Tamara Jo, hope you’re having a swell birthday.
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I put in my holiday requests today. Basically, we’re asked to rank which holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, News Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day) we’d prefer to have off on a scale of one to five. We’re not guaranteed anything, especially not our normal off days if they fall on a holiday (Christmas is on a Sunday, which I would normally have off). I ranked them thusly: Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day. I’m sure seniority is a major factor, so I don’t expect to get any of them off. That way I can’t be terribly disappointed when I find out my schedule.
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The nephews will be spending the next two days with me here in Memphis instead of at my parents’ house. I want to get out to the zoo on Tuesday. They’ve got a new Gamecube game they’re giddy about playing. Maybe we’ll go to the children’s museum too. Maybe we’ll rent a hot-air balloon and some clowns and fly over the city, releasing buckets of confetti and candy.
Yeah, working for a news organization pretty much ensures these things:
1. Don’t even expect a holiday off.
2. Don’t ever expect a working schedule that you like.
3. It is assumed that you want to spend your life in the office when a big story happens.