Weekend Plans Post: Beginning the Silly Part of the Season
Around this time of year is when it starts getting dumb at work. PMs worth a darn know that they should not have any deadlines between around December 16th and January 5th or 6th (at the *EARLIEST*).
I remember one year that I was sitting at my desk on the 23rd (and it was like a Friday), doing my patch prep, getting the stuff I was going to need for the big trip that was coming up and it was just me and the CEO sitting in the office and he looked at the clock and then turned to ask me “Jaybird, when are you going to be done?”
“In about an hour, sir.”
“When is it due?”
“January.”
“Here. Use this charge code. Have an hour on me. Let’s go home.”
And I got to go home! That was one of the best Christmas breaks ever.
Well, I was planning on the tempo slowing ever so slightly, looking at my task list that usually had about a dozen things on it turn into a task list with maybe a half dozen things on it, the ability to say “hey, you wanna actually take our lunch instead of working through it?” to my boss and maybe going home an hour early on this or that Friday.
Well, of course, another team called my boss’s boss’s boss and said “we have an emergency, we need Jaybird and Jaybird’s boss. And we need them to work overtime. A *LOT* of overtime. Like until the middle of January.” Like, they asked for me by name.
We hammered out that various people had vacations scheduled or merely some days off where nothing was planned but sleeping without an alarm clock, fuzzy clothing, and taking it easy. Cooking some stuff, playing some games, maybe watching a movie or three.
They assured us that we could still have our time off… but they needed us to work a *LOT*. Like, they asked for a bunch of people and the compromise was them willing to accept me and my boss.
Instead of winding down, the tempo is increasing. And I may be working this weekend. Because it’s an emergency. Sigh.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Bliss”. Taken by Maribou.)
I’ll confess: one of the reasons I went into academia, and one of the things that has stayed my hand from LEAVING it when times got bad in it, was that I was done for Christmas by mid December, and didn’t have to be back until after New Year’s. (Granted, maybe at R1s there’s cultural pressure for folks to work on research all through their breaks, but I’m at a teaching school with several people in my department whose attitude is “F it, they aren’t paying us to come in when classes aren’t in session” [actually they are over Christmas, but….we put in enough extra unpaid hours the rest of the semester])
So this weekend is me gearing up to go on break – I have to do a little house cleaning, a little mouseproofing (it’s that time of year again), did all the laundry last night and will just do one last load before I leave.
I’m skipping the in-person graduation: they did not require faculty to be present like they did in the before times, and I thought: well, I live in a mask-phobic and vaxx-phobic place, I’m traveling to visit my mom (vaccinated, but in her 80s) and several friends who are similar, and I have to affirm to Amtrak that I am neither sick nor have I been exposed….so sitting in the basketball arena surrounded by thousands of people is a risk not worth whatever reward it might bring.
Today, I have to go in and turn in final grades, and deal with one small unpleasant assessment task, but then I’m doneReport
I’m right there with you this year. New job with major transactions coming down the pipe. I will also likely be grinding the weekend away just when I don’t want to be. At least I got all that time off in October between gigs.Report
This is one of those weekends when all the social invitations seem to come at once. Given the generally lonely nature of a widower’s existence, I’ll take it, but I’d kill for a little more consistency.
I’m going to go to a hardwood lumber store to pick out some new door trim for my kitchen remodel. Love poking around in those places. I’m also heading out to the record store to pick up the new Courtney Barnett album, which I only learned of its existence yesterday. Pretty excited about that trip.Report