I don’t think I would trade having a weekend off with going back to working on weekends…ever.
I’ve had a myriad of jobs in my life. I’ve been a cashier at a supermarket, worked at Family Planning, been a psychiatric case manager, worked at a few bars and a liquor store. I’ve planned weddings and other major events; I’ve worked at a floral design studio. I’ve been around. (I guess I should make a major point here that I am not a job-jumper. I’ve actually worked multiple jobs at once, and held most of my positions for multiple years.)
Anyway…all of those jobs required me to work on the weekends. My last two jobs (and my current job) afforded me to work a schedule of Monday-Friday eight hours a day (8:30-4:30, 9-5:30, etc). So you’d think that at least since 2007 I’ve had free weekends. This is so far from the truth. 2012 is the first year that I haven’t worked on the weekends. From 2007 until January 2012, I’ve worked (almost) every single weekend at my part-time position as a psych. case manager for adults with mental illnesses. So for the most part, I was working 7 days a week (or 6 days for those weekends I treated myself to a day off). Truthfully, I didn’t mind this schedule.; I actually kind of liked it. There were definitely times it was overwhelming, but I loved my part-time job, and on most days, I was able to do homework there or just relax (i.e. have ice cream parties) with my clients.
I didn’t realize the necessity of weekends until Mr. O came along. There is the obvious factor: I needed time off of work if I wanted to spend time with him. There is also the semi-psychological factor: I needed to decompress. I needed some time to be “off.” I am always “on,” always. It’s nice to chill a bit. I didn’t realize that I was never relaxed until I was forced to take some time off. Also, we have Wolverine all weekend, so even though I can bond with him a few days a week, it is so much cooler to hangout with the little guy all weekend. So I started taking weekends off in 2011. I still worked a lot, but I probably averaged about two weekends off a month-which is a lot if you are used to working 7 days a week. I started liking time off, I mean really liking it. So I started taking more and more time off.
Honestly, I used a lot of the time off for school. But at least I could do my school work in the same building (or even the same city) as my two guys. I made the conscious decision not to pick up any shifts during my thesis-semester (Jan-July 2012). It was tough. I missed my clients so much; I still miss them, but I did what I needed to. And now that I’ve graduated, well, I’m just trying to spend time with my guys. (That, and I haven’t slowed down one bit since school started. All I’ve been doing is Spry-related activities in my free time).
I love my weekends. I love having those weekends where we have no clue what we are going to do, so we just go with the flow. I love having those kind of weekends where we are ridiculously busy with too many plans. I just love my weekends with my guys.
So, yeah. It might be Monday morning. Yeah, I might be a little whiny when I get to work because a Monday is usually busy. You know what though? I just had a great weekend. And in four more days, I will have another great weekend. You tell me I’m not lucky… I certainly won’t believe you.
Side note: I write this on a morning where a huge amount of people have a long weekend (jerks), and I’m stuck going to work (sigh).
Like this:
Like Loading...
