Work While on Vacation

October 2007, it was Diwali time; almost all of my co-workers were in holiday mood. I too wanted to break free from work and enjoy the time with my family members. But my boss had something else in mind. There was an important product release scheduled that week and he wanted someone in Pune office to be there in case something goes wrong. The release can't wait but someone's holiday can be sacrificed. The usual quote, "you can take compensatory off sometime latter".
The story repeats several times each year.
October 2008, I had to travel to US office for the release of one such important product. So, Diwali 2008 was for me without any sounds of crackers. By this times I have reached the upper ceiling of my leave balance. As per HR guidelines, I would have to take leave or it laps automatically. Unfortunately, engineering hardly follows HR guidelines when it comes to work hour, holiday, or vacation.
December 2008, recession hits global market and companies around the world started to find possible way to reduce expenses. My company declared 1 week shutdown across the globe. My boss had something different in mind. He gave me task that I could execute from home.
Then came the summer and I asked my boss if I could go on a vacation. I knew that my daughter would start schooling from June and I would have to match all vacation plan with her school calender. By boss told vacation during this summer would be impossible.
The first quarter of 2009, HR declared mandatory 5 days vacation for all employees. My boss said, you would not need to follow that. Let HR deduct 5 days leave from your account. I would let you go for 5 days without leave at a more suitable time. By now, I have lost count of such compensatory off balance or how many leaves have lapsed.
I looked into release calender and applied for 3 weeks leave during September. I was glad that my boss approved. So, I went ahead and booked my journey ticket with an airline.
With only 2 days before my travel date, product manager informed everyone that a beta release is scheduled next week, no one goes on vacation. This times I could not blame my boss. But I did ask him when should I re-schedule my vacation plane. He told me that any date after October 2nd would be fine. I took a one week buffer and changed my travel date to October 9. The Airline charged me 12.5k INR extra.

The beta did not go and we had normal release date on October 2. I finished all of my task by September 30 but someone else did not. So, October 2 became October 9 and then October 16 because of other issues. On October 8, just 12 hour before my journey, my boss told me that he had requested upper management to compensate me for the financial loss due to cancellation of tickets.
As I sat their in my office, I was unable to write any single line of code. I knew I could not work like that. I thought of many options and finally offered my boss a middle path. I offered him to work 10 more days from Kolkata where I would be able to attend most of the issues if not all. He agreed only after intervention from someone else from Pune office.
I may have earned my vacation but lost some goodwill with my boss. Maybe I needed the vacation more, especially for my daughter than the goodwill with my boss. It's been 10 days since I came here. The release finally went on 16th October. Though it was work while on vacation for the last 10 days, I am going off the internet from tomorrow. I hope it's time for fun for few days now.