Coming Back From Vacation Leaves

One can never have too many vacations, I always say. But one thing about vacation leaves is that they end. Another sorry thing about vacation leaves is that your pay gets deducted if you exceed your earned leave credits.

I go back to work on Tuesday (I'm on vacation since Friday. I took the leave to be with Mama during her first chemotherapy session). And I expected to have that it-feels-like-I-didn't-go-on-vacation feeling within the same timeline as my previous leaves: 4 hours from loggin in to my laptop. That's how fast all the good feelings of being away from work gets buried in the humdrum of follow-ups, to-do's, escalations, and meetings that welcome me back to rat race reality: 4 hours.

The duration of vacation leave is irrelevant to the timing of reality jerking me back to work. Last August, I went on a 7-day leave for my birthday and I still got the one-can-never-have-too-many-vacations sentiment by lunchtime. If any, I think the duration of the leave impacts the gravity of one's wish that the vacation get extended. The longer the time away from the office, the more you wish it stays that way.