Kick-off 2012 without me :-(

Shit! Faen! Scheiße! Merda! Putain! Fuck!
Sorry, this is usually not my language, but it's time to be angry!
Yes, you might have gotten it, I'm extreeeeeeemly pissed off! Really pissed off!

As you might know there is an annual kick-off with the company. That is a company trip with ALL colleagues participating, i.e. everybody from the Oslo office, from the Stockholm office and the sales team abroad, thus roughly about 30 people. This event is a kind of incentive for the hard work during the year, each year taking place in another place, increasing the social relations among all the staff and talking a bit about the business. It usually allows to discover a new destination combined with a programm full of different (often fun) activities, to have a lot of fun, get in touch with the colleagues one usually doesn't have too much contact with throughout the rest of the year and also to get an overview of the whole company's performance over the past year and its outlook for the future.


For me this is actually an important event I've always been looking forward to. However, the next one in 2012 will be without me :-( :-( :-( I won't be able to join as the decision for the date fell on exactly that weekend when I will be on skiing holidays.


I haven't been skiing for ages. I talk about the "real" skiing, means downhill skiing (sorry, Norwegians, your cross country skiing might be your national sport and a strenuous, good one, but for me it's downhill the epitome of skiing)...
For a long time already my father had suggested to try and get again a skiing trip organised, together with my brother, his girlfriend Anna, me and Marco. And finally, after so many years, we managed to get something planned. It was so hard to find a date on which we will all be able to join. So just recently, after much discussion and a lot of back and forth, my father booked the accomodation, which is now binding, for the week Saturday 11.02. to Saturday 18.02.2012.
Before giving him my ok though for this date, I had told my father that I had to check that with my company as the first 3 months of a year are the potential period for the company kick-off I really wouldn't wanna miss out. So I talked to my boss Franck. I had told him that I would like to book a week of skiing holidays in February and if he already knew the date or if he knew when it definitely would NOT take place. He said, well, the dates are not set yet, but to have a look at the dates for vinterferie (winter holidays) as we usually don't leave during these holidays. So together we had a look and vinterferie in 2012 fall on the week 20.-24.02., thus including the weekends 18./19.02. and 25./26.02. "Great!" I thought, "so for the weekend 18./19.02. I'm safe, we won't leave that weekend".
Since every year someone else is responsible for the organisation (usually the colleagues from the Stockholm and the Oslo office in alternation) we were convinced that the organisation of the next kick-off was in our own hands in the Oslo office and thus we'd have some influence on the dare. So for the weekend 11./12.02. when we'd leave for the skiing week I played with the assumption that we'd be able to not organise the company trip exactly on that weekend. Thus cheerfully I confirmed the dates to my father... also knowing that if it wasn't ok for that week we probably wouldn't find any alternative date for that location.


Now I had been gone for 10 days and when I came back and caught up with all my emails, I found an email from our CEO Anette. Boom, slap in the face: "Kick-off 2012: block the weekend 17.-19.02.!". Fuck!!! I wrote back to her saying "what a pity" as I have booked holidays from 11.-18.02. after having checked with Franck that it would be ok then as that weekend falls on vinterferie. She answered that she had checked with Franck before and that he gave the ok for that date. "That was really stupid!" she said. Indeed! As there was also one other person that wouldn't be able to join that weekend, Anette wrote an email to check if the weekend before (11./12.02.) was better and again I wrote her that just in my previous email I had told her I'd be gone 11.-18.02. and thus this wouldn't change anything... at least not for me. And since for that date even more people weren't available, the next morning we all got again an email from Anette: "Final decision is that we will have our kick-off 17.-19.02.!" Even more f***, f***, f***! :-(

What I hate about all that is that if Franck had just raised objections against the proposed date it might not have been decided on it! They had discussed the date during the last leader meeting in Stockholm from which Franck had to leave earlier to catch his flight to Paris. So Anette had called him... probably right at the airport, or maybe when passing the controls or when boarding or whatever inconvenient moment. A moment when he didn't have any calender with him and not really time to think or really check if there could be anything on that date. Of course, Franck has really other things to keep in mind than the exact off-dates of his employees. But I told him that I wouldn't wanna miss the kick-off and that's why we had together a look at the vinterferie dates. We had discussed that together! If not my exact holiday dates, he could have at least remembered that I in somehow had planned something in Februrary. Probably just the few words "wait, Anette, I'm not sure about the exact dates, but I think Lilian wanted to book some holidays in that period. Check with her the dates!" would have already prevented Anette from going for that weekend!
And that's exactly the point that makes me so angry! If she just hadn't called him while being in the middle of travelling, after a long hard day and 2 full days of client meetings ahead causing him having really other things in mind than thinking about an event in such "far" future in February...Franck might have remembered me paying all that attention of not having coincide the holidays with this kick-off :-(

But, shit, "final decision"! And of course, I fully understand, I'm definitely not the most important person in the company for which one should change the date and make others not being available. That would be presumptuous!


It was damn important for me!!! One might think now "why is this event so important to her? It's just a stupid kick-off. Why all this fuss? And finally she's going skiing, so what?". There are several reasons for me which are beyond the superficial aspects of having fun, travelling and getting little/rather more drunk together with the colleagues. It rather relates to the not so good phase I'm currently going through. But, anyway, the reason is simply not the point. It's not about discussing WHY this was important to me. Just take it as a fact which discussing further for understanding the reason is a totally different story.
Yes, I go skiing instead, but that is something I could do also another time. We would have been able to find an alternative date, but then in another location... if I had just known the kick-off date earlier. But now everything is booked and we can't change it anymore. And to cancel the holidays with my father isn't right. I can't. We all wanted to go on these holidays for a long time and he and his wife made such an effort to get it finally all organised. I was happy for having this long planned idea finally realised. I only didn't want to go on these holidays at the expense of the kick-off.

I am super disappointed and super sad :-( :-( :-(  And I think I will be so for still quite a while now. I had tried all to make the two events not coincide. And just because of Anette calling Franck in an inopportune moment who - without really thinking - just says "yes, go ahead".
I already see myself again totally down when the programm for the kick-off is out and everybody in the office is talking happily about it and looking forward to it. And after the trip they will lively laugh and talk about all the fun they had, the great time spent together, the new places they have seen etc.