A Day Off Fell From The Heavens

I consider myself to be the world's foremost expert on an important work-related topic. I am the man to see for avoiding work and work-avoidance related matters. Imagine my surprise today to learn that I missed something important. I was sitting in my cubicle this morning and one of the contract employees came in to see me. She wanted to know if I would be coming into the office on Friday. The contract employees are not allowed to work in the office unless there is a regular employee present. Evidently, someone thinks they might steal the furniture unless someone has a eye on them. As an aside, I would be the last guy to put in charge of watching the contractors, because I basically trust everyone, so they could carry out my desk and I would never suspect them. I might not notice the missing desk until I leaned back and put my feet up, only to find them in mid-air. Anyway, I told this person that I would be in Friday, because I'm down to three days off for this year and I have them scheduled for next week. She looked at kind of puzzled and said, "Friday's a holiday." To which I confidently replied, "Are you nuts?" Well it turns out that Friday is a holiday for us because Christmas Eve falls on the weekend. I was delighted and flabbergasted at the same time. This is the greatest Christmas gift I can imagine. It is disconcerting to me though, because me missing a holiday from work is like the pilot of your flight asking over the PA system if anyone knows how to start the plane, or your surgeon looking down at you on the operating table and asking which implement is a scalpel. It just doesn't happen. I was also thinking today about how I used to feel about Christmas when I was a kid. When I was young I would look forward to Christmas and two weeks off school. Then I would have a big letdown when it was over. I still feel this way. Once the holiday season is over, the tedium of the work routine will resume in earnest. I dread returning after the first of the year. From Thanksgiving through the New Year's holiday, the opportunities to screw off both at work and away from work are plentiful. Many of my customers take extended time off, so I don't get many phone calls. I have errands to run and things to do. Plus, the way our time off policy works I always have a bunch of time off remaining that has to be taken. My company doesn't let us accrue time off, so it is use it or lose it. So I use it. I may have posted this before, but several years ago, I had a boss who really took the job seriously. She felt as though she made a real difference. I got to November with all of my time off allotment remaining because of a project that I had been working on all year. I called her to tell her that I would be off from Thanksgiving through the New Year. She intimated that I give back some of the time because she always gives back two weeks a year. Isn't that special? Anyway,this is truly the most wonderful time of the year, work-avoidance speaking anyway. Merle. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky Tag: Daily Life Personal Finance Humor