Playtime’s over, children, and it’s back to work.
Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to had an absolutely wretched night’s sleep — I, myself, tossed and turned until well after 3, when I finally fell asleep and engaged in stress dreams about work stuff. Hence, when the alarm went off at 6, and I took a good look in the bathroom mirror, I was kind of thankful for my allergy eyedrops so that I didn’t look quite so much like I’d wandered off the set of The Hangover 2.
Things about which I am thankful: This year, I did not have a series of increasingly desperate-slash-hostile voice mail messages beginning on December 23 and continuing through the winter break from someone who needed something right now who was, apparently, not listening to the part of my outgoing message when I said the office was closed. (The fact that she had had eight months to deal with the issue before it reached the urgent stage and had failed to do so was, naturally, my problem.) This year, I had a single, solitary hang up.
My relief at the lack of mail in my inbox (couple pieces of junk) was tempered a bit by the fact that stuff I needed to be in there wasn’t. Also, the fax machine had broken about five minutes after we all left, and God may know where the faxes sent in the meantime have gone, but our Canon Ikon technician does not.
The plants lived through the two weeks without fluorescent light or water. The men’s restroom, however, was clearly not cleaned the entire time we were on skeleton crew — and yes, it was used. There is ample evidence of that, and it’s quite disgusting.
Also, a coworker threatened to wear a Snuggie to the office because it’s cold (they turned down the heat in all the buildings over the break). It’s almost enough to make me want to draft a dress code policy for the sole purpose of banning Snuggies.
Surprisingly, I was kind of productive right up until about 2:30 when my energy started to wane.
And so … it’s back to the grind. Almost like we never left … sigh.
Happy new year?
