Tag Archives: vacation

The real victim…

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I’ve identified the real victim of my time off. It turns out it wasn’t any of my projects running aground or some other planner making off with all the best party favors. In fact, the only thing I seem to have lost in the time I was away was my ability to sit at my desk without budging for hour after hour… after hour. Being able to sit in front of the keyboard and hammer out hours’ worth of memos, emails, and assorted other written products isn’t exactly a point of pride even though it regularly defined so many of my days. Still, it was something I could do on the regular.

Put another way, the first real day back in the office has been a recurring series of pains in the ass – not because of anything particularly stupid happening, but because I’d spent so much of my vacation time not sitting on my ass that going back to living that life was a shock to the system.

I was expecting to need some self-medication today as a result of extreme eye rolling or maybe a heavy dose of something for heartburn. I wasn’t expecting to need to treat acute pain in the ass… though on reflection I don’t know why I’m really surprised.

Kind of back…

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After a long and glorious spread of days off, I found myself back to work today. Maybe I should say I found myself kind of back at any rate. I worked from the comfy confines of my home office, which is probably about as a good a way to ease back into it as one could reasonably expect. It was still painful and I know it will be more so tomorrow when I resume my customary position locked into the middle of the cube farm.

I don’t know that I’ll ever really make peace with needing to whore my brain out by the hour to the high bidder, but I’ve at least accepted it as the preferable alternative to starvation and homelessness. It seems likely that acceptance is probably as good as it’s going to get. I can’t foresee a circumstances where I would spring fully awake from bed each morning eager and happy to file forms, create new and better slides, and engage the bureaucracy in a ceaseless battle of attrition. Climbing from the bed with my lips twisted into a grimace and with a gritty determination just to get through to the close of business feels like something I can manage, though. That’s probably enough.

If nothing else, I know the posts here are going to start picking up again soon. Few things feed that beast more than anger, frustration, and cynicism. All of those elements are in short supply when I’m left to my own devices. It’s remarkable to see how the word count plummets when I pass a day not filled with meetings and random paperwork. By Thursday, I think it’s safe to assume I’ll have a full head of steam built up and be back in proper form… that may not exactly be a good thing, but it’s at least the enemy I know. That should probably count for something.

And then there were none…

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I’ve been trundling along enjoying myself, taking on one or two projects that always seemed to be getting bumped to the bottom of the list of things to do, making a few trips off the homestead, and generally being responsible to no one other than myself. The days stretched out with very little other than my natural sleep/wake cycle to regulate them. Now with the setting of the sun there are none of those days left and tomorrow I’ll be back to the whims and vagaries of the bureaucracy. It won’t be for love, or for pride, or for a sense of accomplishment other than making sure the coffers are filled again for the next time I need to spend a week or ten days doing something else. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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If you’ve been sitting around this Thursday night wondering What Annoys Jeff this Week and what on earth could be holding up this nearly 300 week long running regular feature, the simple fact is there is nothing currently annoying me. I’ve met my favorite band, had some delightfully good food, spent a great deal of time with the animals, and done a bit of reading. The largest single factor that drives nearly all the things that annoy me has simply not been present this week and all has been well. 

There’s probably an important life lesson in that, but due to my interest in not being foreclosed on and forced to live under a bridge, it’s a lesson I’m not in a position to act upon. Maybe I’m actually annoyed this week after all. 

Statement of fact…

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As it turns out, when I spend the day knocking around local used book shops, eating a late lunch, and then dicking around the house I tend not to have many great topics come to mind when I sit down to blog. Lest someone think that’s a complaint, it’s not. It’s just a simple statement of fact.

In the back of my mind I know this ultra-long weekend is also at its halfway point and I’m bound and determined to squeeze as much down time and relaxation into the five days to come as possible. If things feel a bit more bland than usual around here for a few more days, consider this an official apology. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Weather forecasts. I know weather is a complex “system of systems” but damn. If I were as often wrong at prediction and prognosticating results within 24 hours I’d get shitcanned for sure. Yet another example of where I’ve made poor career decisions overall.

2. Restorative days off. I’m a jealous guard of my time off. There is almost nothing I value more highly. I do my best to maximize the value of those days. I hate wasting them… which is why it’s so sad that the restorative effects of time off last no more than two hours into the first day back. It feels like it should take longer than that to slide back into a sea apathy and discontent. The operative word there being “should.”

3. Talk. People talk a lot. They talk and talk. They make promises and speak to high ideals. What almost none of them do, tough, is back that talk up with their actions. Talk is important. It speaks to our aspirations. Behavior, though, that’s what shows people how committed you are to getting there. If you can’t be bothered with the action part of the equation, it’s probably best to just shut the fuck up.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. What dreams may come. I don’t know what I spent the night dreaming about. I very rarely remember dreams. What I can tell you is whatever it was it left me well and truly annoyed. I can only surmise from the result that it somehow involved people being stupid. That hardly seems insightful but I can’t think of anything else that leaves me with such a general feeling of annoyance and disappointment in the universe.

2. Christmas. Go ahead and call me Grinch, Scrooge, Krampus, whatever, but it’s three days before Christmas and I’m just not feeling it this year. Maybe it’s because I’ve usually already started my Christmas vacation by this point in the week. Maybe it’s because it was 50 degrees today. Maybe it’s because I want to bludgeon the next person who whistles past my cubicle wearing an ugly Christmas sweater to death with my keyboard. I might not be ready for Christmas this year, but I’m damn good and ready for this eight-day weekend… and that’s not nothing.

3. Backup. I’ve been saying for months now that I needed someone to at least get familiar with some of the things I’m working on. I don’t need someone to do the work, just someone who can speak intelligently about it if I happen to get hit by a bus, win the lottery, or, you know, take a few days off. Now that the latter scenario is upon is, let’s not act like anyone is surprised it’s happening. The decision that every project was going to have a single point of failure was made at echelons far above mine and despite all evidence to the contrary, decisions have consequences. The consequence here is that while I’m gone, no one is going to be around to answer whatever questions happen to come up. Yes, it means there will be an unmitigated shitshow when I get back. I may not be able to avoid those problems, but I can sure as hell defer them and for the time being that’s good enough.

Christmas surprise, or Our watchword is indifference…

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Every year at this time, the powers that be are somehow perplexed and befuddled that they suddenly find themselves with far fewer people around than they expected to have at their desks. As a mostly dispassionate observer the fact that the office becomes a veritable ghost town the last two weeks of December no longer comes as a surprise to me. It’s as predictable as the rising and setting sun.

While other people are home hanging stockings with care, bosses are skittering across their newly emptied halls calling for updated briefing slides, impromptu meetings, and searching in vane for an action officer who’s three states away sucking down nog. That leaves we who remain mostly to roll our eyes. I saw a lot of that response today. As the days pass and the week draws towards its end the faces will get fewer, but the eye rolls definitely become more exaggerated. By Friday, they’ll be almost comic.

That’s the nature of the end of the year working for this beloved institution of ours. It’s adorable that people think projects are still getting undivided attention and people are spending their time building the perfect slide. I won’t blatantly say the watchword of the week is “disinterested,” but anyone who’s paying attention knows the score.

Paying for it…

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I’ve always read that people who don’t have a plan for what they’re going to do in retirement are the ones that end up bored or worse – longing to return to the orderly days of life at work. While a two week vacation hardly qualifies as a dry-run for retirement I can say with at least some degree of certainty that a really detailed plan to fill my days may not be strictly necessary when the big day comes.

For the last week or so I’ve mostly done as the spirit moved me. I ate when I was hungry, slept when I was tired, and filled in the other hours cooking, tinkering around on minor repair projects that time never seems to be found for, devising less-than-lethal anti-squirrel devices, and reading. To put it simply, I excel at simply puttering around the house and doing whatever strikes my fancy. I think I could be ok doing that for a long, long time.

Of course I’m not retired – and not even on the same continent as that far off day. Now is the time (or more precisely tomorrow is the time) when I’ve got to go back to busting my hump to pay for the possibility of unlimited free time at some point in the future. As this particular winter Sunday draws to a close, I find my motivation lacking… anyone out there want to pool our funds and buy a crapload of Powerball tickets?

Inevitable…

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The inevitable happened today. Somewhere at echelons higher than reality someone decided that there was a TPS Report that just couldn’t wait until after the holidays – that out there in the far reaches of our vast bureaucratic quagmire, some vital piece of information sure to bring democracy, peace, and justice to a troubled world was just laying around waiting to be reported upwards. Rank and high station may have their privileges, but getting dosed heavily by common sense isn’t among them.

What really happened today was a request for information was generated high in the stratosphere, it was typed into the computer and then passed to me “for action.” I immediately rolled my eyes, which is something I spend an inordinate amount of time doing if I can be perfectly honest. I then in turn typed my own message passing the requirement for this very important information down to the next level. When they receive it, someone will roll their eyes and ask what the fuck I’m smoking and then they will write up their own email and send it ever further down the line. Eventually it will reach the desk of some individual who knows at least some of the answer, they’ll write up a response, and then the whole great process gets thrown into reverse – with each level seeking out its own approvals, making a few changes, and then sending it upwards before an answer returns to my desk where I’ll realize that the answer-by-committee bears no resemblance to the question I asked originally. Because time has expired on the clock, that factoid won’t stop me from rolling my eyes and passing it on back up the chain.

It’s a clunky, archaic process at the best of times. Let me just say for the record, sending something out two days before Christmas and expecting a response immediately after the new year is not, by anyone’s definition, the best of times. What it is, however, is a recipe for a systemic failure at almost every level. It’s the operative definition of setting yourself up for failure.

But this is the season of yuletide, when a long dead saint rises up from his frozen tomb and alights onto his sleigh driven by eight super-natural reindeer to distribute toys constructed by enslaved elves to the world’s children. It’s the season of miracles like that… so if you just believe hard enough, maybe anything really is possible.