Your job.

Lorgasm · Post by **Lorgasm** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 10:46 am

Professors with Playa dust on their shoes. How cool is that. One of my professors gave me some items to bring to the burn: cool sunglasses, a gold scarf, and a black sarong. Sadly, he has sinced passed away but I am so bringing his spirit with me.

oFZo · Post by **oFZo** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 12:06 am

BAS wrote:
oFZo wrote:
BAS wrote:

Maybe next year! No time for a project this year.

B.
Unfortunately the shipping costs from Holland to the US might be more than the employee-discount I can arrange
Not if you use the wood to build a sailboat and sail over! Hey, and you could put wheels on the boat and use the wind to get out to the playa!

B.

Cool idea, maybe next year

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 2:10 am

Most jobs do not allow you to disappear for a week for no reason at all; and most employers do not consider "to dress up like a clown and go party in the middle of desert" a good enough reason.

Sorry, just noticed this one and I didn't read the thread.

Where I work, you are given a thing called "vacation" that you are allowed to take and don't need to tell anyone what you are taking it for. We have no policy that says you have to explain why you want to take the vacation or where you are going or why or exactly what you will be doing.

I am a network architect. Nobody really knows exactly what I do. All they know is that I do it. Most of the time we aren't building anything so I don't have much to do but when the excrement impacts the impeller and the network techs can't figure out what is going on, I pull their ass out of the sling. Generally my job is to make sure they don't find themselves in that sling to begin with. It is a really odd sort of job. The better I do it, the more invisible I am. When the network expands, I tell them what gear to buy and how to configure it. If I do my job right, they have no problems and it eventually lulls them into the belief than they don't really need me and they lay me off. And after a while things get really bad and they hire me back because I was right. Every 3 or 4 years we have a change in organization or management that results in having to relearn that lesson. But I am a patient man with a smoke detector in each hip pocket, 37 fire extinguishers, who doesn't play with matches, and shorts bleacher stock.

adept · Post by **adept** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 10:29 am

I'm taking nearly 3 weeks off. I work at a small software company, which will put some projects on hold while I'm gone. I haven't told them I'm getting married while I'm gone.

Rusted Iron · Post by **Rusted Iron** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 7:38 pm

The clinic has a rule that only one of us can be gone at a time, since we have to cover for each other's vacations, so I put in my request for the time off, every January 2. So far, no one has managed to beat me to that week.

They all know where I go, and they demand to get post cards and see pictures, though none of them have any desire to go, themselves.

Xta_G · Post by **Xta_G** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 11:28 pm

I was the head instructor at a university swimming pool when I started planning this trip.. 4 weeks paid vacation, end of summer when all the rest of the staff are trying to find subs too, but I had seniority so it didn't matter...

.. and then a nasty case of harrassment from a patron occured, followed up by.. oh, right, nothing.. as a response from my manager, so after a couple months of stress lave, I quit. Figured I wouldn't be able to afford the playa this year, gave up on the idea and started looking for work... and then I started having really powerful playa dreams, my hooping business took off, a bunch of decently paying contract jobs came my way.. and I just didn't schedule anything for the last week of Aug and the first two of September!

I've already handed my September rent over to my landlord/friend, I've been buying bits and pieces of supplies and such for months though I'm counting on my hooping paycheque to cover the immediate (food, water, fuel) costs.. and the contract I'm working right before I leave for the playa (teaching people to be lifeguards) should cover my living costs through September at least... and then I have grand hopes that life will continue merrily along being successful when I get back.

Wheee!

X.

Post by **Eric** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 11:39 pm

Rusted Iron wrote:The clinic has a rule that only one of us can be gone at a time, since we have to cover for each other's vacations, so I put in my request for the time off, every January 2. So far, no one has managed to beat me to that week.

We have a similar situation.
I submit my playa vacation request the week I return. Cuts out worrying about the seniority card (only about 6 people have that on me, but one of them almost played it last year- aargh)

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:10 am

Xta_G wrote:I was the head instructor at a university swimming pool when I started planning this trip.. 4 weeks paid vacation, end of summer when all the rest of the staff are trying to find subs too, but I had seniority so it didn't matter...

.. and then a nasty case of harrassment from a patron occured, followed up by.. oh, right, nothing.. as a response from my manager, so after a couple months of stress lave, I quit. Figured I wouldn't be able to afford the playa this year, gave up on the idea and started looking for work... and then I started having really powerful playa dreams, my hooping business took off, a bunch of decently paying contract jobs came my way.. and I just didn't schedule anything for the last week of Aug and the first two of September!

I've already handed my September rent over to my landlord/friend, I've been buying bits and pieces of supplies and such for months though I'm counting on my hooping paycheque to cover the immediate (food, water, fuel) costs.. and the contract I'm working right before I leave for the playa (teaching people to be lifeguards) should cover my living costs through September at least... and then I have grand hopes that life will continue merrily along being successful when I get back.

Wheee!

X.

/
Glad to see your doing life right.

BAS · Post by **BAS** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 4:45 pm

Xta_G, glad to see you landed on your feet! Congradulations!

B.

skygod · Post by **skygod** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:57 pm

Xta_G wrote:life will continue merrily along being successful when I get back.

Wheee!

X.

I can tell you that it is a Juggernaut of Joy!

LeChatNoir · Post by **LeChatNoir** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 8:12 pm

heh heh...Xta,

Right on.

Xta_G · Post by **Xta_G** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:32 am

Thanks, folks..

Oh, and the latest one: the three-day contract I had lined up for this week, ref'in waterpolo for a buncha kids at the provincial tournament.. just got screwed up (by the organizers, not me.. they told me the wrong dates and didn't correct it til two days ago, too late for my other firm plans to be broken!)....

.. so along with not having to go to another city to do something I don't utterly enjoy, I also get THREE MORE DAYS of interrupted-only-when-I-want prep time for the playa! Woohoo! Oh, and my hooping contract wound up being more money than I thought, about the same that I would have made at this event.. sweet, eh?

I can only HIGHLY recommend that everyone tries giving up all security and following their dream at least once... :)

"Try it, you'll like it!"

See you in the desert :)

X.

leftbraindp · Post by **leftbraindp** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:49 am

I'm a Motion Graphics Designer for a movie trailer house in Hollywood... Last year my old boss got fired, and when my new one got her, I immediately told him I would be gone for a week for burningman... his 1st response was, oh really, I've always wanted to go to that... maybe we should make it a department trip... Right then I knew I was going to like my new boss

Silver 2 · Post by **Silver 2** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 12:08 pm

I work for the Feds and have for a long time so I have the max vacation time one can get. Everybody here knows that I will be gone for at least one and half weeks at the end of summer. The only question is exactly which weeks. Since I prattle on about it everybody knows. I do inform the division heads that I don't see regularly that I won't be around during set dates. Which reminds me I need to give them a leave slip, I forgot last year and the timekeeper person yelled at me.

Interesting note, I was working with one of the Commissioners and he had just come back from camping in Nevada and I mentioned that I was headed for the Black Rock Desert. "Oh, Burning Man! Right?" We talked about it for a while, he may go next year.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 12:44 pm

Dang, you mean as a timekeeper I'm allowed to YELL?

I wish someone had told me before I perfected my meek and mild act...

deviceone · Post by **deviceone** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 1:51 pm

Im an onsite support contractor for HP, and Im lucky to have a boss not only worked with me for time off, but gave his blessing for the event and is pretty curious about it. Im required to bring back lots of pictures and stories. Not to mention that they put up with me cutting a mohawk a week ago and have always put up my with carhartts-as-office-clothing habit :)

//Adrian