I’d like to request a few days off from work, but my company’s vacation request process has more wasted effort than a Peter Jackson film.

I’m sure our method of asking for days off began as a simple, straightforward process but over the years the layers of added beauracracy have mutated it like nuclear experiments in the Sea of Japan and turned it into some sort of green monster that periodically rises from the depths and goes for a leisurely stroll through Tokyo.

Let’s say I want to take off next Friday. Here’s how this system works:

1. I walk down to my boss’s office, say hello to Marla, his lobotomized secretary and proceed to the “wall of forms” where we have paper forms for just about every employment practice imagineable. At the wall I find that we are out of Vacation Request Forms as we always are because Marla thinks photocopying 20 forms is 20 times the work of photocopying two forms.

2. I turn to Marla and ask her for a Vacation Request Form whereupon she must ask me, “Don’t we have any up there?” and I have to ceremoniously answer, “No, I don’t think we do.” Next she says, “Hmmm” to herself and asks me if I’m sure that there are no forms. I nod my head patiently and answer “I can’t find any.” Satisfied, she pulls out the original Vacation Request Form , treating it like the Shroud of Turin because it is probably that old, from her filing cabinet of treasures, puts it in the photocopier and pushes the copy button exactly twice. She gives one copy to me and puts one on the wall of forms.

3. The form has exactly four lines and was obviously created on a simple office typewriter (when “Courier” was the only font you had unless you took the thing apart) and then mimeographed (remember those?) and photocopied for decades, outliving the original machines and all of the staff that once created it. On the form I fill in my name, the days I want to take off and whether the days are vacation or sick days. There’s one more blank line, but that’s for my boss, Dick Lumbergh, to sign.

4. I put the form in Dick’s mailbox and go back to my desk to read the want ads.

5. A few hours later Dick checks his mailbox and pulls out my Vacation Request Form. He signs it immediately, photocopies it and puts one copy of the form into a “Vacation Binder” for the year and gives the other copy of the completed form back to Marla.

6. Marla then takes this form and writes in my name on a large dry-erase calendar that hangs in her office. Her copy of the form gets filed in a different “Vacation Binder”.

7. The day before I take my vacation day I have to email our entire department, telling them that I’m not going to be here the next day. These emails are all marked “Vacation Request” in most of our Inboxes.

Up to this point the process is fairly simple if not a little heavy on photocopying. We have two copies of the vacation form in different binders (I never actually receive any sort of confirmation or denial), a note put on a dry-erase calendar in the secretary’s office and an email about my vacation day.

Finally, I take my day off, usually for an interview. At the end of the month the process gets truly out of hand.

8. The end of the month comes and Marla sends out an email to everyone in the department asking for a summary of the vacation days they took in the last thirty days. She could reference any number of the multiple resources at her fingertips (the email that went out, the dry-erase boards or the two different sets of photocopied forms), but she doesn’t.

9. We all email into Marla a summary of the days we took off. Marla then goes through each and every email from us and checks it against the long list of “Vacation Request” emails she received over the month. If she finds any discrepancies she sends us another email asking about it.

10. Marla then takes all her findings and writes them down on another piece of paper, a Departmental Vacation Summary Form and sends it to our Human Resources department via interoffice snail mail.

11. Over the next month Human Resources gathers all the summary forms and manually enters them into a mainframe software program that makes the Vacation Request Form look shiny and new. This mainframe program was written at a time when an electronic calculator filled a small room and those rectangular punchcards with the little square holes were an “up and coming” technology.

12. Finally, once all the vacation data for the entire company has been entered the data is “submitted” to another mainframe software program where employees can look up how many vacation days they had left…as of 30 days ago. To see remaining days you must press P then 2 then R and then you must type in the unix name of your printer, but only if your printer is an older one because the newer printers don’t work with the vacation system. A report will then print out for you, listing all the vacation days you’ve taken up to 30 days ago. If you want a more accurate or up to date count of your remaining vacation days you just have to take the days remaining in the mainframe software and then go through your vacation emails and subtract any additional days from that original number.

Simple…

I’ve mentioned to my boss that maybe, just maybe, we could streamline the process a litte bit, seeing how we have a staff of 40 people including network administrators, programmers and computer support experts. He nodded and agreed and here we are six months and countless meetings later. I’m happy to report that the new process has been greatly improved:

Marla will now use colored markers on the dry-erase board to indicate what days you’re taking off.

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I thought ‘d give you all an update on how the weight loss is going because I know my fat is your entertainment.

I have, in the course of about a month, lost approximately nine pounds. That’s not too bad when you consider the fact that I really haven’t made too many changes and when you consider that I find a way to cheat on my diet almost every single day.

I’ve taken a good, hard look at myself (with an extra-wide mirror) and decided that I really need to change some of the bad health habits I’ve formed since turning 30 a few years ago. Just look at my sample day:

Right now I roll out of bed after the alarm goes off three times and then, because I’m really lazy, I roll down the hall and take a shower. Then I stumble out of the shower and make myself some coffee. I usually take my coffee with a cup full of sugar and about the same amount of heavy cream. But we run out of cream at least once a week so on those days I just drop in a half stick of butter because, you know, it was milk at one time and I’m not awake enough to notice. I down my cup of lard, kiss the wife goodbye and head off to work.

I’m usually unlocking my car when the caffeine kicks in and I realize I forgot to get dressed. Please don’t ask me where I keep the keys.

After streaking through my yard to get back inside I put on some clothes and head to work and I sit at a computer all day where the most exercise I usually get is bending paperclips into little action figures of my boss who inevitably gets his head stuck in the Stapler of Death. The only time I leave my desk is to grab myself another cup of milk and sugar (with some coffee) and to suck all the jelly out of the donuts in the breakroom while no one is watching.

Then I go to the company’s cafeteria for lunch where I usually get a piece of pizza which is so greasy that it should be priced around $55 a slice, given the high cost of oil. I wash it down with a milkshake (because nothing quenches your thirst better than a large cup of blended ice cream) and buy a brownie for my afternoon snack.

Finally I come home and have a well-balanced meal with my wife and bitch about why I haven’t lost more weight.

I bitch again several hours later when I’m having a slice of cake and a large bowl of ice cream before going to bed.

Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating a tiny bit. But the fact remains that I’m fat and not eating well and not exercising enough. How fat is fat?

I’m now 252.6 pounds. That’s the equivalent of almost two Johnny Depps or three Paris Hiltons or 45 Lindsey Lohans. Clearly, something must be done. I mean, she was hot before she was a stick. And I need to lose some weight, too.

I am losing weight, just not quite as quickly as I would like. I would like to lose it all immediately, so you can see why I’m disappointed. For the month of February I plan to refocus on my weight loss goals, tell you more about my methods and do everything in my ability to weigh in at 240 pounds on March 1st.

If I succeed, then I’ll be well on my way to becoming a healthier person who can entertain you with more wit and wisdom for years to come. If I fail, then you’ll feel much better about yourself while laughing at what a buffoon I am.

You win either way.

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This is an actual official memo from our Human Resources Department regarding one of our buildings.

Please do not go thru the back inventory area unless you have business there.

Okay, that’s actually not bad. “Thru” is a little informal for a company-wide memo, but I’m not going to take off points for that. So far the memo is short, simple, and to the point. Unfortunately, that’s the first and last line that can be described that way.

Do not use the back door for in and out unless you are loading or re-loading business equipment.

Umm…use the back door for in and out? If anyone is doing “in and out” with the back door, I think that person should probably be shot. And then someone needs to clean – no, burn – no, replace the whole damn door. This proves that verbs matter.

I know it is a shorter distance for some of you who wants to take a SMOKING break in the back area but walking is good for you.

Oh, I understand. This person is fluent in Engrish. People in Human Resources are rarely bothered by anything, so the capital letters are little disturbing. I’d be afraid if I were “some of the guy who wants to take a SMOKING break” at this point.

SMOKING IS REALLY REALLY BAD! IT HAS PROVED TO LINK TO LUNG CANCER. IF YOU WANT SOME ENCOURAGEMENT TO QUIT SMOKING, PLEASE GO VISIT LUNG CANCER PATIENT AND PICTURE YOURSELF IN THAT SITUATION. SOME OF US WHO HAS OBSERVED THIS FIRST HAND CAN TELL YOU SOME HORRIBLE STORY!

Woah, woah, woah!! Outta left field! Someone in HR definitely has some personal issues he or she has to work out, preferably with a therapist in a nice little office and not with an automatic weapon down at the local McDonalds. I’m glad this person is warning us about the dangers of smoking, because up to this point I was completely unaware of them.

It’s also news to me that lung cancer patients entertain random visitors stopping by and to ask them about their suffering. What a nice service.

Please use front door to come into the building. Although we have communicated this previously, I was told that some people still use inventory area as a short cut.

Okay, looks like we’re back to reality. And we have snitches!

I hate to remove the access from your card keys because I like to have it for emergency need.

So, the back door is accessed by a card key. And it should be for emergency needs only. But if access is removed then you won’t be able to go out the back door…even in the case of a fire. Possibly one caused by SMOKING?

Let’s practice this under an honored system for now.

But which “honored system”? There are so many to choose from…

I will ask our colleagues working in the inventory area to remind you when this happens. If situation is not improved, your manager will be notified. Please remember the front entrance area is a non-smoking area at all times.

Thanks.

You’re welcome.

So, what did we learn?

Back door: Bad.
Front door: Good.
Using the back door for smoking: Bad.
Smoking: REALLY REALLY BAD! GOOD LORD IT’S AWFUL! BAD! BAD! BAD!
Lung Cancer Patients: Both. Good to visit if you want to make yourself feel better about…well…anything. Bad if you’re looking for role-models.
Using the front door for smoking: Bad.

And to think that we complain about being uninformed.

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