Morning all, it was quite a weekend. Weather, sinus infections and emergency antibiotics. Quite the adventure. The antibiotics weren’t for me. I was just the driver. Thinks seem to be under control now, Yea medicine! But it was not exactly a calm and composed weekend. At least we have the internet and power back. They went out Friday to really kick off this weekend. Oddly I am somewhat relieved by the fact that this is Monday and i am back to a regular schedule. So let’s do something regularly scheduled, out morning writing prompt. Ready? Good, let’s go.
Oh strange things are in the works. As I finished I realized that I may go back and adjust some of the things so that she is on a special assignment rather than vacation. I think this could be a fun office shake up. It is one I want to circle back to later.
Monday, March 6th: That is really sad.
“That is really sad,” she said. She looked at me and shook her head.
“I don’t see why,” I replied.
“I mean you have all this time off and you aren’t doing anything?” She sounded mystified.
“I will be doing something I told her. “It will just be a very quiet something.”
She shook her head and walked off. As she was carrying all of the files I had given her to look after while I was gone, I didn’t bother calling her back. Two weeks ago I had been called into the office and sat down by my immediate supervisor. I sat in his office feeling as though I was called to the proncipal’s office without knowing what I did wrong. I mentally scrolled through the various projects I was involved in at the moment. As everything was ticking over smoothly, I didn’t know what it was that could have gone wrong. I checked in with everyone that morning and nothing raised any red flags.
Yet here was Mr. Emmerson looking like he was forced to suck a lemon and taking repeated glances at his computer screen even as his hands shuffled the papers in front of him. It had to be something big.
“It has been brought to my attention that you have not taken any of your vacation time in quite a while,” he said.
It wasn’t what I was expecting and I blinked repeatedly at him trying to process as the gears shifted in my brain. Our company rolled over leave and over time. If you didn’t use it, the time didn’t disappear, it simply rolled over.
“Things have been a bit busy,” I replied. My brain scrambled as I tried to figure out when the last time I took off was. I remembered trips but they were usually things taken when the whole office was closed for a holiday. I remembered taking part of a Thursday and a Friday off when I needed to get a root canal done. I was sure I used leave time then even though I would hardly call that a vacation. That had been my last actual vacation time. With a start, I realized that was a little over three years prior.
“They have,” Mr. Emerson said, bringing me out of thoughts of dental emergencies. He nodded as though I said something intelligent. “Which is why Mr. Watson would like to speak with you about scheduling some vacation time. He is expecting you in his office in twenty minutes. I wanted to speak with your first to make sure you were prepared.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thank you.”
“I want you to know you are a valued member of the team and that we find you to be essential.”
“I appreciate that, sir,” I said.
He nodded. “Mr. Watson is expecting you.”
Recognizing the dismissal I rose and left his office, traveling down the hallway and to the banks of elevators. There I rose several floors and quite a few more economic status levels to sit in the office of the Department chair. It was quite the experience. He walked me through the projects I had in motion, clearly familiar with them. He asked questions about their progress and who was involved in each of them. He asked who I thought would be capable of looking after the projects while I was gone.
It was strange to discuss the projects and my coworkers at length. At the end he folded his hands and looked at me.
“While you do have a lot of saved vacation time to use, and we would like you to allow your coworkers to feel you did use it, we would like to ask you to take a vacation for thirty days. We have noticed some problems within your department and we would like to use this as an opportunity to test the issues.”
I was told little else but had spent the time since, transferring my projects, at least temporarily to other hands.
Ten til Midnight 