Use it or lose it!

Is it time or is it youth or is it an opportunity? No silly, it’s your earned leaves. Never mind that you think that you have earned it, because you have not. It’s us, the masters of your universe who have given you this. So better use it or lose it! That is the policy change in the company that greeted me on my return to work. The earned leaves will now lapse if not used by the end of the year.

Now for the record, this is the only kind of leave I get. No sick leaves, no casual leaves and no any other kind of leave. I mean if I didn’t come to work today, because I died yesterday, they will deduct one of my earned leaves.

When I started to work here, friends and relatives would ask about the terms of employment and invariably about the number of leaves I was entitled to. They would always be shocked and I would always be embarrassed when I told them. But at least I could earn and save my leaves and use it per my convenience. I could just pile it up till I could get it encashed.

For the uninitiated, earned leaves are actually earned for each day of the work that you do. This is mandated by the government laws and there is a formula for the calculation. If you go on a leave of absence you don’t earn the leaves for those days. And when you have saved a certain number of leaves that you have earned, you could get it encashed by getting the salary for as many number of days.

But not any more, not in my company at least. In the middle of the global economic crisis when everyone preaches about saving your earnings, my company forces me to splurge.

Funny it is, how you tend to become spiritual when you sense the presence of some super being (that would be my HR managers) overseeing you. Your earned leaves are no more earned leaves. They are a gift, like the gift of time or youth. You have to use it now. Because tomorrow it will not be there. No they are not encashed, they are lapsed.

So take a vacation, or sit at home or best still go to work and don’t punch in and out. Just make sure that you have not more than half your leaves left by the end of the year.

Sometimes I think these guys are jealous of us. Jealous about how we settle down so fast with the changes despite the policy changes coming at frightening regularity. And no one seems to mind this policy change as well.

I wonder what they smoke. I just want to know so that I can keep away from it. And I demand to know what those five gentlemen were smoking when they voted for the Peace Nobel.

Footnote1: When I joined this company as a young, fresh, campus recruit, it used to be the most admired company in India. It’s been among top spots for years. Now it does not even figure in top twenty. Guess why? No, it’s not only because I work here.

Footnote2: I use up all my leaves every year and even go into leaves without pay (and not earn leaves for those days). But I still find this whole idea appalling.