My wonderful employer, in their generous wisdom, decreed late in the evening last Friday that contractors need to take five days of unpaid time off (also known as a furlough). This means that I have been taking a staycation this week.
I’m just glad I had to work Saturday night, so I saw the email, which was sent Friday at about 10 pm. I would not have been pleased if I had done my usual Monday morning pre-work routine, just to find out that I wasn’t working that day.
I don’t mind taking time off, even though it’s not paid. When I was a regular employee, I never took all the time available to me, so now that no paid time off is “available,” it really doesn’t make a difference.
How did I waste this golden opportunity? Did I spend my time productively? Let’s take a look, shall we?
- Ignoring the phone. Yes, my employer’s customer did not know about this furlough requirement, and I was instructed not to tell them about it or discuss it with them, so when the customer called my business line, it just rang and rang and went to voicemail. That was pretty darn festive, right there.
- Cooking. I tried new recipes: Sweet n Sour Meatballs, Ranch Chicken, Apple Bars, Sushi-Rice Salad, Pasta Pizza Bake. The freezer is now the home for two loaves of Meatloaf, two loaves of Pumpkin Bread, Brownies, Baked Flounder and leftover Chicken/Shrimp Risotto. The only thing I wasn’t wild about was the Ranch Chicken. Too salty. The Risotto was fun to make but wow, that is not a weeknight recipe. I had a running start at it, doing mise en place in the afternoon, and it still took a couple hours to complete the recipe.
- Watching movies. I’ve had stuff on my Now Playing list since May that I’ve never gotten around to. The Pee Wee Herman HBO Special was an awesome slice of fun, The Adjustment Bureau was an engaging thriller which made me say “Matt Damon For President,” and Temple Grandin… Oh, wow. This is a two-boxes-of-Kleenex flick. Wonderfully inspiring story of a woman who sees the world in ways most of us don’t, and with a couple lucky breaks, finds a way to create an exemplary life. Disappointments: Salt (billed as another “Wanted” but the torture porn in the beginning was a huge turn off); Up In The Air (I never emotionally engaged with the characters).
- Creating a Will and a Trust and all those lovely legal documents. I put a comment on the open thread on Monday letting everyone know they needed to sign up for Suze Orman’s free Will and Trust kit, and I hope everyone did. There’s still a lot more to do but at least I have the process started.
- Revising my resume and uploading it to job search websites. After I found a job in the beginning of 2010, I “hid” my resume on Dice and Monster. After the way this furlough nonsense was handled, I figured it was time to get my resume back out there. Like they say, the best time to look for a new job is when you have have one.
- Sleeping. My California king pillow-top bed and I have enjoyed some naps this week. I blame the cats. One or two cats will jump up on the bed, I will join them “for petting purposes only,” and before you know it, they have cast their cat-nap spell and we’re all sawing logs. They don’t practice Kung-Fu, they practice Nap-Fu.
Now it’s your turn, dear readers. What would you do with five unplanned days off?
