Doesn't hurt to ask

I know I didn’t ever get around to any updates on my job last week, but trust me, you didn’t miss much. Only a portion of last week technically counted as summer, but it already feels very much like the languid season around here, with lots of empty cubicles. Granted, a fair number of those belong to people who just happen to be on business travel or out at training or whathaveyou, but there’s a few vacationers in the mix as well.

That’s a little bit dangerous for me, as I start to get the notion of summer vacation embedded in my mentality in late June when I’m not actually scheduled for a week at the beach until late August. And although I’ve always made rationalized allowances (especially for myself) about how it’s to be expected that productivity will gradually wind down in advance of coming to a complete halt during time off, I suspect it would be pushing it to go too far into coasting mode eight weeks out from my own vacation. Even the recent weather, which has been brutally hot and humid as if we’re much deeper into the heart of summer, isn’t likely to provide me with much cover if I start phoning it in much more blatantly and continue to do so for two months. Thus, on we go.

But speaking of the weather (which I'm acutely aware of on a Monday morning after another scorching weekend, during which the property management of course had the A/C in all the offices turned off), my contracting boss did make me laugh on Friday. I bumped into him and asked how everything was going, and he said he was just looking forward to calling it a day and starting the weekend. Then he told me that he had been talking earlier with the acting director (as I mentioned, lots of people have been out of the office lately, including the director, who in turn leaves an acting director in charge during her absence) and tried to impress upon her that the entire office should be given 59 minutes leave. The 59 Minute Rule is common enough around the agency, but almost always on the day before a holiday, long weekend, or something similar, none of which applied to the weekend of June 23 and 24. As the acting director was well-aware, she asked my contracting boss why she should institute 59 minutes. And, dry and deadpan as always, my boss told her/realted to me: “Because it’s so hot.”

I could not argue with that, and wouldn’t have been able to if I had been in charge of the decision making, which I suppose is the reason why I’m never asked to be the acting director. Well, one of many reasons, really.