I ran across an Overheard in the Office today that reminded me of one of the more memorable moments of awfulness during the thirty years I worked at STV. I had taken a half-day off for my Great Aunt Sylvia’s funeral, and I put this time down on my time sheet as “Bereavement.”
About a month later, I got a call from headquarters. Someone in HR felt it necessary to ask me exactly who had died. Knowing that technically bereavement leave was for close relatives only, and that STV was grotesquely inflexible on technicalities, I said it was my aunt, leaving out the “great” part. That seemed like a satisfactory answer, and then the HR woman closed by saying, “Next time, make sure you put down your relationship to the person.”
Next time?
It’s memories like that one that make me so very happy to work where I do now.