I'm not on the shelf, but...
We had a short workday today--short enough that, when I asked my boss about holiday hours, I questioned him: Are we *really* only open from 10-12 on Christmas Eve? In past years, we've only been open until noon, but when business starts at nine, it makes a little more sense. We expect it to be slow, and it was; of the two people who came in today, one was the mailman. I don't think I took a single phone call.
When I came back to work last Friday, one of my first orders of business was posting our hours for the next two weeks. I've done this for years. The Saturday people get a bonus day off because Christmas falls on a Friday, and Saturdays are super slow to begin with. There's really no point in us being open this year, so nobody goes back to work until Monday. Nice. Had I not missed so much work this year, I probably would have asked for today off, or my boss would've given it to me, but I didn't mind going into work. No sense missing more time. Though, given the weather prediction of high teens, I had my mock hesitation, leading to this conversation the other day:
Me: Oh, no, cough cough, I think I have the virus on Thursday and can't come into work.
(Note that I said the word cough; I wasn't making coughing sounds.)
Boss: You've missed enough work this year!
Me: I know.
Besides, we had to continue our annual tradition of my wrapping my boss' gifts for his family. Pretty much as soon as he got in, he went to the other building to go looking for wrapping paper. (Mind you, with me, YC, and even my boss' cousin out for a portion of December--the cousin had minor surgery--nothing holiday-related got done. No tree, no other decorations, so everything Christmassy stayed in the other building.) The manager had heard him come in, but when he came up for coffee the boss was gone. When I explained what likely was happening, the manager was like, he has you wrap his gifts for him?! Why can't he wrap his own gifts? I don't have anyone wrapping my gifts! Yes, I understand. But as a de facto executive assistant, this is one of my duties. Also, it gave me something to do. BBC even wandered up for a few minutes--oh, right, our special client had dropped off a cheesecake sampler, and he was grabbing a piece--and I'd started to see how much paper we'd had left on this roll, which we've had since 2012 or 2013. The last big piece would work for what I needed, identical gifts for his wife and son, but only one would be wrapped correctly and the other would be a little cobbled together in the back. BBC came over at one point and I was like, what, do you want to watch me because this is so fascinating? And the next thing I know, here comes the manager to watch as well. Yes, Woman Wrapping Gifts is an unusual sight this time of year. At least it was just those two things, plus writing my boss' son's name on an envelope--he's getting a certificate of sorts. When I asked my boss if that was it, he said the place where he'd gotten his wife and daughter gifts, a jewelry store, wrapped those for him. Ah, I see.
I hadn't even wrapped my own gifts at that point, so after I got home and had lunch, that's what I did. I don't normally wrap stuff so early in the day, but I wanted to get it done and over with so I could just chill tonight. I'm glad I did; I was really tired after dinner. A couple weeks ago, dad also sent me this link to a story about rainbow Jello, so we decided I'd make some for tomorrow, except did you know that brand-name Jello is really expensive this year? It's over a dollar for a small box! No thank you, I'll take the cheap not-name-brand stuff, except it only came in three flavors, so my rainbow only has orange, lime, and cherry to it--in that order from bottom to top. I let mom decide the colors and she wanted orange on the bottom since it's not a holiday color. Also, I forgot that the ratio of hot to cold water needs to be the same, and my first layer hadn't set at all by the time I went to make the second layer, so that I had to put the mixing container of lime into the fridge while I dropped several ice cubes into the setting bowl with the orange bottom layer in it, and by the time the orange layer was set enough to have the lime poured on top, the lime had already started to set up and was a bit chunky. Oops. I'm sure it'll taste fine.
I've already been warned that some of my gifts will not arrive on time, and that's fine. It'll be Christmas weekend! That's kind of fun.
When I came back to work last Friday, one of my first orders of business was posting our hours for the next two weeks. I've done this for years. The Saturday people get a bonus day off because Christmas falls on a Friday, and Saturdays are super slow to begin with. There's really no point in us being open this year, so nobody goes back to work until Monday. Nice. Had I not missed so much work this year, I probably would have asked for today off, or my boss would've given it to me, but I didn't mind going into work. No sense missing more time. Though, given the weather prediction of high teens, I had my mock hesitation, leading to this conversation the other day:
Me: Oh, no, cough cough, I think I have the virus on Thursday and can't come into work.
(Note that I said the word cough; I wasn't making coughing sounds.)
Boss: You've missed enough work this year!
Me: I know.
Besides, we had to continue our annual tradition of my wrapping my boss' gifts for his family. Pretty much as soon as he got in, he went to the other building to go looking for wrapping paper. (Mind you, with me, YC, and even my boss' cousin out for a portion of December--the cousin had minor surgery--nothing holiday-related got done. No tree, no other decorations, so everything Christmassy stayed in the other building.) The manager had heard him come in, but when he came up for coffee the boss was gone. When I explained what likely was happening, the manager was like, he has you wrap his gifts for him?! Why can't he wrap his own gifts? I don't have anyone wrapping my gifts! Yes, I understand. But as a de facto executive assistant, this is one of my duties. Also, it gave me something to do. BBC even wandered up for a few minutes--oh, right, our special client had dropped off a cheesecake sampler, and he was grabbing a piece--and I'd started to see how much paper we'd had left on this roll, which we've had since 2012 or 2013. The last big piece would work for what I needed, identical gifts for his wife and son, but only one would be wrapped correctly and the other would be a little cobbled together in the back. BBC came over at one point and I was like, what, do you want to watch me because this is so fascinating? And the next thing I know, here comes the manager to watch as well. Yes, Woman Wrapping Gifts is an unusual sight this time of year. At least it was just those two things, plus writing my boss' son's name on an envelope--he's getting a certificate of sorts. When I asked my boss if that was it, he said the place where he'd gotten his wife and daughter gifts, a jewelry store, wrapped those for him. Ah, I see.
I hadn't even wrapped my own gifts at that point, so after I got home and had lunch, that's what I did. I don't normally wrap stuff so early in the day, but I wanted to get it done and over with so I could just chill tonight. I'm glad I did; I was really tired after dinner. A couple weeks ago, dad also sent me this link to a story about rainbow Jello, so we decided I'd make some for tomorrow, except did you know that brand-name Jello is really expensive this year? It's over a dollar for a small box! No thank you, I'll take the cheap not-name-brand stuff, except it only came in three flavors, so my rainbow only has orange, lime, and cherry to it--in that order from bottom to top. I let mom decide the colors and she wanted orange on the bottom since it's not a holiday color. Also, I forgot that the ratio of hot to cold water needs to be the same, and my first layer hadn't set at all by the time I went to make the second layer, so that I had to put the mixing container of lime into the fridge while I dropped several ice cubes into the setting bowl with the orange bottom layer in it, and by the time the orange layer was set enough to have the lime poured on top, the lime had already started to set up and was a bit chunky. Oops. I'm sure it'll taste fine.
I've already been warned that some of my gifts will not arrive on time, and that's fine. It'll be Christmas weekend! That's kind of fun.