Few things in life are as dear to me as my email outof-office assistant.
OK, so that's not true. My husband and sons are dearer. And my new slow cooker's pretty darn dear, as is my Nexus pass and my grandmother's silver tea service and that little blue dress I bought on Maui last year.
But the email thing is up there.
Don't get me wrong. I love my job. It's challenging and rewarding and allows me to stretch my brain and associate with some pretty lovely people.
But every once in a
while, well, I'd just rather not be there. I'd rather forego the nasty stuff - i.e. the commute - and hang out in the yard or at the beach.
That's where the assistant comes in.
I fired it up last week. I was at work, and watching the clock as it counted down to holiday time.
The holiday drew closer, even though I'd already been in what a colleague calls "pre-holiday mode" for some time. (Preholiday mode, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is characterized by constant smiling, recurring thoughts of margaritas and frequent uncalled-for giddy outbursts.) Anyway. There I was.
Watching the clock at 1 p.m. And 2 p.m. And 2:15.
"Well?" asked a co-worker, walking by my desk. "What time you putting it on?" "I'm thinking three," I said.
I looked at the clock. It said 2:16.
The note on the outof-office assistant had, of course, already been drafted. It was intended for those
who write to me regularly - work contacts, perfect strangers and everything in between - and as much as I wanted to tell them that I would be in back-yard margarita land for two weeks, I simply told them when I'd be gone, when I'd back, and who to call during my absence.
It was nice. Going tandem with the email assistant, of course, was the message on my telephone, which I would change at the designated hour. Also a dear, dear friend, that telephone answering machine. Not as dear as my sweet greatniece, but a treasure nonetheless.
"When you changing that?" asked my colleague.
"I'm thinking 2:55," I said. "You know, just before I put on the out-of-office assistant."
The colleague nodded. "You look pretty excited," she said. I smiled, just as I'd been smiling pretty much non-stop the entire week.
She understood my glee, of course. A holiday's a splendid thing - even when it hasn't begun.
