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.