Weekend Plans Post: The Calm Before the Storm

We’re beginning to come up on one of the silly parts of the year that involve nothing being able to get done because key players are off galavanting around somewhere else. Somewhere around the week before Thanksgiving to somewhere around mid-January is likely to have at least one person not be available in any given week (and there are weeks in there where that number is likely to include half the company).

Management, in preparation, begins every meeting imploring everybody to put in their vacation requests *NOW*. “I know you guys are going to be taking off Black Friday. So just put it on the schedule!”

In years past, you didn’t need to request vacation a month out. Two weeks was plenty and if you were in serious need of a mental health day, you could swing just calling in needing a day off (so long as there wasn’t something really important happening that day).

Now, of course, we are Agile and Agile means that we have to schedule our vacation days a month in advance. And, if it’s not too much trouble, maybe get the December stuff in there? Not that we *NEED* that right now… it’s just that knowing who is going to be gone when will help us figure out how bad the “sorry we need to ask Bill if the number is 2 or the number is 3” kinda blockers are going to be.

Which seems silly but… well, after two years of WFH, people are finally getting out of their shells and going to do the stuff that they’ve been keeping on the back burners for the last few years and, well, I’m expecting positively *NOTHING* to get done after the first week of December. I think management knows it too. Not that they’re too worried… because they’re going on vacation too.

At home, we’ve begun the transfer between summer and winter. The sheets on the bed are flannel and all of the linen sheets have been washed and put away. We’re going to go through all of the spring/summer clothing and swap them out for the fuzzies and hoodies and dig out the heavy, heavy blankets from the back of the closet. The sun has started getting low enough in the sky for it to hit the top of the bed instead of the floor and so the cats have begun their sunbeam territorial disputes and we are looking to settle into another fine, fine autumn and winter and getting the clothing prepped for it.

So… what’s on your docket?