The Policy Memo and the Edge Case
Read this internal memo. "Hybrid Work Policy - effective March 1. All staff work on-site Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; Monday and Friday are remote. Core hours are 10:00–15:00 on all days. Requests for a standing exception must go to your director at least ten business days before the first affected day and must name an end date. Monthly parking passes are capped at 40, allocated by lottery each quarter; holding a pass this quarter does not carry over." You are a program officer. From March 4 you have a recurring physiotherapy appointment every Tuesday at 11:00 for six weeks. Your commute is 70 minutes each way, and your current parking pass expires February 28.
1. What in the memo decides whether you can keep the Tuesday appointments without taking leave, and what does the memo not tell you?
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What the memo decides:
- Tuesdays are an on-site day, so the appointment collides with attendance, not just with a meeting.
- Core hours are 10:00–15:00, so an 11:00 appointment falls squarely inside the protected window - it cannot be absorbed by shifting your day earlier or later.
- A standing-exception route exists, with a deadline (ten business days before March 4) and a required end date.
What the memo does not tell you - and what you must not invent:
- Whether one request can cover six recurring dates, or whether each date needs its own submission.
- Whether a medical appointment qualifies as grounds for a standing exception at all.
- Whether the ten-business-day clock is measured from the first appointment or from the first affected on-site day.
Those are questions for your director, asked early and in writing. Guessing at them is how people miss deadlines they thought they had met.
2. Is the parking pass part of the same problem? Explain your answer using the memo's wording.
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No - it is a separate process with a separate failure mode, and bundling them weakens both.
Three phrases settle it:
- "allocated by lottery" - you do not apply and receive; you enter and may not win.
- "each quarter" - the cycle resets, so the pass you hold now was never a March entitlement.
- "does not carry over" - the memo closes the exact assumption people make.
So a 70-minute commute without a pass is a real problem, but it is not an exception request to your director and not evidence for one.
Practical consequence: the attendance exception needs your director before the deadline; the pass needs you to confirm the lottery date and enter it, and to plan a transit fallback for March regardless. Raising the parking issue inside the exception email invites a reply about parking and delays the answer you actually need.
3. You will send one email today. What is the minimum it must contain, and what should it leave out?
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Must contain:
- A one-line request: a standing exception to Tuesday on-site attendance.
- The first affected day (March 4) and an end date covering the six-week series - the memo requires an end date, so an open-ended request is incomplete on its face.
- A plain statement of the reason, at the level of detail a director needs to decide.
- The direct question the memo leaves open: does one submission cover a recurring appointment, or is a separate request needed per date?
Leave out: the parking lottery (different queue, different owner), medical detail beyond what justifies the request, and any apology or self-deprecation that obscures the ask.
On timing: ten business days before March 4 lands in the third week of February. Sending today keeps margin; the exact count should be confirmed with your director's assistant rather than assumed.