14
potata
5y

It was around 2013, I was working on a project that had a great business idea, a really really bright feature (to this day I state the same) and all I was getting was around 400e/month of salary. (still was a junior dev)

So, I've been going on vacation to Spain for almost 1.5 month, everything was settled, there were no more pending jobs for me as I've finished everything that I could until more things would be done on the application and design that were needed.

It was 2nd week there, I didn't have a laptop with me as it was full vacation mode, no internet connection as it was almost 100e/month at that time, house I've lived in had no internet either. Then, one morning I receive a call that I must be on a skype meeting in any case - it was live or die situation. Me being me - went to a local internet cafe that was around 3km away from the house (on foot) - logged in to the call and proceeded. (I knew something is going to be fishy).

And there it was - I was needed to go back to my laptop and code a huge ass functionality so that we could present it to our testing clients. It was estimated to take around 3 weeks of full working days. No future payment, no compensation was offered but as stupid as I was - I went on with that and worked half of my vacation on full-day schedule... The functionality was delivered... Only after 4 months since the delivery date - the functionality was tested and after total of 9 months - was presented to the testers... I was pissed and asked for compensation as it was my vacation but all I heard was - NO, you took too long of a vacation and therefore it's your own fault. Soon after that I've started to receive every bit of blame if I was even 1 hour off the set deadline that was set by the manager that didn't have a single clue how programming works or even how to use the internet properly....

All in all, I'm still hurt of the 3 weeks that I've missed but since I've left the job 4 years ago (my salary had increased but I've quadrupled it since then) - I tend to see that it's a common practice to require things NOW and only deal with them MONTHS later...

Morale of the story:
Avoid working on your vacation at any means. If that will mean a lost job - then be it, you'll find a new one, presumably a better job.

Comments
  • 6
    Within the EU, demanding work while on holiday is illegal, contacting you while on holiday is already a tricky subject!
  • 2
    @ThomasRedstone Heh, Illegal it is but who cares? :) I've seen MANY places that contact you when they need additional work horses and they don't really care about the law. If you complain - you immediately lose the job and you get a negative recommendation afterwards which makes it harder to find a new job. Well, at least that's in my country.

    My wife just been thru this, she got called on her 2 weeks MANDATORY holiday (enforced by law) - and since she denied - she just got fired and received a negative review (if new company calls to check info about you - they lie that you were never reliable, even if you were their nr.1 employee).

    So yeah, as long as people care - that's a law but more than often they don't...
  • 4
    @potata that's awful, what country are you in?
    I know some abuse happens in the UK, but firing people without cause, and telling lies in a reference would get a company in serious trouble, really sad that that isn't the case everywhere :-(
  • 1
    @ThomasRedstone post-soviet Lithuania, where connections and butt licking matters more than skills in many cases :)
  • 1
    @potata ah, makes sense, hopefully less so than in the past?
    The UK had its problems (like the population being dumb enough that they could be convinced that the EU was bad for them).
  • 1
    @ThomasRedstone ye, situation is getting better here as more and more foreign companies arrive but the mentality of "I can take any person off the street to replace you and do the same" is still here...
  • 1
    @potata do you not have unions of any kind?
  • 1
    @electrineer we do, they are pretty useless as they don't get the support from the law makers in most cases
  • 1
    @potata do they ever organize strikes?
  • 2
    @electrineer yep... We just had one where teachers took over ministry of schools - it lasted whole month and was deemed by our government as illegal. When more than 15k people showed up to support them - only then small changes were made. Other than that - they still state that it's Russians work and they want to throw government down :)

    Ahh, sounds so retarded to write and it's our reality... Lol
  • 1
    @potata too much russian influence problems you mention. Goverment is just old people and farmers with 0 skills in needed problems.

    And your wife situation is very common in retail, seen this stuff in big companies.
  • 0
    @andrejus exactly :) As a country we have run away from Russia but as people - we are still carrying their mentality.

    On the other hand, I've personally seen what happens to people that goes into politics and is against robbing the country - they are just thrown away
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