Last year, for Memorial Day, I had a virtual hangout with my friends. That was one of the first big virtual hangouts I had with my friends last year and I remember us thinking that we would hopefully be together by Halloween last year. It was also one of the first big traditions that I missed having since I usually am spending the day with my friends and enjoying a fun BBQ. But last year, we all understood why we couldn’t be together and I am still grateful that everyone in my friend group has been able to stay safe.
This year, I know some people were able to get together and the guidelines do say that vaccinated people can be together. But my friends and I have all been very cautious about things and I knew that we weren’t going to have a hangout this year. But that was ok with me since I had to work on what is a day off for so many people.
When I was only working my box office job, having Mondays off was a normal way of life. I never worked on Mondays so having a holiday on a Monday just felt normal to me. But now, I do work my other customer service job Monday-Friday (between all my jobs, I’m working Monday-Saturday with occasional Sundays). So having a Monday holiday would usually mean a day off. But at my customer service job, we also rotate who does holiday coverage.
Working on a holiday does mean extra pay, so that’s nice. And it’s only one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. And I didn’t have to stress too much about getting all the work done because holiday work means that you look for the most urgent issues. There would likely be a lot of customers that I could wait to do until we reopened on Tuesday, but I also had the option to do some of the other work if I had the time. This was my first time doing the holiday work, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
And I’m glad that I did it because I was able to get a lot of work done that I would not necessarily have had time to do on Tuesday. I did have some slightly urgent client issues that I immediately handled first when I logged in for the morning, but I was able to do other work to fill the rest of that hour. Then I had several hours where I could relax if I wanted to. And I spent that time getting a few things done around my house and reading before I had to log in for the evening. And somehow, I managed to almost complete all the work before I had to log out. I know that saved me at least 2 hours on Tuesday, and when I was working on Tuesday I had a lot more work to get done. So I never would have completed everything from the weekend in a single day. It was nice to have a day to get myself caught up and ready for the week.
And honestly, it was fine working on a holiday. Maybe I would have been a bit more upset if there was going to be an in-person hangout and I was going to miss my first chance to see my friends in person in over a year. And if there had been something planned, I’m sure I would have been able to figure something out so I didn’t miss out on it completely. But I’m glad that I didn’t have to add that stress into my day. And even though I had a working holiday day off, I was still able to relax a bit and enjoy my free time.
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