I'm really not sure how I should be addressing this, but I am very frustrated. My organization works 9/80's, which means we work 9 hours per day and take every other Friday off. Next Friday (the day before Memorial Day weekend) is an off day. It is also the first day of summer for most children in the area, and coincidently the first day of a family vacation for many families at my office.
I just got a meeting invite yesterday for an 8:30-3:30 meeting on that Friday, scheduled by our new director. The meeting involves about 8 people, all various levels of leadership, working on a specific program effort. It is effectively an all-day status meeting.
I've talked to about half of the other people involved including my direct manager, and like me, they all have vacations planned as well. My knee jerk reaction is to just decline, but I'm getting the impression that most of them are cancelling their family vacation and intend to be there.
My direct manager, seeing how frustrated I was about it, offered to cover for me and suggested a status meeting next week to get him up to speed. Of course I thanked him, but there is no way I'm going to put him in a position where he has to speak for me.
The bottom line is that I'm planning on attending the meeting, even though it means cancelling my vacation, loosing the cost of the park passes I paid for, and working on my day off for a pointless meeting. My wife and kids are really disappointed. I'm taking one for the team. Not for her, but everyone below her that she is screwing over. However I feel like putting up with this is setting a bad precedent. I really don't want to work under someone like this and started polishing my resume last night.
Am I jumping to conclusions?
**** Update ****
Since many of the comments cover the same concerns I will address them here.
As I mentioned, she is a new director. This will be the first time I am meeting her, so no I don't have regular communication with her.
My time off was approved in the sense that I am not actually taking any time off. The office is closed every other Friday. Nobody works on this day and the directory is well aware of this.
A colleague on the meeting tried cancelling and she re-scheduled it to put him back on it. She added to the notes that she was scheduling in advance to give him time to flex the time. Basically what that means is that assuming he can afford to cancel all his meeting on say.... Tuesday, he could take off Tuesday rather than have a 4 day weekend.
For those of you asking why I am even still considering going: As I said before. If I do not go, I will be the only one not going. Others will have to speak on my behalf. For this meeting in particular I am the subject matter expert. If everyone just said no in unison, it might work but I feel that I would be letting my team down.
My manager, has already said he would cover me, but I know he will be missing his vacation to do so. I am not going to put him in a bad position where he has to speak for me.
Yes I'm very disappointed in addition to my wife and kids. That should be obvious.
I could decline and legally there is no way any repercussions could come to me. This is more about supporting my team.
**** second update ****
Not sure if she had a change of heart but she finally moved the meeting to Thursday. I'm sure she had a lot of push-back including my own.