Back in the Groove

Everyone knows that returning to work after a 10-day vacation is brutal. I don’t care who you are, or how much you love your job, any sane person with a life would agree. (This may be taken to mean if you don't agree, you don't have a life.)

So to ease myself back into the brutality and avoid having the longest week of my life, I decided to go about work with a lighter attitude. A casual approach, if you will.

Because I knew if I would jump in and start thinking about all I had to do and all the deadlines I had to meet and all the words I had to write, I would maybe die. Because you're never worried about dying when you're traveling on the interstate and Holy Cow! We're going 85! But you're always worried about dying when you go from zero to 85 in half a minute.

So to coast my way to normalcy, my new casual attitude involves accepting 8am meetings without flinching, brushing off any requests that include me working at the speed of light as non-issues, and above all, not stressing.

And so far (I'm now into week 2 of this plan) it's working beautifully. So much so that I feel relaxed enough to take the time to write this post. Relaxed enough to have left my laptop at work. Relaxed enough to enjoy the hilarity that is every day office life.

Like the fact that whenever this one girl in my room decides to politely holler across the room at someone else, a giant dump truck or semi or ambulance decides THEN is the perfect time to hit a huge bump and cause all sorts of auditory mayhem.

Every time.

And then every time the recipient of her question asks "what did you say", the racket stops.

Only to start again when she repeats the question.

And if you're wondering if this entire post was created just to have a reason to share the above story, you're right.