Huh? What?

(Source)

"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. - Catch-22, Chapter 5, pg. 55, Joseph Heller

So yes, I'm back at work, been back for a couple of days now. Full days. Now things are different when you are out of work on a Medical Leave of Absence, or MLOA as it's called. If you go out for more than a week, one can get short term disability, both from Rhode Island, and the company's insurance. If you pay the extra dimes, you can get 100% coverage. Which I have.

How it works is that you contact Human Resources, er, sorry, now they're part of Global Business Services and they have a phone menu about 27 levels deep. What you need is on about level 15, I think. Anyway, they ask for the last day worked, and the day you expect to return. Did that and away we went.

The first five days is on you, you either take PTO (Paid Time Off) or you don't get paid at all. As I had it in the bank, I took it. I like my PTO, but I like getting paid more. After that five days is up, you are taken off the active roles and placed on MLOA. The insurance and the state take care of paying for the days you're on MLOA. Eventually.

Now Monday last, as you'll recall, was the great North-South Conclave of 2018. I was absent from work for approximately 3.5 hours. I had worked an extra hour before going out to get my eyeball repaired and I still had 2.5 hours of PTO on the books. Or so I thought.

Now when one returns to work, you can't fill in your timecard (more on that in a minute) until you are "activated" in the system. To do that you go see the nurse and the nurse (or you) contacts HR, er, I mean GBS and say, "I'm back!!" (I like doing that in a really creepy voice, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, you get my drift?)

Casually, I checked my timecard Monday at lunch before heading off to the Conclave, "Hhmm," says I, "where is my 2.5 hours of PTO?" System says zero hours available. As I know that's horse dung, I resolve to correct that on Tuesday.

Here it is Thursday, and it hasn't been corrected yet. Twice I was fobbed off by some goon at GBS with odd explanations of "well, you were on MLOA so we had to use the last 2.5 hours of your PTO." Uh, WTF, over? After several attempts I actually managed to get in touch with someone who actually knew what she was doing. Yeah, I know, hard to believe.

Rather than fob me off with some vague policy quote and made up corporate speak, she actually got to the root of the problem. Seems that some Poindexter entered my last day of work as the 9th of October. Which made the real last day of work moot. She has assured me that she will get me my PTO back, all 2.5 hours of it, within "24 to 48 hours." I think she actually will, but to be safe, I mentioned the words "fradulent timecard entry" and "ethics violation" here at the home office.

Yes, that got peoples' attention. If GBS doesn't fix it, my section manager assures me that there's someone here locally in HR that is keeping an eye on that. Hopefully.

Anyhoo. The timecard thing threw me when I fisrt started work here, a long time ago. I thought I was a salaried employee, no need to "punch a time clock" so what's this having to account for all of my time (at least 40 hours a week) on this "timecard thingy"? Well, I am a salaried employee but as we work on government contracts, Uncle Sam likes to know what we are squandering spending the taxpayers money on. As each contract is a different bucket of dinero, we need to track which buckets we're drawing from throughout the week.

By the way, making a "fradulaent entry on a timecard" is what you call a Federal offense. It's about the only thing which is a sure-fire trip out the front door with a security escort with an admonition to "never, ever come back." I've seen it happen.

So...

As my timecard wasn't unlocked until Tuesday, I entered Monday's time and Tuesday's time on Tuesday, when it was activated. On Wednesday I get an automated email from The Timecard System, telling me that I have been a bad boy for not doing Monday's time entries on Monday.

Uh...

"My timecard was locked on Monday."

"You have to fill out your timecard on the same day."

"Weren't you paying attention to my first statement?"

"You have to fill out your timecard on the same day."

"Ah, I get it, Catch-22."

"You have to fill out your timecard on the same day."

Bear in mind, I'm arguing with an automated syatem. Computers only do what they are told. Unfortunately, modern technology has made it so simple to program a computer that any old idiot can slap together a software program.

And they do.

Idiots programming computers, what could possibly go wrong?

Self-driving cars indeed!

Oh yes, we do, we do indeed!