At my job, I’m required to take one week of my vacation in
the winter months. I doubt they could make that requirement stick if anyone
were to challenge it because, as my attorney once told me, vacation time is
accrued during the previous calendar year and once accrued, the time is
rightfully the employee’s time to take—whenever the employee chooses. Barring
some sort of emergency, a company can’t legally prevent an employee from taking
earned vacation. Some, I’m sure, would argue differently.
I’ll probably never know which argument would prevail in
court because while I love things of this nature—arguing and court cases—I
don’t mind taking a vacation in the winter.
A winter vacation is one week that I may not have to drive
in adverse weather like: freezing rain, ice, or snow—“may not” being the key
phrase. That is always my plan but it seldom works out. Only once, actually. I
continually pick the wrong week to take off. Since I have to choose my vacation
time nearly a year in advance, I really have no way of knowing which week will
be bad weather so I just pick one and hope that’s the week. And nearly every
single time, all but once, I am wrong. The week before, or the week after, my
vacation, will be the bad weather and instead of enjoying the fact that I do
not have to drive 700 miles a day in it, there I am, slipping and sliding along
down the highways.
This has been the pattern for the eighteen years I’ve been
at my job. Yes, seventeen times out of eighteen tries, I’ve been wrong. That’s
not a very good track record. Especially since where I live, we don’t have that
much bad weather. You’d think the law of averages would kick in at some point
and help me out, but no.
This year was no exception. I’m currently on vacation, and
high temperatures are supposed to be in the fifties and even sixties, with no
freezing temps at night. And no wintery mix of misery is in the forecast. But
last week...
Last week was full of ice, freezing rain to be specific. And
snow. Someday, I’d love to go back to work after my winter vacation and rub it
in to the other drivers that I’d missed the bad weather. But after this long,
I’m beginning to think it’s a lost cause. I just can’t seem to hit it right.
Well, except that once.
But about that, the one time that I guessed right. That was
the year I had plans to go on a trip with my wife to attend a meeting for her
job. So, I got to drive with chains for hours through the same ice and snow as
everyone else at my job. And down the same road. Maybe I should invest in a
Farmer’s Almanac. ~
Bruce
A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey,
Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett
Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes &
Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords. Amazon
Profile - www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS.
Bruce
A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.
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