vacations

I heard an interesting line from a sitcom of all places.

"everyone has their own version of what a vacation is. Mom meditates, Edward and Kitty go on their cruises and Larry "leaves" too. Greg just left for awhile to re-charge his batteries"

That last part is what I like - the re-charge of the batteries.

In my youth, I was a classic work-a-holic. Look up the definition in any dictionary and you see my smiling face right there.

I truly believed that the world would stop on it's axis if I didn't go to work. I worked nights, weekends, birthdays and holidays.

I lost my 20's to my job. Through my own decision.

One that I regret today. Oh I have some great memories from my 20's but there is so much more that I missed. And the funny part is that I am more accessible now than I was then.

I work on a high profile account. My customer is very demanding BUT reasonable. You have to know your target audience, but they are largely trustworthy with personal phone numbers and cell phones etc. They will not use them unless instructed to or a true emergency ( Fire flood, that kind of thing.). I have a company issued pager that is text and numeric and looks like a mini laptop. Very cute. Goes in the fridge when I am not on call ( once every 6 weeks).

I work for a man who for the past 12 months that is an even bigger work-a-holic than I ever was. He has shown my entire team new heights to this. He wants constant and total access to us 24 hours a day. He has even gone on an actual vacation - taken the plane to the island, hotel, wife, the whole deal and STILL called in from there under the guise of making dinner reservations.

This person uses our cell phones whenever the mood strikes him. I have actually been sitting next to my office phone and will hear his personalized ring come in from my cell phone in my bag. I will listen to it ring the theme from Jaws until it goes to voice mail. Then I will wait for the call on my landline. You see, the principle of the thing is, the company, while I do have a phone by this company, doesn't actually PAY that bill. I do. I gave my phone internally to my team for true emergency use ( power outages and such). Not to be on call 24x7x365. I love my job, but this is the fastest road to burnout and I don't plan to spend a lot of time on this road.

My boss, while a wonderful man and very well meaning, well, frankly we are concerned for his health. This is how heart attacks happen. I would love it if he would slow down a little bit. We still get the same results without the frenzy. The customer loved us before him, they will be OK. But Each person has their own demon to battle and this job and the approval from above means a lot to him.

This past week has shown me that I have grown out of my work-a-holic tendencies by and large, however I know for a fact they are still in there. You know how I found out? I slept almost non stop every time I sat down the minute I walked out of the virtual door of my office. The relaxation was total and complete. And it continued to go like this for thirteen days. Normal people get that out of their systems in a couple to a few days. But not this crazy. It takes me thirteen before I can resume a normal life. Now I don't consider my primary job to be the only cause to this. I have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends and I am busy all the time. So it's a mixture of things.

At the end of the day or 13 days as it turns out, I am feeling super rested, very healthy, very relaxed. I spent an uncounted amount of time sleeping, in my bed, on the couch - whatever. I ate healthy food. I just feel great. My batteries are just about re-charged enough for me to jump back into my life on Thursday.

But for my last day, I will be practicing, teaching an unbelievable amount of kids, and cleaning my house and organizing closets and making preparation for my new DVD player.

Then it's back to our regularly scheduled craziness called...

Life.