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AT&T Purportedly Nixes Retail Employee Vacations Between June 15 and July 12
Daring Fireball 5/6/08 3:50 PM John Gruber
Leaked memo states they wish to ensure sufficient staffing for “an exciting Summer Promotional Launch.” They did the same thing last year for the original iPhone debut.
So, question: Will there be tens of thousands of people across the country lined up all day waiting to buy the new iPhones, just like last year? I say yes.
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Wow, that's asking a lot of their employees. No one likes to be told what to do when it comes to their personal life.
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The company owns you.
Pharmaceutical company my wife works for (10+years) tells her she can't take a whole week off. Apparently no one can do a certain task she performs?
You work to build up vacation time and they tell you how/when you get to use it.
I asked her what would happen if she got sick for a whole week? She said they have forced people to come in before.
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[quote Ammo]Wow, that's asking a lot of their employees. No one likes to be told what to do when it comes to their personal life.
They did the same thing last year when the iPhone was released. It's no different than accounting firms telling their tax CPAs they can't take vacations from Feb 1 to Apr 30. My brother is an auditor with one of the Big 4 accounting firms and he can't vacation from T-Giving to the SuperBowl. That's life. You don't like it you find a different line of work.
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Ammo,
Agreed. I'd be extremely angry, especially if I'd made special plans for the summer. For example... Imagine I made plans for a cruise. I'd have to cancel everything, which could prove quite expensive. I wonder if AT&T is going to reimburse employees for the financial losses they may take as a result of losing their vacation time.
Robert
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[quote Robert M]
I wonder if AT&T is going to reimburse employees for the financial losses they may take as a result of losing their vacation time.
Robert
Of course not, but that is why there is travel insurance. Also my guess is that if you already claimed a vacation before the memo, you'll get it. But no more vacation claims from this point forward. Life is not a straight line.
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Chupa,
Don't know anything about travel insurance but I suspect it isn't going to help when your employer cancels vacation. I'm hoping that those who've already claimed a vacation will still get it but I wouldn't count on something like that.
Robert
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[quote Ammo]Wow, that's asking a lot of their employees. No one likes to be told what to do when it comes to their personal life.
many companies have black-out dates for vacations so this is not unusual. i do hope AT&T makes adjustments for employees who already made travel plans that would have a penalty if canceled.
i once had a job where, two weeks before my vacation, they canceled it. i was losing my mind at the time and really needed the time off. the day after they canceled my vacation, i gave them month's notice. when ya gotta go, ya gotta go!
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As Chupa said, at&t did the same thing last year.
I'm betting that they already had some indication not to carve plans in stone. I don't know what their employee contract allows for vacation consideration, or if at&t offers some kind of consolation.
Life is not a straight line.
Exactly.
No one likes to be told what to do when it comes to their personal life.
No, but that's too bad. It's the employment that gives most of us the options in our/their personal life, so compromises may have to be made.
If one doesn't like a given set of compromises, they can try employment elsewhere and see of there are better ones to be had.
Or, they can work for themselves and make no compromises.
Oh, wait...
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I worked for a company that was heavily 4th quarter based- almost 75% of our sales came Oct- Dec.
No employee vacations from Nov. 1 - Dec. 31, we worked the day after Thanksgiving and no "bonus'" days off if Christmas and New Year's Day happened to fall on a Tuesday or a Thursday (meaning we didn't get the Monday before or the Friday after off either.)
Sux, but we all knew that going in as it was part of the employment agreement.
DM
