— पांच हजार तीन सौ बारह —
The highlight of our evening at home last night was watching the season finale of
Interview of the Vampire, which was . . . fine.
Gabriel FaceTimed me in the middle of it to ask about something else (the climactic presidential speech in
Independence Day, of all things) but of course
Interview with the Vampire also came up. I actually read that novel in college largely at his recommendation; he went on to read other "Vampire Chronicles" novels and I never did—I tried to read
The Vampire Lestat and found it so dumb I couldn't get through the second chapter. That first book is fantastic though, and Gabriel is apparently hung up on a lot of the show's breaks from rules of the story universe laid out by the novel. I don't worry about it much, and just go with the flow. The twist at the very end of the show was compelling, at least.
I kind of hoped to watch a movie, but that hope was dashed by Shobhit's desire to watch his news programs, plus the need to watch
Interview with the Vampire. I've been thinking about finally watching
Don't Worry Darling now that it's on HBO—only because, again, of Gabriel: he wanted to talk about it. Except the critical score for that movie is 48 on MetaCritic, so I never bothered. I may still never.
I did even spot check the reviews by reviewers I like the most, and none seem to make any real case for watching it. Gabriel was shocked I had not seen it, mostly because of the wild controversies surrounding its promotion and film festival tours. I heard plenty about that stuff on podcasts, and honestly that was enough. Still, Gabriel was like, "You see everything, even the dumbest stuff!" Which is both unfair and untrue. I never see anything
just because it's popular or somehow in the zeitgeist—if the critical consensus says it's lame, then I actively avoid it. This has been the case for ages, a fact that Gabriel just willfully ignores.
Not that I'm actually as butthurt about it as that clearly makes me sound. Moving on!
— पांच हजार तीन सौ बारह —
— पांच हजार तीन सौ बारह —
I keep wondering if I'm going to be met with any kind of reprimand regarding my holiday PTO I'm taking, quite openly to weasel out of holiday store shifts this year. As happens every year, there have already been multiple emails sent out reminding us to sign up for a shift: both from the CEO, and now this morning, another reminder from the SVP of Merchandising:
Hi Team, lease make sure and sign up to help the stores out for the Holidays.
No thanks!
If nothing else, I have a slight defense here: the initial emails from Krish (the CEO) couched it as, "If you haven't already scheduled PTO, please sign up for a shift." Luckily I had submitted for my PTO before these emails started coming in. I honestly expected to be met from resistance from Eric, who authorizes my PTO requests, just because of the holiday store shifts thing. Instead, he only waited a little bit before authorizing them once we were sure we had adequate coverage among other staff during the dates I would be out. (Luckily in the case of Christmas, I'm taking four days of PTO
prior to Christmas—specifically to cover the signup dates of store holiday shifts—while most others are taking PTO the week after, so coverage was easy to come by in that case.)
I've moved in recent years to accepting this annual obligation, actually. My resentment was just rekindled this year when we got this announcement with no advanced warning last summer, that they were disallowing the cashing out of PTO effective immediately, and we needed to use it by the end of the year or lose it. I was like,
Fuck you then, I'm scheduling my PTO when I would otherwise have to do store holiday shifts, when it more easily fits within my work schedule anyway. Then, due to swift and massive pushback, by the very end of that same week the announcement was made, they walked it back and said it was effective early next year instead, so we had one last chance to cash out this year. But, I decided to keep most of the PTO I had submitted through the end of the year (scheduling it out within a day of that announcement), only canceling the PTO days I had submitted with no reason for it other than to burn through it. I'm still cashing out 176 hours this year, and it will be the last year I can do it.
That's actually a significant amount
more than I cashed out last year, even while taking extra PTO this year: last year I cashed out about 142 hours. The difference is that this year I'm cashing out enough to leave me with a balance of just over 78 hours, whereas last year I ended the year with a balance of 138. Going forward, the way I have my PTO scheduled through 2023, my balance will be as low as just over 7 hours once the trip to Australia is completed, after which I still have and
additional cumulative 168 PTO hours scheduled until the end of the year, so I'll likely close out 2023 with a PTO balance of about 56 hours. We can still carry over 120 hours each year, but no more than that, so I might as well use more of it than risk losing any of it. I've worked here for twenty years now, I earned that PTO and I'm not going to lose any of it!
Anyway. I'd love to try the same holiday PTO again next year but we'll see. I don't think I'll be able to weasel out of the store holiday shifts forever (this year was the first I've managed it since 2018). And by the way, I'm far more likely to volunteer for these shifts of my own volition without being told at work that I am obligated to do it, which, petty or not, never stops being annoying to me.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ बारह —
[posted 12:28 pm]
