Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Sabbatical Negotiation

Ministers are typically granted furlough (also called sabbatical, or long leave) every so many years. For fifteen years, most of my furlough had been postponed, and we had the looming spectre of “pay-back time” (or "cancellation time") -- accumulated furlough amounting to many months. A Church committee requested a meeting with me. They dealt with me very kindly, and their proposal was this: that a smaller part of my overdue furlough should be paid out to me, and that the rest should be granted -- however, that I should space it out, to claim no more than a month at a time. Their reasons were that I was (supposedly) indispensable, and that full furloughs would place a strain on the Church’s finances. OBSERVATION: I accepted, and found that this suited me, and worked very well. We kept it like that.

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