Tag Archives: vacation

On deciding whether or not to scratch an itch…

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I’m inching closer to the idea of packing a bag and taking a few days away. I haven’t been on a proper vacation in years and there’s part of me that feels like I could be well served by having a stretch of time where I don’t have to be the head cook and bottle washer of all household operations. A few days with a guide and a driver and needing to make very few decisions feels kind of ideal. 

I’ve gone so far as narrowing down dates and destinations, pricing out travel options, and looking at a host of optional day trips and activities. The thing I haven’t done – and the one bit that could readily derail any kind of quality planning – is sorted out what I’ll do with a dog, two cats, and a tortoise while I’m traipsing around interesting new locales. I struggle a bit leaving them for what amounts to a glorified long weekend around the Christmas season… and even then, Jorah is along for the ride with me. 

The fact is, Jorah will be six years old in October and I haven’t spent a night away from him. Given his somewhat neurotic tendencies, I don’t have a real warm fuzzy about how well he’d react to being turned over to a kennel for a week. There’s always the option of hiring a live in sitter for the duration of the trip… an option that triggers a lot of feelings of grave distrust of having unknown people in my personal space unaccompanied. Add in my never resolved guilt that one of the last times I went away I came home just in time to find Hershel sick and dying and race him hopelessly to the emergency vet. It’s not a recipe for making animal care decisions especially easy.

I know there are a lot of my own issues rolled up there. Animals are supposedly very adaptable – likely more so than I am myself. I should probably just make the reservations and force the issue, but I can’t quite bring myself to pull that particular trigger.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Opportunity. I think I was hit on while shopping for books at one of my favorite used and antiquarian shops last week. As I was looking through stacks of stuff deep in the bowels of the place. A 30-something blonde, well proportioned, with a pixie cut appears at my elbow. “Excuse me,” she cuts into my browsing. “Do you know if they accept credit cards here,” she asks. I’m sure I mumbled something confirming they did without more than glancing up from whatever book about the age of fighting sail I was considering. But she hovered there. Expectantly? Maybe waiting for me to pick up the thread? I have no idea. I didn’t even consider the possibility until 8 hours later when I was safely back home with my feet up for the evening. Chalk that up to a potential missed opportunity.

2. Reengaging. Last week while I was enjoying my traditional early July vacation, I was largely disengaged. I was disengaged from current events, from people, from writing, from just about everything except tending the house and animals and occasionally dipping up the road for some carryout. Honestly it was delightful. Then, as it does, this week came trundling along and required me to reengage with the world and everything has basically been awful ever since. There’s a lesson somewhere in there, I’m sure. 

3. Meetings. Yesterday, I sat in an in-person meeting for the first time in at least a year if not more. Sitting in a conference room with 25 or 30 other people felt, in a word, archaic. It was like engaging in a pantomime from some bygone era. An old fashioned meeting happens so rarely that for the first 30 minutes it was almost an entertaining novelty. As that novelty wore away, though, it was impossible to forget that each of those 30 people was a potential plague carrier and represented more people than you’ve been around in a single room in months if not years. I’m not saying there’s never a role for these in person meetings, but if we can hold them to no more than one a year, I think that would be entirely sufficient. 

One thirty down and I have some thoughts…

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It’s been just about a year since I made the conscious decision to get my weight down towards something that wouldn’t trigger such a serious lecture every time I walked into a doctor’s office. Realizing that I was, in fact, both destructible and well past the demographic definition of middle-age gave me a level of motivation I’d never had before. Score one for the motivating power of fear and self-preservation. 

In any case, dropping 130 pounds over the last year hasn’t exactly been an adventure. I’m agitated every day about the foods – and lifestyle – I had to give up in order to achieve what would be easy to assume was purely a vanity exercise. I won’t pretend I don’t have my vanities, but none of them have ever been tied to my appearance, which is probably for the best.

I’m sure when I wander back to my doctor for my next scheduled checkup, he’ll make all the appropriate approving noises. My most recent bloodwork came back with significantly marked improvements over its historic baseline. Even if we haven’t gotten to the root causes of what was causing my heart to ramp up to a sprint of its own accord, it’s hard to argue against my innards being healthier than they were a year ago. 

What no one mentioned as they encouraged me through this process, though, was all the minor annoyances that would accompany this process. I just did my second cull of the clothes hanging in my closet and came to the unhappy realization that I only have eight shirts and two pair of pants that fit now. The rest – some of my favorite shirts mind you – are now comically oversized on my new frame. 

I’m going to have to take some time during this little Independence Week vacation for clothes shopping. I spent time doing that already this spring. This means I’ve spent more time shopping for clothes in the last three months than I have in the last three years. In fact, it will probably account for more time than I’ve spent shopping in the last decade.

I used to know the brands I liked and the appropriate sizes. It was easy enough finding them online and reordering as needed. Now, every damned shirt is a roll of the dice. It’s an enormous pain in the ass and feels a little bit like adding insult to injury. Sure, I’ll do it because wandering around naked is frowned upon by western civilization (and winter is coming), but there’s no power in heaven or earth than can make me enjoy the process. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Antwerpen Chrysler Jeep Dodge. Antwerpen is apparently the outfit that bought my Jeep after the nice people at Land Rover sent it to auction. They, in turn, sold it to someone named Kok Loeng. But somehow as far as the dealership and the MVA are concerned it’s still my email and physical mail address associated with the Jeep. I regularly get letters both electronic and physical. I guess it’s only a little absurd that they can’t sort it out. I advised them once but now they’re on their own. I’d like to say I’m surprised, but it feels pretty much in character for both a car dealership and the state government.

2. Smell. I was walking the halls at the office on Tuesday and was struck by a distinct smell that I always identify with hotel rooms at the beach. I think it’s some combination of a space being overly air conditioned, high humidity, and cleaning products. If I hadn’t known better, I could have said I was walking the halls at the Carousel thirty odd years ago. It’s a damned dirty trick for your mind to play when you’re standing in the dumb office being a trusted professional. 

3. Here we are on Thursday, trying to slip back into the week after a random holiday on Wednesday. I’m not a big fan of these floating holidays. Where they fall on most other points in the calendar, I fill in the blanks with some of my own vacation time to build out a nice long weekend. Since I’ve already done that in early June and will do it again in early July, burning off more vacation time between the two feels excessive. So, what we’re left with was basically a week that feels very much like it’s had two Mondays. If that’s not the sign of a having a bad time, I don’t know what would be. 

A roll of the dice…

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You’d think that after nine days off, I’d have been rested, relaxed, and at least nominally prepared to go back to work. All those things might have been true on Sunday night, but on Monday morning exactly none of them are true. Wading in to the week deep backlog of email pretty much put an end to any opportunity for good feeling that could have bled over into the work week. Funny how that works.

One of the skills I’ve mostly mastered over the years is leaving the “work stuff” safely at work. I’ve been doing it so long now that I can even do it when the work stuff resides, for more days than not, in my home office. Once the lid on the laptop closes at the end of the day, it might as well cease to exist. It’s honestly a helpful mental trick if you can manage it. 

Unfortunately, because I like getting paid and would absolutely suck at living under a bridge or in a refrigerator box, eventually I have to start paying attention again – or at least I do for the next 11 years or so. Even so, it’s getting increasingly difficult to keep up the appearance that everything is a Big Serious Issue just because someone at echelons higher than reality says it is. 

Look, I get it that most everyone wants to believe whatever they spend their time doing is the changing the world or saving the universe. It’s comforting, but objectively it’s almost never the case.  On an average day, the average person working themselves into a lather doesn’t do much besides raise their own blood pressure.

In any case, I’m back at work for the next few weeks… and keeping my mouth from calling out every bit of fuckery I see seems like it’s going to be the project of the summer. How well that will work really is a roll of the dice at this point. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Fasting. As if the unremitting diet isn’t bad enough then there’s the periodic bloodwork that must be done while fasting. How in the year 2024 has science not progressed to the point where a man can both have breakfast and know his cholesterol simultaneously. I swear, for all our fancy scans and computer enhanced diagnostics, we feel about two steps removed from casting bones and reading entrails sometimes.

2. No plans. We’ve reached the point in the year where I traditionally start burning off vacation time. The catch is, I used to take my time off and go places and see interesting parts of the world… or at least go sit on a beach receiving a heavy dose of sand and rum. It’s been a good long time since I’ve done that. I bought a house, a couple of vehicles, ended up with a few pets that I hate the thought of being separated from and suddenly it’s been a decade since I’ve been any further away than a quick road trip lasting no more than a couple of nights. Oh, I’ll go scouting for some books, do a bit of TV binging, and be absolutely thrilled about not being tethered to work in any way, but there’s part of me that wishes I was headed off somewhere exotic next week, just to get a proper change of scenery.

3. Everything else. In addition to the traditional beginning of annual leave season, it’s also that time of year when where I get unreasonably angsty and out of sorts about nearly everything as my birthday closes in. At this point it’s no longer just a glitch, but a feature of the last few weeks of May every year. Look, especially this year, I appreciate the arrival of another birthday as a sure sign that I managed not to drop dead, but it’s still a stinging reminder of how much I haven’t gotten done – and how much grows increasingly unlikely to ever get done as the years crack on at what feels like an increasingly frenetic pace. I know my mood will improve once I get through next weekend… for now though, you’d best think of me as decidedly surly. If I were a sign, I’d be brightly painted “approach with caution.”

At work (but not really)…

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Look, I am nominally “at work” this week. There are a couple of days where I’ll even schlep into our very own version of fluorescent-lit cubicle hell to prove that I’m doing my job for the man. With that said, I think it’s only fair to point out that while I may be physically present, my brain is already deeply plugged in to the vacation time that I’ll be taking next week. 

As I cast my thoughts back to 2023, I seem to remember every time I took some time off leading to some new and unpleasant medical issue popping up. As we approach leave taking season 2024, I very much would like to believe that trend can’t possibly continue. I’d like to not spend the lion’s share of this year’s vacation time not sprawled on the couch or hanging out with new doctors. 

After whetting my whistle for down time this past Friday, I’m honestly checked out.

This week is already off to a stupid start, with something I thought I put nicely to bed last Thursday before I logged off for the long weekend raising its ugly head while I was otherwise occupied. I suppose I shouldn’t be in any way surprised that it’s only after something should have been done, finished, and over that the great and the good have decided to start paying attention to it. Ass backwards seems to be the only way we ever really do anything.

I know this is just another work week, but I’m absolutely going to need people to ratchet back their expectations to the absolutely bare minimum – and then maybe go just a little bit lower. Short of someone walking over to my desk and literally setting me on fire, I’m going to have a hell of a hard time finding the motivation this week. All I’m saying is that if there’s something you need from me – and you want it done with any level of attention to detail – maybe wait until we get into June. Otherwise, you’re going to get what you get and I’ll make no apologies. 

And we’re back…

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After Christmas I took a little break. I was feeling legitimately good for the first time in months, there was a lot going on. Honestly, I just didn’t have the normal burning desire to sit down and get anything off my chest.

Today, however, I spent my first day back at work working in the actual office. Rest assured after eight hours as a standard office drone, I’m cured of not having anything to say. I won’t say it’s a great routine, but it is a routine and I appreciate it for that if nothing else.

Somewhere along the way, I think we’ve all been led to believe that the purpose of vacation is to enjoy some downtime and come back rejuvenated. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, as I don’t think I’ve ever come back from a vacation re-energized and excited to be back to work. At this stage it’s safe to say that’s just not who I’m ever going to be as a person.

But back I am. Because the animals are expensive and I’d well and truly suck at living under a bridge or sleeping on the nearest park bench. There are, if nothing else, standards to be maintained.

I won’t say the day was entirely unproductive, though. I did spend an unreasonable amount of time today plugging in all the federal holidays for 2024 into Outlook and starting to plot how to maximize my days off for this new year. So I’ve got that going for me.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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In the best spirit of the Christmas season, I feel like I should throw out something that doesn’t annoy me this week first. That’s the fact that today marks the Winter solstice for 2023. We’ll now begin seeing incrementally more daylight each day. If that’s not cause for celebration, I don’t know what is.

However, it wouldn’t be Thursday if there weren’t at least a few items to call out as annoyances for the week. As my ultra-long Christmas weekend is now underway, though, I’ve shaved it down to two instead of the normal three and present them to you in no particular order.

1. Calculations. I usually do a reasonably good job at calculating how much leave I have to “use or lose” at the end of the calendar year. I base all of my other leave planning around needing 64 hours to cover the week of Christmas and the week of New Year. The fancy pants automated leave tracker, though, is telling me I’ve unexpectedly miscalculated by approximately 10 and one half hours. If it’s right, it means I could be leaving more than a day’s vacation on the table. If I’m right, it means my use or lose balance for next year will be 10+ hours short. I think I’m right… but not with enough conviction to take a risk of losing vacation time. So I guess my vacation is starting mid-afternoon Thursday instead of at close of business Friday. That part isn’t actually annoying, but having such a large variance in my normally precise end-of-year calculation is, at a minimum, perplexing.

2. One more thing. I’ll never understand the mad rush of some people at this time of year to get just one more thing done before turning out the lights for the year. As I’m plodding through the week, I couldn’t help but notice that there are at least seven separate actions sitting in our tracking database with deadlines between Christmas and New Years. Someone at echelons higher than reality actually looked at those things and thought, “Yup, we absolutely have to have an answer on these absolute nothings before the dawn of 2024.” That’s just the stuff that people have bothered putting in the “official” tracker. The week will be replete with unofficial asks as well. Look, if it’s something involving a hazard to life and property, sure, the holidays are just another few days of the year… but if it’s just standard requests for information, maybe stow it for a week or two until someone might actually give a shit. Otherwise you’ll get what you get… and I promise you it won’t be much.

The summer motivation trough… 

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This time of year is not a good one for job-related motivation. June is bookended with good times – the week off I take for my birthday and the week off I take in conjunction with Independence Day. Over a span of six weeks, it creates two motivational high points and a corresponding four week motivational trough. Now they’ve thrown in a new federal holiday right between the two. All else between those two points is me trying my hardest to at least present the illusion of giving a damn… or at least enough of a damn not to draw unnecessary managerial attention.

I do a reasonable job of tying up loose ends before walking away for my early June holiday. Then I come back and find it hard to mentally justify ramping up any new efforts, knowing that in a couple of weeks, I’ll be in the middle of another 9 days out of sight and hopefully out of mind.  Throw a spanking new holiday when a bunch of other people are taking time off and making it hard to get anything accomplished and the opportunity to do much in the way of great new work is pretty minimal. 

I won’t go so far as to say I plan it that way, but it is a happy coincidence.

After Independence Day, we’re in the long march towards the fall holidays. That, of course, is demotivational in a completely different way.  As a professional bureaucrat, truly the cycles of the year have a savage beauty all their own.