Comp Time

I am fortunate to work for an agency that has a generous holiday pay schedule. We are paid for 10 holidays a year. In addition, we accrue vacation days at various levels, depending on our length of service. I now receive 12 hours a month with a cap on how much I can accrue of 144 hours on the books at any time. All 40-hour per week employees accrue sick leave at the rate of 8 hours a month (the others accrue on a pro-rata basis), all of which accrues indefinitely with no cap (I have accrued 410 hours of paid sick leave during my 11 year tenure). Last Monday, January 16, was Martin Luther King Day for thos non-US readers. The library was closed. Libraries such as this - President's Day, Columbus Day, Veteran's Day - holidays my husband typically does not have off - are perfect days for me to do major upgrades that require shutting down servers or disrupting service in some way. This past holiday was the perfect day for upgrading our telephone and voice mail systems. So, I worked. Which meant I had comp time coming at the rate of time-and-a-half. The difficulty is finding a day to take off, given the fact that I have far too many projects to complete in far too little time.

I got up this morning fully intending to go to work. In fact, I was planning to go to the gym for my third consecutive workout, and then go to work. But as I was getting ready, an idea presented itself. Why not take today off. I had nothing pressing to do today that wouldn't still be there, no more pressing, tomorrow. I needed to use my comp time. I have a meeting on Friday, so can't take it then, and I only want to take a Monday or Friday off, giving myself a three day weekend. Today was the perfect day, so I did what any self-respecting person would do. I called work and told them I would not be in today.

I had big plans for today. I was going to read. Then maybe watch a few shows I have on Tivo. Then go to the gym for a much more leisurely and energized workout than the ones I have at 6:00 AM, and finally, I would go grocery shopping during the daylight, not after work on Monday night, as is my usual routine. So, what have I accomplished? I have read - but not the book I intended to read. I've been reading blogs - Charlie's, Diane's, JoAnn's, Amy's, MC's, Sara's, Kaitlin's, and a few others. I've read email - work email. I've helped my daughter-in-law avoid being scammed by an Ebay scammer and emailed Ebay about said scammer. I've watched my shows, though only two today. I've had lunch with my husband, a very rare thing indeed. I have yet to go to the grocery store and now it's 6:16 PM. I don't think I'm going to make it after all. I never did get in that workout. There's always tomorrow. All in all, a good day, albeit not nearly as productive as I'd hoped. It has been relaxing, though, and rejuvenating.

Time to turn on the porch light for my husband and figure out what I'm making for dinner. I still have 2 hours of comp time to use, too. SWEET!