Back in (non-busy) business

I’m pretty sure (although I’m the first to admit my memory isn’t good for much these days) that this is the first Monday I’ve come in to the office all month. For the past few weeks, or more accurately weekends, it’s been one thing after another that has made it feel like we are going to fall helplessly, hopelessly behind in maintain a baseline level of sanity in the household unless I extend the intervening days off by an extra 24 hours. We must have turned the corner, though, because we got our usual workload done this past Saturday and on Sunday I painted the front living room. And today, I find myself once again encubicled.

The first of the three Mondays I bailed from work on was one which I set up with my bosses well in advance. I offered no explanation, just informed my government and contracting managers that I needed a personal day. It had been a while since I had given myself a random day off and I didn’t feel the need to belabor the point. For the second one, though, I explained both why I was taking off and retroactively why I had taken off (in both cases, it was because of doctors appointments for the kids with the pediatrician and/or various specialists - again, they’re all fine, a lot of these were routine follow-ups) and even went so far as to apologize for scheduling things for consecutive Mondays (though I pleaded, mostly truthfully, that the doctors weren’t giving us much choice). By the time the need for a third Monday in a row off became apparent, I decided I needed to take a new tack, and rather than schedule it in advance I simply went the (bogus) sick day route. And nobody really batted an eye. I was keenly aware of the fact that I had been avoiding going to work on Mondays for the duration of April, but I don’t think either of my managers really noticed.

And today, my contracting manager is on leave and my government supervisor has been in and out, and nobody has given me a single assignment to work on all day. I have a few odds and ends, some long-term low-priority projects that could nominally keep me busy, but nothing urgent and/or important. It’s probably for the best that I punched in today, for my own sake, before three-day weekends became an even harder habit to break, but that’s about the best justification for getting out of bed this morning I can come up with right now.

I know I should count my blessings for having a flexible job, with bosses who are cool with (or oblivious to) my comings and goings, and enough paid time off saved up to use at will, and I am glad for it all, really. I could have a better job situation, but it could be a lot worse in many ways. Still, if I’m going to get back into the swing of blogging during the week, it just wouldn’t feel like a proper Monday without me belly-aching about the absurdity of my current gig, right?