Sarah Kanning

So yesterday was my first day back on the job after my two week vacation spent noveling, AND I had a dentist appointment scheduled for the afternoon, too, because I know how to have a good time. I was thinking it might be a little rough to make the transition back to the workaday world.

First thing at work, my boss, who for now works in a different building than I do (I’m moving over there in a couple of weeks), IM’ed to say she’d brought some pastries and fresh fruit to celebrate my one-year service anniversary. I’ve been working here since 2000, but only working for her for a year. Nice. So I headed over, snacked and chatted a bit with her and a coworker. She had also planned to take me to lunch for said anniversary; we went to Teller’s, where we discussed me changing my hours a bit to accommodate my writing schedule (same number of hours, configured slightly differently). She had no problem with that, and added that as a workgroup we all needed to work on being more sane, less perfectionist, and less “give 110%” at work to avoid burnout. Right on.

I think she was very glad I didn’t run off to join the circus or whatever at the end of my two weeks at the workshop. And after two weeks of comparing notes with various folks, I’m actually very happy to have the day job that I do.

And THEN, at the dentist, which I had been dreading because I go there every three months so they can use this water-pick-on-steroids thing on me that makes my gums feel like cubed steak, the dental hygienist said that my gums and teeth looked great and asked what I was doing differently. “Um, I’ve been drinking more beer,” I replied.

So my first day back was actually surprisingly good.