Dan's Thoughts

Birthdays, Super Tuesday, The Super Bowl and Company Plans
On my way home from class Monday night I was listening to the local talk radio station. The host was asking people wanted to know how people would feel about having to miss the Super Bowl because of an awards ceremony for their spouse. Seem the host trolls online chat rooms looking for a controversy to talk about on the air. She found a story about a woman who was upset that her husband didn't want to go see her get an award from her company. Most of the callers said the husband should go with the wife and support her regardless of how much a football fan he was. And I'm right there with them -- if it's important to my wife I go with her no matter what else may be going on.

Well, one caller made the point that companies should be more aware of things like the Super Bowl and schedule around them. And I was like, yeah, good point. People often have family gatherings and make a big deal about the Super Bowl.

And while I was thinking about that I remembered that I'm going to be on a plane, flying out to a week long event for my dayjob on Sunday, as are a whole bunch of other people. In addition, super Tuesday is next week. Anyone in a state holding their primary won't be able to vote in person. So, in short, my employer may well have screwed things up for more than a few people who may have had Super Bowl plans and/or wanted to vote in person.

I'm not a huge football fan anymore, but I do enjoy the game. I won't miss it, I probably wasn't going to watch it anyway. But the election is hugely important and I had been counting on voting. So today, right after dropping off my daughter at school, my wife and I went to the county records office so I could vote by absentee ballot. So now I'm set, but not everyone my remember to do this - and in some places it may already be too late to do.

It also so happens that my son's birthday is Monday and because of the job I'm going to miss that too. It's not something they would know or even care about planning around, but it's not cool. My son isn't happy about it - I am going to spend some extra special time with him to make up for it, but it's not really the same as being there on the day. *sigh*

In short, it's a bad week to plan a major company get together - it /should/ have been obvious, but lately, the obvious seems to escape them on many, many fronts.....