Originally I was thinking about sharing my two cents on the topic of vaccines and the so-called anti-vaxxers, but then I decided to go personal again and share instead a tidbit about my life and the things that happen in it. Ain't like I'm an expert on vaccines anyway, nor do you read me for it, right? Well, if you read me, which aparently you do. And why there are so many people from Russia reading me? "Drugi", you have the wrong person. I'm not based in the USA, I do not represent their thinking, and I don't think I can give you any information for anything you may need. But that's beyond the point.
So, the thing is that at my job you can - technically - request a differenciated workschedule called "flexible schedule". This basically means that you request starting your workday at a different time, and so end it at a different time. You still put in the same 9:36 hours, but instead of doing it in the regular schedule (from 7:00h to 16:36h), you can start at 6:00h, 6:30h, or 7:30h. In our group only two people held that schedule, because our boss basically doesn't like it when people don't stay at the office all the way until 16:36h. Many years ago I had the 6:00-to-15:36 schedule, but they I had some moves in the company and was moved back to the 7:00-to-16:36.
The two people who have the flexible schedules - lets call them Ally and Ben - Ally has a schedule from 6:30-to-16:00, while Ben had the 6:00-to-15:36 schedule. Since I was on the 7:00-to-16:36, I noticed that each time the boss wasn't around, both Ally and Ben were leaving the office at 15:00, and sometimes even earlier. This has been going on for years. Now, this story is about Ben, so let's concentrate on him, shall we?
There are no particular reasons why Ben "should have a claim" to get the flexible schedule above other coworkers, so it was taken like, you know, he asked for it first or something. He does have elderly parents and one of them has dementia, so they have to take care of them and all that. But as far as I know, Ben has four older kids that don't work, a housewife wife and around seven siblings. Anyway, aparently, he gets the schedule and the "special treatment" because of his ailing relative. In this my general attitude is: "Not my circus, not my monkeys".
Ben and I had a fallout sometime by the end of last year, which has been so good to me. You see, Ben is the kind of person that's always on the lookout to get things out of others. Free rides, free meals, free snacks... it doesn't matter what it is, if he can get it for free, he will get it. He even goes as far as ask you for free stuff if you have once shared something with him. Let me give you an example: say one day you make too much coffee for yourself (I brew my own coffee in a French Press. Our group has a "coffee comitee", but there had been so much drama in it (involving Ben), that I rather not get myself into that and make my own coffee), so you offer it TO THE GROUP, if anyone wants the extra cup you made. Ben offers to take it. Then, the next day, Ben will tell you that your coffee was really, good, so would you please make an extra cup again for him? So yes, that's Ben.
The fallout was inconsecuential, really, basically about some tought times we were having at the office. I was dealing with it by keeping to myself, but he was dealing by wallowing in everybody's mysery. He wanted me to share and tell him how awful I felt, and would not take my no for an answer. When I finally raised my voice and told him to fuck the fuck off, he took offense and stopped talking to me ever since. It was divine. He never again came begging for food or any other thing.
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| Source: Google.com Goethe Zentrum |
So, the thing is that, as you know, I'm taking German lessons after work. Not everyday, but still. I was going to one of the languages centers Goethe Institute has here, for about two years, with a rather convenient schedule. Then, for this period I had to switch centers (still with the Goethe!) and that meant not only a different schedule, but a longer conmute time. In the light of that, I talked to my boss and explained him that I needed the flexible schedule, specifically the 6:00-to-15:36 one. While the schedule change was approved (it's approved by semester), I asked him permission to leave early the days I had classes.
I didn't mean to, but I overheard when my boss told Ben that he would have to take the 6:30-to-16:00 schedule (the same Ally has), because he was giving me the 6:00-to-15:36 one. No, so far I know, there's no rule forbidding more than one person from having the same schedule, as it is proven now by Ally and Ben having the same schedule. He simply accepted. To be honest, this got me thinking that my boss wasn't buying that story of him having to tend to his ailing relative.
Anyway, comes the new semester, and I still have to wait for my schedule switch to be approved (it was being handled like a new request), and Ben is already in his 6:30-to-16:00, when out of the blue he comes to talk to me, like we are intimate or something, and asks me if I could GIVE HIM three of my five days with the 6:00-to-15:36 schedule, because it ain't like I need them anyway, only one or two days for classes. He claimed he talked about it with the boss, and it was the boss that told him to ask me for the switch. Allegedly, he needed to be home early to put his ailing relative in bed, and this relative needed to be in bed by 16:00, so all the cleaning and tending had to happen earlier. (Conmute to where we live takes around 35 minutes in the afternoon...)
I was inclined - out of the hardly ever seen goodness of my heart, to give him one, max two days of my schedule, out of consideration for his family, which he seemed to resent because he wanted three days... but would take anything. I did had a nagging feeling, so I consulted with friends, and it turns out we could not swap schedules, or we risked having them taken away. I told him so the next day, and that he should be careful (aiming at his routinely escapades). He played the victim and then proceeded to lie in my face about how he was so hard working, and he always stayed longer, and maybe even leaving the office 5 minutes early. Like I have never seen him leave an hour before he should. Like I have not been a witness to him never making it to his actual end-of-workday hour.
It seems that he whined to the boss, so the next semester I'll get the 6:30-to-16:00 and he gets the 6:00-to-15:36, which is no biggie for me, because then again I'll ask weekly permits to attend classes, if I have to. However, after this I have found myself paying attention to Ben, to what he does, and I've realized that - for someone so devoted to his family that he needs a special schedule to attend them - he spends way too much time on the phone tending other personal businesses, pertaining to some lawsuits, car sales, property sales and other business making, that have nothing to do with taking care of a person with dementia, nor what he has been hired here to do. And he isn't even being subtle about it. As compensation for having his "rightful schedule" taken away, he has been taken to resource to more permits, and what appears to be bogus meetings outside the building, in order to cover up for leaving home early - tricks he has learned with Ally.
I mind my own business - circus, monkeys and all that - but really, Ben's behavior is as subtle as a tarantula on a while wall. This makes me wonder why did he even bother bitching about the schedule when he's not going to change his behavior and will keep escaping from the office earlier. When it has become clear that the boss isn't buying his story about the doting son.
This is when I wonder if shamelessness really knows no limits.
