It's not exactly a secret that I find the almost obsessive viewing of football games to be nothing short of ridiculous, and so you can imagine how excited I was to receive the following email just a minute ago…
Dear colleagues
As the world cup approaches we thought you'd appreciate some guidance on how we'd like you to manage your viewing time for matches that fall within office hours.
Please see the arrangements we've made for televisions to be made available in (the) meeting rooms for England games and for the quarter final.
If you support a country other than England and would like to make arrangements for your line manager to watch a match during office hours, please let XXXX in office services know and we will try our best to make suitable arrangements.
First Round England Matches : Saturday 10th June, 2pm / Thursday 15th June, 5pm – Room 5C booked from 4.30pm and PH1 booked from 5pm / Tuesday 20th June, 8pm
Second Round – Either Saturday 24th June, 4pm or Sunday 25th June at 4pm
Quarter Final – Either Friday 30th June at 4pm or Saturday 1st July at 4pm – Room 2a booked from 3.30pm and PH1 booked from 3.30pm or you are free to make special arrangements with your line manager to leave early.
Either Friday 30th June at 4pm or Saturday 1st July at 4pm – Room 2a booked from 3.30pm and PH1 booked from 3.30pm or you are free to make special arrangements with your line manager to leave early.
Semi Final – Either Tuesday 4th July at 8pm or Wednesday 5th July at 8pm
Final – Sunday 9th July at 7pm.
We ask you to work with your line manager to move lunch breaks, take flexi or annual leave to ensure that work demands can still be met.
For the quarter final on Friday 30 June, you are free to make special arrangements with your line manager to leave early.
PXXXXX and National Office Management Team
You can imagine how utterly thrilled I was at the latent knowledge that in order for this document to exist there had probably been a World Cup Impact Management Taskforce, or similar, holding a string of meetings and devising a strategy. Even more galling is that this would be the same body of people who “review your performance” if they decide you've turned up 10 minutes late too many days in a row (whilst studiously ignoring the fact you've worked back til 7pm every night).
Thankfully as a contractor I don't have to deal with that. Pass me another single malt.