Last week, I walked into my company's administrative office (consisting of a whopping two women). I walked in and muttered a quick "hello" as they were previously engaged in conversation. I went about my business, and their conversation soon ended. One of the ladies asked me if we were going to be traveling soon. I brought her up to date on the very little information we had and said our best guess was that we would be traveling in the Fall sometime. The other lady politely interrupted by saying, "If you don't mind my asking, how much..." She completed her sentence but not before I already finished what I assumed to be her question in my mind. I was sure she was going to ask how much it cost to complete an adoption. It is probably a mark of our world and society that we get that question just about more than any other (except for "Do you know when you will get her.") Anyway, when she completed her sentence, I learned that my assumption was completely wrong. In fact, what she said was, "If you don't mind my asking, how much time do you plan to take off when you go to get her?" I told her that we had to be in India for about two weeks and that I hoped I would be able to take off a third week once we returned.
It turns out that I am VERY glad she interjected herself into our conversation. You see, part of her job is to portion out the company benefits. She told me that she was just getting ready to send out the next round of checks and that with the new fiscal year upon us, company policy stated that no one can carry more than two weeks of vacation into the new fiscal year. For those with more than two weeks, they are to be automatically paid out the remainder. I have been at our company for over 10 years and never realized this policy was in place. She said it hadn't really been an issue before but that this year it would be carried out. She then said she suspected I preferred to not be paid out but to be able to keep the time I had accrued. I absolutely told her that was the case. She told me she was sure she could make that happen for me.
This was a pretty big deal because I have been saving vacation time like crazy for over a year in preparation for this upcoming trip. I would have been crushed to have worked so hard to save it only to lose much of it just a few months before I could use it.
It is so good to be taken care of in such a way. I am thankful to all of my parents who instilled in me a strong work ethic that sets me up to have people go the extra mile for me when I need it. I am also thankful for that God-ordained meeting where I just happened to go in on that day (not usually at that office), and where a coworker just happened to ask me that question, and where our benefits person just happened to follow up with a meaningful question of her own.
