Demob Happy

So today is my last day at work before an unbelievable eight whole days of freedom. This is the longest break I've had away from The Death of the Soul (it's how we lovingly refer to the old place) in over six months - and boy do I need it! Part of the reason I've been feeling so tired and run-down over the last few weeks has to be the cumulative effect of so very, very long spent slaving away in the Pointlessness Mines, so hopefully now I'll be able to rest up, recuperate and prepare myself for a return to the Gradual Erosion of Hope and Sanity next Thursday.

I've got a few things planned over the break, including a pre-Easter break here...



...a couple of cinema trips, lots of reading and sleeping - oh, and another morbidity-inducing birthday milestone, of which more later.

In the meantime, I have one more day of work to get through. Over the years, I've learnt three simple truisms about annual leave, and they go a little something like this...

1. It's no use putting off jobs you don't want to do in the lead up to a holiday in the hope that someone else will have to take care of them while you're away. It just doesn't happen. Not because your colleagues will do their very best to avoid any shitbombs you leave in your wake (though naturally they will), but because those are the jobs guaranteed to linger, like foulness round a fart factory, and still be waiting for you when you get back.

2. No-one else cares that you're going on holiday. Actually, they all secretly resent you for it. Of course they do - I'm not being misanthropic here, it's just human nature. While they grin through gritted teeth and wish you 'bon voyage!', all they're really thinking is: "Bastard! He gets to not be here for the next week while I have to spent the whole time dodging his UX(S)B's and waiting for him to come back. Why does he get to go on holiday? It shouldn't be allowed! Nobody else here should be allowed holiday except me! In fact, HR should take away all their holiday entitlement and give it to me, then I wouldn't have to come in at all. That's the only truly fair system - but is it going to happen? Is it bloggery!?"

3. Not only will your colleagues do their very best to avoid dealing with any of the horribleness you've left behind, but also they will go out of their way to save up / put off any new horriblenesses that arrive during your absence until you get back. "He's off sunning himself / living the life of Riley / snorting cocaine from the bellybutton of an angel - while I'm stuck here in Drudge City dealing with the half-life of all true hope. I don't see why, on top of all that, I should have to deal with this. If I can just procrastinate and dilly-dally for a few more days, he can deal with it when he gets back. It's only fair!"

(Please don't think I'm being overly disparaging of my colleagues here at The Death of the Soul, I understand their plight - I go through the same emotions whenever they're away. And besides, I love them all deeply. Except for the ones I would quite happily see incinerate in the pit of eternity. But their day will come.)

There are other indisputable rules to taking time off work - such as how seven days leave goes faster than one hour in the office on a grim Monday afternoon, but then we're getting into the intricate laws of the universe (I believe Stephen Hawking has an equation that seeks to explain this particular perversity, but I'm not sure I believe it), and physics never was my strong point.

Enough. I have one more day to go. Let me use that time wisely.

So - what's first? Quick game of Free Cell...