By DAVID MANTEY, Editor, Product Design & Development (PD&D)
Now get back to work.
I’m on the clock today; who’s with me? Not that we’re hunching over a desk in an ill-tempered dreary office while ol’ Ebenezer cackles and grunts, but I understand the jittery angst.
As most of the readership can attest, we work a bit now or it’s double time on Monday. So are both sides of the holiday sword.
A forced day off that you may otherwise never take — let’s tally vacation days yet to be cashed in, winner receives … two bonus personal days — we’re fortunate to have businesses observe a few remaining holidays to steep our sanity before we go off making ill-advised resolutions to vacation in salty water and mild climates.
However, the holiday can’t lock down the industry, and we all know at least a handful who prefer to move and shake their way to the top of the corporate ladder while we blow out Jesus’ birthday candles.
After the coal has been emptied from the stocking, we have one more gift to open at the office, on the work bench, in the inbox, on the shared drive, etc. Time-stamped 12/25/10 5:25 p.m. with a Post-it note reading, “I live for this.” We know who left the file before we care to open it — Ebenezer’s wing man, Scrooge’s corporate stooge.
Keeping with the theme, let's refer to said stooge as Tiny Tim (Dinky Dan and Small Sam came off as contrived, and this is way to high-brow for contrivance).
***
The sun is gleaming off of the remaining Christmas powder as you walk into the office with a four-day weekend grin when Tim meets you in the hall — after all, he’s been in since 4:30 and that morning coffee runs right through him.
“You check out that file I sent you?” Tim asks.
The grin dims, you tug at your jacket and shake your head.
“Well let me know when you have time,” he replies. “Burning that midnight oil, no rest for the weary, am I right? Don’t worry, I already sent it over to [your boss].”
Tim turns and makes way for the facilities the floor below when you creep up behind him and kick that hand-whittled cane out from underneath his left shoulder. As it clicks and clacks down the stairs — the cane, not Tim — the grin returns. Who needs Folgers in their cup when they can start the morning with a whining brown-noser at the base of the stairwell?
***
I kid. Nobody wants to ring in 2011 with an assault charge. Make sure the hall is witness-free before you go premeditating.
Go home. Drop everything and go home. Wait, click on a few more stories in the Chem.Insider Daily, then go home and have yourself a Merry Christmas. If you don’t celebrate the holidays, have yourself a Merry Snowboarding Day. If you don’t have snow, find a hard wood floor and forró loco. Regardless, bail.
Take advantage of the few breathers that we’re all afforded throughout the year. You can’t roll over Christmas, and nobody likes a Tiny Tim unless he’s a feeble fictitious youth.
Feel free to comment below and you know where to find me: [email protected] — though the out-of-office is set until Monday.
