We feel your pain, those of you whose vacations are speeding too fast toward their termination this weekend.
You’re bummed. For good reason.
You know what’s waiting back at work. Messages to be returned, mail by the bale and, before long, the depressing realization that this spectacular time off–the vacation stretch you planned and yearned for–is a gossamer memory at best.
Now you have to leave your friends and loved ones, your dogs and cats and armadillos and parrots, your new coffee pals down at the convenience store. You’re leaving all of them for … us. With our annoying personal habits and our prickly personalities, none of which you’ve quite managed to forget in so short a time away.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. Your Monday, your Tuesday, need not be so bleak. From those of us who’ve been working, a suggestion, an offer: Relax, take another week.
We miss all of you, sure. But when we weigh all of our alternatives, well …
Rainy days aside, our commutes have been a breeze. We’re getting to work earlier, we’re getting home faster, we’re burning less petrol.
And we’re getting lots done. We’re quietly asking one another whether the continued stark rise in U.S. productivity is explained solely by the fact that so many of you aren’t here.
What we do is, we show up and work. Sometimes in blue jeans and polo shirts.
We’re making superbly efficient use of our time. Nothing personal, but we don’t have to endure as many distracting interruptions.
No long meetings, because so many of you are out of pocket. No yawner training sessions on bold, new initiatives. And not once has anyone uttered the stultifying phrase “3-year plan.”
At the sandwich shop, the lines are shorter. And the walk there is less a pinball dash through noon crowds than a pleasant stroll on depopulated streets.
August hasn’t always been so coquettish. We can’t document this, but it seems as if more and more Americans are vacationing in August, and not so many in June or even July.
This subtle Europification of America is a mystery. The vacation-obsessed Euros have always used calendars with only 11 months.
In this country, it used to be you couldn’t find a good psychiatrist at his couch in August. That was an old comedic chestnut. Most Americans had to work. Now the psychiatrist is in Aruba, the receptionist is at Yellowstone, and the furniture crew that built the couch is fishing in Manitoba, Canada, near Winnipeg.
With so many of you away, those of us still at our assembly lines, our cash registers and our desks have the refreshing experience of working in very different surroundings.We’re wallowing in the joys of less. The Chicago area doesn’t feel exactly like Chicago. More like Cedar Rapids, Iowa: pretty, but with exhibition pro football.
So, how about it. One more week. Maybe more.
We really do miss you. Fine, we’ll say it. We want you back. By Thanksgiving. We’ll want time off.
