Had a line managee say she needed head of dept to sign off on an important project and he hadn't and had been sitting on it for 2 weeks. Line managee was stressed about this so I chased up head of dept. had next in command of dept being sniffy saying head of depts child was seriously ill and not to expect it any time soon. Foot in mouth I know but I'm not a mind reader. Surely staff should be told if someone is going to be OOO for any length of time.