On Taking Days Off (Day 70)

I decided to take tomorrow off! I've cleared my calendar!

Lily's birthday is Saturday, so as per tradition, I have to bake an elaborate cake, yell at my family, finish complex renovations and turn the backyard into a magical, but not loser-ish, teen hangout! 


And when I say I cleared my calendar, I mean I only have one meeting on it, and one doctor's appointment and just a few things I want to write and another few projects I want to move forward. 

Why is it impossible to simply take a day off?

I am not even very important. 

Anyway, it is 10:10pm (and counting) and I haven't even showered today. I am not wearing mascara (which everyone knows is akin to me giving up completely) and I haven't done my daily abs workout! 

I am, however, dressed in my exercise clothes, so I can do some planks before midnight! 

I am not, however, feeling totally confident that I can take tomorrow off. There are just so many loose ends! Why does it seem to impossible?

Honestly, I have no idea. But I do know exactly what happens on the day before you take a day off when you are an adult:

1. You will work approximately 47 hours per day you plan to take off. 

You cannot simply clock out and say: "see ya suckers." This is not allowed. You have your to-do list! And maybe you were not as efficient as you wanted to be, because you were busy dreaming of your day off! So now, you will have 1,000 quick projects to wrap up and in turn, you will need to squeeze in 47 hours of work per day you plan to take off. So, I suggest if you plan to take the day after Christmas off this year, you begin preparing NOW. 

2. Your popularity will increase. 

Look, I am not that important anywhere. I mean I believe I am essential to everyone I work for; but like I am not important how a neurosurgeon is--I am not saving lives, people! BUT whenever I say I am out for a day or a week, suddenly I am very, very popular! Everyone has "one last question," and wants to "pick your brain." It like they think you might never return and just need you to tell you things before it is too late. 

3. Everyone will demand to know your availability upon your return. 

Look you might be going away on a world tour and be gone for 7 weeks OR maybe you are simply taking 8 hours off on a Friday. The fact is, it DOES NOT MATTER because everyone is already concerned about when you will be back and how they can get on your calendar. As a result, you will be tempted to maybe try to squeeze in a quick meeting on your day or days off, because otherwise you will return to a completely full dance card and be too hung over to cha-cha. 

4. There will be a crisis. 

Look, not to be apocalyptic, but something terrible always happens right before I have a day off. Today, I was repeatedly given a message that said "forbidden" when I tried to access the files I spent 70 hours working on. The good news is, I discovered if you press a whole bunch of random keys while yelling "I AM NOT FORBIDDEN YOU CAN SOD OFF," your computer will crash (another crisis) but then you will be forced to restart it and then you won't be "Forbidden" anymore; but you will fear a status change back to "forbidden", so your anxiety will soar (crises do come in threes).

5. You will consider not taking off. 

At some point (like at 10:15pm), you will think, "you know what, why am I stressing myself out? I'll just work a little." The thing is "just working a little," is not taking a day off. And if you just work a little, no one will really acknowledge that you just worked a little and instead. . well that leads to me to last point:

6. Upon return, your day off will become legend. 

Once you are back, 24 hours or 24 days later, the story of your time off will become part of your work narrative. You will hear: "Oh, when you were out on Friday. . ." "Trish was out that day."  "I think you were on vacation when we made that change. . ." There is no escaping it: your vacation is legendary, even if you just worked a little and just took that one call, super quick. 

Well, I have to run, because I have the day off tomorrow, so I've got to get to bed, so I can wake up early and just super quick work a little. . .

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