Wonderful Break

I am so very thankful for the eleven days off my husband got for Christmas and New Year's Day.  It seems to be more common that companies shut down between the two holidays and I think it is incredibly smart.  First of all, a lot of employees would probably take vacation during that time anyway.  If they didn't take vacation, they would probably be in the holiday coma at work.  Even more importantly, employees need a stress free-break.  We all know how difficult it is to take vacation from work.  You have to plan to be gone, making arrangements for someone else to cover for you.  You probably have to check your email and take care of emergencies while on vacation.  And, it is such a dread to go back to the pile of things to take care of from missing time.  When the whole company shuts down, no one has to worry about any of that. 

In the case of Justin's company, this year the break was especially necessary.  His company had it's best year ever, especially in the last quarter.  The production employees were working 80 and 90 hour weeks in November and December.  Thankfully, Justin does not work in production and while he was busy, he didn't have to work any overtime.  A lot of those crazy hours were somewhat by choice for those employees, but still, they needed a break.  I'm sure some of them worked this past week, but it wasn't near what they had been.  Hopefully, as they all start back to work, they will be refreshed and ready to be productive in January.

Personally, it was quite awesome to have Justin home for so many days.  We got to have some excellent family of three time and spend time with other family and friends.  We had four days of Christmas celebrations and didn't feel awful because we still had the rest of the week off.  We got to take a trip to a waterpark hotel with friends in the middle of the week.  We went to two basketball games to watch a player I used to coach.  We rearranged our office, cleaned the garage and the house, and purged some things to make room for the new.  It was a wonderful eleven days.  It is time to get back to the normal routine, but thank you awesome place of employment for caring about your employees and allowing for such a long shut down!