How to get an Indian boss to approve your holidays

When Ingrid asked if I wanted to go to Goa at the beginning of October, it was a no brainer. Firstly, I knew I wanted to go there at some point anyway, as it was supposed to be amazing, and I could also catch up with Jennifer, a girl I knew from university. Secondly, it was going to be my birthday and I'd much rather celebrate with cocktails on the beach, than with cardamom tea in the office cafeteria. The company birthday celebration protocol was pretty weird, if you ask me. One of the company "butlers" would turn up with a cake and your beloved colleagues would then smear the icing all over your face. If you were a guy, they would also hold you up in the air and take turns at kicking your butt really hard. Cheapskates. I guess their thinking was along the lines of: "Why bother with massage certificates or spa vouchers when you can give your colleague a birthday cake facial, followed by a thorough butt massage?" Not being a total girl or anything, but I was in no mood for having my make-up ruined. And besides that, any reason for getting out of the office is a good one. Off to Goa then!

I suspected that Indian bosses had a bit of an issue with approving holidays, but luckily my AVP authorized my leave request within a few minutes. No questions asked. Ingrid was not so lucky. Her boss had many tricks up his sleeve, starting with: "You are working on a very important project, I can't let you go." When she objected that the holiday was several weeks away and he has plenty of time to organize the workload, or arrange cover, he changed his negotiation strategy. "Where are you going?" "Goa." "There are no tickets to Goa, I checked." "Well, I am not going by train. I am flying and there are tickets." "You know what, I think you should take two days off instead of a week and then you can come back earlier." Later it was: "Who are you going with?" "Why are you going?" and blah blah blah … Ingrid was pissed off. How was it any of his business? Who was he to sniff around like this, telling her there are no tickets and suggesting changes to the itinerary?

After several weeks of haggling, Ingrid ended the argument with: "Just remember that I am not Indian. I came here from Colombia and I didn't just come here to work. I came here to see India." Maybe it was a bit below the belt, but, at the end of the day, she was right. Frankly, her job sucked, her salary sucked, so cultural experience and sightseeing were just about the only excuses she could give for sticking around. We researched the Lonely Planet guidebook, some government tourism websites and asked a few work colleagues for recommendations. We decided that once we are going all that way down south, we might as well visit Kerala, too. Two flies with one hand. As a result, I came up with a carefully crafted 9-day itinerary. We would have to skip a few interesting places due to time constraints, but you can never have it all. That's life.

Booking internal flight tickets turned out to be tricky business. None of the domestic airlines accepted foreign-issued debit or credit cards. They also did not accept Indian-issued debit cards. The only option seemed to be an Indian-issued credit card, but the bank promptly informed me that these cannot be issued to foreigners. "Well, that's just wonderful", I thought. "We're stuck." Although it was a purely personal trip, I decided to try my luck and see if the company's finance department could do anything to assist me – like book the flights for me with a company credit card, in exchange for cash. To my surprise, my contact in the finance department was more than happy to help and one of his colleagues booked the flights for us with his own personal credit card. Later I found out that the banks give cash bonuses and free flights for spending large amounts on your credit card, so that was probably the source of his willingness to help us out. A win-win situation.