate an interaction with someone than to check their calendar, or check approved time off, or review emails??? (I know in my HEAD that not everyone in the whole world is an introvert, but it still BOGGLES me every time I'm confronted with that reality.)

Comments

[lannamichaels]

I had a boss who not only refused to add additional calendars, he decided that we had to put our leave on his calendar so he'd see it, and we had to do it in a specific format with Last Name, First Name, Full date of leave, and then times of leave if applicable with time zone. We had to make it a full day meeting and turn off reminders and make sure it showed him as free.

He had everyone do this, so if multiple people were off, he'd see all those multiple people's leave at the top of every single day of his calendar, so I don't know how he saw his actual meetings or important things.

And it was exasperating that he expected us to manage his calendar for him, rather than him putting our leave into his calendar himself the way he wanted it, since he had to approve all our leave anyway. It just added an entire annoying extra step every time we put in leave, because we were already adding it to our own calendars, and shared calendars for specific projects, and the actual leave system.

[marcicat]

Nooooooooooooo that's even worse!!! I'm so sorry you had to deal with that, but I guess it's a good reminder to me that a boss who doesn't care much is far from the worst!