Taking Some Time Off
I had an inside hint from HR that there were about to be mass layoffs and my name was on the list. I scheduled my week-long vacation and return date the day before layoffs were presumed to be happening. My boss REAMED me out for daring to take a vacation. She said I would never advance in the company if I chose such a formative time in a project to take a vacation.
She told me I would never be an executive producer if I went on a vacation before project launch (even though I wouldn’t be able to touch it for the week I was away anyway) and that I would always be known in the television industry as “lazy”. I chilled, took my vacation, and returned. She was mad and said that she was upset with me for having left.
She said I “made her” take care of my project for me—chewed me out in front of the entire company in the conference room. I didn’t care, because I had the perfect response to get back at her: “Aren’t you laying off a bunch of us tomorrow? I’m just waiting for you to fire me so I can collect unemployment”. The entire room literally starts panicking all over the place and I went home.