Rescinded how?

At 6:46 this morning, all of the New Mexico Environment Department (of which the Air Quality Bureau is a part) got an email from the Deputy Secretary saying “Santa Fe offices will be in a 2 hour delay.” I was on my computer and saw it right away.

Whooo-hooo! 2-hour delay! Since the delay was due to ice rather than heavy snow, I suspected my employees might not all have thought to check to see if there was a delay. And they may not be checking their work email that early. So shortly after 7:00, I sent them all a text message to their phones; “2-hour delay!”

At 9:01 we got a follow-up email, “The 2 hour delay stated below is rescinded.” What does that mean, rescinded? What do I tell my confused employees? Were we supposed to be in at 8:00 after all? Do we turn back the clock? Jump in our time machines? Or are we now expected to be at work at 9:01? 

I promptly left for work, but it took me 40 minutes to go 5 miles. The roads were still ice and slicker than shit. It then took the rest of the day to get it all sorted out with HR. Instead of just having us all report 2 hours of administrative leave, they asked all the managers take a poll of every single employee. They’re going to give each employee the exact amount of time off that the snafu cost that particular individual, in 15 minute increments. 

I think NMED has approximately 600 employees. I don’t know how many of them saw the original email (or had their boss text them) and came in late. I’m guessing about half of them. So that’s a lot of special cases for HR to process. And tomorrow is the end of the 2-week pay period, so the timesheets have to be right. HR truly must be scrambling. What a snowy, slushy mess!