Today is a highly unusual day for me. It's a Saturday and I'm not at work. The last Saturday I had off was in September of last year and that was because I was sick. Since '96 I've had a whopping 13 Saturdays off. This one I took just to have a full weekend. Since there's 5 Saturdays in this month and my total labor is looking pretty good, I decided to make myself take off. (I get paid 45% on the labor I turn in the shop and as of yesterday I was sitting close to $8000 in labor so I guess I can afford it.)
I've worked 6 days a week for so long now I'm just used to it. Back at Meineke, 6 days was mandatory. It was rare to get a Saturday off, and you'd better have a good reason. When I started at my current job, for the first two weeks I was the only tech at the shop. Once they hired the other two techs, the manager and even the company owners came up to me and started encouraging me to take some time off, especially Saturdays. I actually can take every third Saturday off if I want to. I told them I didn't really need a full day off every week because I'm conditioned to working 6 days, but that I would occasionally take an afternoon off if things were slow.
So today is my 13th Saturday off, I've been awake since 9:30, and I'm feeling like a fish out of water. I could do some housework, the apartment damn sure needs some cleaning, but I'm forcing myself to not work. Washing some dishes and cooking lunch is the closest I'm going to let myself come to doing any work today. The housework can wait until tomorrow.
Sure feels good. I think I'm going to take a few more Saturdays this year. Well, at least two or three.
Happy Weekend!
Mike.