IN THE GROOVE

One of the hardest days of the year seems to be the first day back from the Holidays for me. You are swollen from the eating, tired from the good times and lethargic enough to sleep until the next holiday period.

I recall when I would return to my office on days like this, I would unlock my door and look around. Since I would take the last two weeks of the year as vacation, I would sigh when I looked at my inbox. There sat two weeks of inter-office envelopes, my emails were a mile long and already I was wondering when the phone started ringing. All that had to be answered and responses sometimes were not good enough since things changes since the memos were sent. I would flip my left wrist and realize by my watch that the day hadn’t started yet, let alone go home for the day.

I always tried to get to my office before anyone else arrived, so I could take care of as much as possible before I would be interrupted. Once they arrived and knew I was in, the phone rang, people stopped in to chat and those reporting to me had complaints a mile long that they felt I needed to take care of.

After a few cups of coffee and a determination to survive, usually about 11:30 am, I started getting hungry and the vows of starvation went out the window.

Home was a different story. On that first day, I returned to normalcy and needed to be adjusted from the holiday cheer to the easy chair. There were leftovers, leftovers and more leftovers that we ate, froze, and tossed. Usually, it was the one day I really went to bed early.