snow days have lost their magic

When I woke up yesterday morning it was snowing – not enough for one of those “close all the offices and shut down the city” kinds of days (we’ve already had our allotted Two Big Storms in Oklahoma this season), but it did get me thinking.

When you work from home, there’s no such thing as a snow day.

I’ve lived enough places to realize that snow days are by no means a universal phenomenon.  In Chicago, where politicians’ ability to retain office is based on clear roads and regular garbage pick-ups, a snow day is a day when the snow plows wake you up at 4:00 am as they scrape the street outside your apartment building.  No excuses not to go in to work!  In Washington, DC, on the other hand, the entire population is thrown in a state of shock by the first signs of bad weather.  This might be understandable if DC were located in the deep south.  However, when I lived there in the late ‘80’s we had more than one winter storm dump a couple of feet of snow on us.  Ignoring all evidence to the contrary, the transportation authority felt a de-icing system wasn’t required for the Metro, so in bad weather the subway lines – and pretty much everything else – shut down.

It does indeed seem that there is an inverse relationship between the severity of a locale’s customary winter weather and the likelihood of a good old fashioned snow day.  In Park City, Utah, public roads are regularly plowed (got to make sure skiers can get to the resorts!) and most residents contract with formal snow removal services for the entire season.  I solved the snow problem a different way:  After renting an old miner’s cottage on the street behind my office, I could simply walk to work.  And when the snow piled up against the back of my house as high as my roof line, I happily discovered that it was a great insulator and appreciated my reduced heating bill.  On the other hand, when the street plow slush piled up behind my car, I not-so-happily discovered that it was almost impossible to shovel if it was allowed to sit and freeze up.  Although I may not have needed a car for my work commute, I still started every morning digging out my driveway.

My most recent official snow day occurred in upstate New York.  After surviving both the Utah and Colorado mountains, I’m embarrassed to admit that this snow day was personal rather than company-wide. 

I had been living in South Florida for several years when my company was acquired by a business located about 45 minutes outside of Syracuse.  During my time on the beach I gave away my winter coats, boots and good sense when it comes to bad weather.  So when I needed to report to the acquiring company’s corporate headquarters for my first week as their new Vice President – this was in January, no less – I threw my pointy-toed high heeled boots and leather jacket in a suitcase and hoped for the best.  After all, it’s not like practical snow gear is available in Florida on every street corner.  Perhaps more foolishly, I opted to rent an economy car.

My first day in the new office everyone shook their head at my impractical attire.  The second day, it began to snow – and a 20 minute return trip to my hotel expanded to a terrifying hour sliding on back country roads.  The third day, my boss called at 7:00 am.

“Don’t come in to work today,” she said.

Of course I asked why.

“The roads are terrible, the car you are driving is completely unsuitable for these conditions and the way you’re dressed, well, if you run into problems you could die of exposure.”

O-kay.  Happy to work from the hotel.  Let's hear it for a snow day just for me.

I should add here that on the fourth day I got a ride from a colleague accustomed to driving in snow – and on the fifth day, when I had decided I really couldn’t keep on being a chicken and was driving myself again, I passed that colleague on my way to work.  He was standing at the side of the road while a tow truck pulled his car out of a ditch.

Today, just like my mama taught me, I keep a blanket, shovel and kitty litter in my trunk all winter long.  And I did buy a new winter coat when I moved back up north.  But these precautions really aren’t necessary now when it comes to getting to work in the snow.  Unless my roof caves in, nothing’s going to prevent me from making the one-story trip from my bedroom to my office.  All in all, I’ve got to admit that’s a good thing.

However, some mornings when I wake up to big flakes of snow coming down and the sound of school closings on the radio, the kid in me has a different opinion about my close commute: 

“Darn.”

my cat is bored with me

It’s official.  I am home too much.  Even my cat is tired of having me around.  Granted, this is not the meet-me-at-the-door, come-running-every-time-I-open-a-can-of-Diet-Pepsi cat of my youth – Miss Kitty has never achieved that level of co-dependency – but in the old days she did at least make some effort to inhabit the same room I was in when I got home from work.  In fact, she spent enough time curled up next to my laptop that I ended up with a motherboard clogged up with cat hair.

Thanks to you, Miss Kitty, my computer now overheats at an alarming rate, yet you diss me unless it’s cold and you want a warm body (or better yet, a warm laptop) to snuggle up against.  A dog would never act like this.

holiday? what holiday?

Today, most folks are getting back to work after a holiday double score: Valentine’s Day and President’s Day on the same weekend.

Me? Well, there’s no such thing as a holiday weekend when you work from home.

It’s obvious: If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. Actually, I shouldn’t complain. If I do work, I do get paid. If I work a lot, I get paid more. And if I start working at 4:00 am (which often happens because I sleep with my laptop and work when I can’t sleep) and want to stop at 2:00 pm and go to the gym, no problem – I’m still going to get paid for a full day.

All in all, only getting paid for the hours you work tends to have a net positive effect for anyone who’s used to putting in way more than forty hours a week at the office and not getting overtime.

Truth be told, I’ve only worked one place that even pretended to grant time off for second-tier holidays like President’s Day. Software start-ups with their shoestring budgets simply can’t afford to pay their employees to not work (they’re usually trying to figure out how to get them to work more without additional pay) so time off is rationed, kept to the barest minimum. On the other hand, my first employer after college – the National Symphony Orchestra – had an official vacation schedule that included more than a dozen holidays. This would have been impressive if it weren’t for the fact that the Orchestra scheduled concerts for many of those same days. And no, spending July 4th trailing behind an upset diva who is stomping through the mud from her dressing room RV to an outdoor stage – following, of course, while carefully carrying her Jimmy Choos, which must be protected at all costs from even a droplet of rain – does not qualify as a vacation in any way, shape or form.

So maybe I haven’t been showered with company-underwritten three day weekends in my career. I still miss how a workplace gives us opportunities to celebrate holidays in smaller ways – the heart-shaped sugar cookies made at home and set out on a table in the break room, the holiday decoration on a door or desk, even the opportunity (and I’ll admit that I used to do this a lot in my younger, cutesier days) to buy children’s valentines and distribute them to everyone in the office. It’s the logical progression from all of those holiday-themed parties at school.

I guess I could have surprised my Fed Ex man with a card and a container of candy hearts this year but somehow it just didn’t feel the same. Instead of trying to measure up to the ghosts of office holidays past, I decided on a different kind of celebration. This afternoon, I’ll be shutting down my laptop a little early to go in search of some half-priced, post-Valentine’s Day chocolates – and since I work from home I won’t have to share.

Yum.  Happy random Tuesday to me.