Good news/bad news

[cosmolinguist]

Welp. Remember when you told me I shouldn't need to chair a work meeting while I'm on vacation?

The good news is, I'm not going to.

The bad news is, it's because I can't. The plan was that we'd be at our Airbnb by tonight and D and I would both work from there tomorrow while V started to recover from the journey.

And we're not at the Airbnb because our ferry to the island we're actually planning to visit, where V's son lives, was canceled. So last-minute that when we got to the port we saw vehicles driving off of it that had already boarded.

We couldn't stay anywhere in the small town where the ferry port is. It has hotels and B&Bs but not enough for an extra ferryload of people at short notice. Poor D had to drive forty minutes back the way we came just for us to get a room at all.

And our ferry crossing has been re-booked, for Saturday. No ferries until then. Allegedly; apparently this can change at short notice. But even if it does, it's hard to plan accommodation or anything else.

And in the meantime we're grateful just to have a roof over our heads (we're staying in the attic, so the slanted roof is only just over my head on this side of the room!). And we'll figure out what happens tomorrow.

But in the meantime, checkout is at 11, and so is this precious meeting. I already told my boss, when we didn't know where if anywhere we'd be tonight to explain, and he wrote back that he was sorry to hear this and to message him in the morning if he's needed to sit in. If! I'm not impressed that even I don't know where I'll sleep tonight and I won't have WiFi tomorrow lunchtime isn't enough to get him to understand that he has to chair this meeting.

Except for this massive snag and the possibility of V not being able to see their kid at all this year, which is a real "other than that Mrs. Lincoln how was the play," we've actually had a lovely day. We all were up and at 'em in good time to leave the nice place in Stirling where we broke the journey last night. We had time to visit the Highland Folk Museum on the way, which D picked up a brochure about when he was in a long queue to buy sandwiches for lunch at the café with the highland coo (Scottish for "cow") statue everyone gets their photo taken next to, including me now, and we were delighted at the serendipity. It was lovely to see an example of the blackhouses that I'd heard V talk about, and a loom shed for weaving the famous Harris tweed.

I am with my two humans and we are going to wait for more decision-making information and capacity after a night's sleep and maybe some updates from the much-cursed ferry operator.

Comments

[otter]

That's not the lengths anyone wants to go to get out of a meeting. I clicked on the blackhouses and it leads nowhere. So I still don't know what those are yet, until I look further.

[cosmolinguist]

I fixed the blackhouse link, sorry it wasn't working.

That's not the lengths anyone wants to go to get out of a meeting.

Exactly! I'd much rather be in a position to do the meeting!

[angelofthenorth]

Wow. I'm sorry you're having ferry problems. And boss problems. I hope you manage to get more time in the highlands/Skye to do nice things, even if you can't do the things you really want to do.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah the three of us have determined that we're going to have A Holiday of some kind this week, whether it involves the Isle of Lewis or not.

[haggis]

Oof. Huge sympathy having done that journey earlier this summer. It's such a stressful process without them cancelling the blooming boat!

[haggis]

And your boss can get stuffed.

[barakta]

I bet Erik's boss managed chairing the meeting just fine. And even if he didn't, he gets paid £££ more to have difficult shit.

[sfred]

Ugh. I hope the Saturday ferry works out.

[silveradept]

Goodness, what an adventure to have about the ferry, and my, what a decision by your boss to suggest you might still be able to do anything when your plans have been so thoroughly disrupted.

[mst3kforall]

Ugh, I’m sorry everything was so stressful, and relieved you were able to get a place for the night. I know (from getting to this late) that you had a good ferry crossing!

Is it possible that your boss is not that thick but more manipulative and using “weaponised incompetence” to try to get people (like you) to do the work that (it sounds very much like) he should be doing? [ Also please let me [ edit: know ] if I should edit or just delete this paragraph (or anything else) ]

[cosmolinguist]

I am really sensitive to weaponized incompetence, thanks to my ex (well...many of my exes, but especially the one I was married to) and I don't think that's what's happening here because he's not normally like this at all. He's very aware that his job as manager is to support us and block stuff that's not our problem from becoming so. But it's been a rough six months or so; he's doing like three job roles at the moment and there's a hiring freeze. It's really shitty. But knowing this is why he's being shitty helps only a little -- he's still a good guy and I like him, but I don't like this kind of behavior at all.

[mst3kforall]

Ah, that makes sense. Glad it’s not that, anyway, but sorry things are so tough there at the moment.