Day Before Vacation

There are two ways to approach an impending vacation: with your mind already checked out or as a responsible individual.

If you're honest with yourself, your thoughts are miiiiiiles away from the cube.

Realistically, if anyone else in the company knows you are going - especially management - you ain't got a chance of escaping into the mindworld of travel a minute earlier than the last minute you clock out.

Jeez!, I'll be gone only a week but there are 10 days of "we need this before you go" jobs plopped on my desk. It's funny how, in an economy where every employee is a disposable commodity, until you are tossed out you are indispensable.

I'd like to inflate my ego and think it's me that's so invaluable, but I am fair enough to admit that I have the same stampeding herd instinct as everyone else: when I know that Lucy, Will, Takesha or Jim-Bob Jones is going away on vacation, I home-in on their desk with my own "can you see to this before you go" pleas. Of course I don't have management clout, but my eyes well up in supplication and . . .

And, today, hoping to leave tomorrow A.M. at the crack of dawn, I am still here in the wee hours of the night. Suckered again by sweet eyes, bonhommie and a misguided sense of duty.