During my years as a police officer, the general rule was that I could between being off on Christmas or on New Year’s but not both. The thinking was that in order to accommodate everyone having their preferred holiday off from work, staff had to split their time off in order to accommodate our respective community’s policing needs over the holidays. It was a pretty good arrangement, although there were always those who were unhappy with it. Such is life. You can’t please everyone. Much to everyone’s surprise, I usually chose to work on Christmas. My logic behind that was pretty straightforward; things are quieter over Christmas. People hang with family or travel, and complaints fall way down. But on New Year’s is when people get slizzered, go out and do stupid things and attend mass parties. Not my cup of tea. But I digress…
Today marks the first day of a much-needed vacation. Although Christmas is happening over the weekend, I have today off by virtue of being owed a day as Christmas is a statutory holiday. In keeping with how I used to operate when I was an officer, I took the following week off in order to encompass the New Year. It will mean that I get a much-needed break. A break from waking in the wee hours of the morning, dressing and prepping lunches and braving the icy cold of the Canadian Prairies to make my way to the office. I’m a sucker for maintaining my work, so there will still be a laptop at home where I will occasionally be checking on things. But it will be nice to kick back, put my feet up with a hot coffee and let my mind cool.
Modern society has led us to believe that we’re meant to work on a near-constant basis with a few weeks off a year as recompense. Realistically, it should be the other way around. There’s a growing trend in some countries of incorporating shorter work weeks, company exercise sessions and even nap pods in the office. There are plenty of tools available nowadays that make sense so that taking a vacation isn’t your only way to stem fatigue and burnout and keep the cheese from sliding off one’s cracker. Either way, there’s a lot of rest and relaxation planned for the coming week. And maybe just a hint of binge-watching shows… ☯️
The Blogging Buddhist 