It’s coming. The end of year holiday vacation time where your schedule starts to heavily favor days off work. Who doesn’t love this time of year? With so many great options for relaxing you honestly can’t go wrong.
Read More...You know what’s great? Dark chocolate Oreos and Chewy Chips Ahoy! What’s better than delicious cookies? Football season! What’s better than football season? Waking up on a Monday to find out it’s a holiday and you don’t have work! What’s better than a paid company holiday? Vacations! What’s better than a vacation? The moving walkways in the airports that take you to your blissful destination!
We live in a fast world. Have you ever waited more than five seconds for an Internet site to load? No, because nobody has time to wait. You’ve gone back to your Google search and are moving on with your life! Same concept in meetings. Have you ever waited endlessly for someone to start talking? No, because we all have a million other things on our to-do lists and don’t have time to wait for someone to grow a pair and say ‘good morning’ to the team. Thankfully airports have also adopted this mindset. Why walk like a normal human being when you could straight up become the Flash and travel at supersonic (walking) speeds?
I’m actually asking all the people who are forever casually strolling by the Jedi of escalators like they aren’t aware of the magic on their left. Is it like a real world Harry Potter concept where not everyone knows it’s there? Do you have to have a “gift” to see the moving walkway? Or are you actively choosing to remain mortal? Maybe I’m a bit impatient, maybe I still have an inner child well and alive in my soul, maybe I don’t spend enough time in airports, maybe I should plan my terminal transition better so I don’t need to use the walkways, maybe I simply enjoy moving plastic contraptions with railings – I don’t know. What I do know is that I never, and I do mean never, miss a chance to take a moving walkway.
Traveling isn’t always perfect, let’s be honest. Sometimes you get a layover that’s longer than comfortable. Sometimes you don’t get a layover at all. Sometimes you end up having to book a new flight because someone cancelled on you at the last second without warning. Sometimes you have to raise your voice to get your point across. What I’m trying to say is that air travel and relationships are clearly analogies for each other and / or maybe the same thing.
Anywho … moving walkways. I’m no expert, but if I had to guess I would say that they were designed to help you get from one end of the terminal to the other in a quicker, more efficient manner. Which is fine, I guess. A bit boring, honestly, but logical. Are those the requirements for use, though? In a rush and needing to traverse a great distance in minimal time? Because if so, I have not once used them correctly. I’m what one would call a walkway rebel. If I’m j chillin’ at my gate and have to use the bathroom, I’ll use the walkway. If I come out of a terminal store and happen to be positioned in the middle of a walkway, I’ll walk to the end just to travel back towards where I started at the store. If I’m trying to waste time, I’ll walk up and down the terminal using every moving walkway just for kicks and giggles.
As great as moving walkways are, there are still courtesy rules. Well, really there’s just one. Don’t stand on the moving walkway. First of all, wut? The purpose of the walkway is to speed you up, not slow you down. Standing is making you move like a sloth. A real life Zootopia demonstration. That’s a new level of laziness. Why walk at regular speeds when you could stand on the slowest possible moving surface and barely move at all? Do you have time to kill? Great – do it somewhere that isn’t in the way of my fun, entertainment, and terminal joy. But if you need to, for reasons unknown to me, then by all means squash yourself up on the side of the railing like a bug. You get half of a normal person’s allotted space (more on walking space allotments in THIS POST) since you are the one in the way. Your suitcase can, and will, count against you. Make like Stanley and flatten up!
Long story short, I am a moving walkway slut. If I see one, I will ride it without hesitation and without shame. If you’re standing on the moving walkway, you better channel your inner thinness so I can zoom zoom right by you like I’m in a Mazda commercial. If you’re on the side of the moving walkway, I will judge you and question your decisions.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Take a picture, it lasts longer. Have you heard that before? Such a fun saying that usually is true. Usually. Enter a millennial who doesn’t like to be told what to do and all of a sudden you have Snapchat. Where taking a picture lasts exactly until you close it. And then it disappears forever into the cloud graveyard never to be seen again. Hopefully. Unless your friend takes a picture over your shoulder. Or if you screenshot it. Or if it happens to be in a chat and you save it. There’s always a loophole if you’re clever enough so, like with a disposable camera, always ask yourself if you want a stranger judging you from afar for years to come before hitting send.
Alright, mini lesson over! Snapchat is a thing. It’s meant to be a temporary thing, but sometimes the pictures do last longer. Use discretion. And we’re moving on. Now, as we are all probably aware, either through frequent practice or educated guesses, Snapchat is not typically the place for professional glamour shots. It’s more of a candid “this is me, deal with it” type of vibe. Sure, there are filters to up the enjoyment factor. Also to help add a little light touch up for all the times when you open the camera and do a bit of a double take at your face. Or if you like lying about the #nofilter snaps you send. No judgement, you do you.
You may be wondering ‘how often should I be sending snaps?’ Clearly you don’t actively use your account, or don’t have an account, if this is a question. The correct answer, as all us ghost lovers know, is it depends. How bored are you and how humble-brag worthy is your current situation? Are you at work and having a, what you deem to be, hilarious Slack conversation? It’s Snapchat time! Are you on vacation? Doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you went, open the app! Are you out to eat and just got your plate of food? Be the foodie you’ve always wanted to be! Are you feeling yourself and in a rare, no video required, work meeting? Take a break, take a pic! Are you laying on the couch doing nothing? It’s time to embrace the double chin and tell your besties you love them! Anytime can be Snapchat time if you try hard enough.
Knowing what we all now know about Snapchat, and how it’s used, imagine what would happen if say, your dog happened to get their paws on an account. We all love our dogs, right? And we all know what our dogs do all day, right? And we all know that our dogs will get entertained by the same disgusting rope toy day after day after day until it’s literally gone, right? And we all know how excitable our dogs are over little things like when we walk into the room, right? And we all know how much our dogs not so secretly love looking at themselves in the mirror, right? Are you fetching what I’m throwing?
I have zero doubt that I would be Snapchat best friends with my dog. While I like to believe we would be on the pink hearts level, I know deep down that my dog would have a smirking face for me and I would have the smiling face for her. Because she has never met a stranger and has zero shame. It’s admirable, really. I believe dogs would be the type of users that would never really respond to you, but just continue to send streak snaps whenever they felt like it. Regardless of whether or not you had opened, or responded, to their previous one. Like a dog-pile of snaps so to speak.
Oh, you found your favorite toy? Better let everyone know. Wow, you’ve been blessed with the ability to go tan yourself on the back porch? Brag about it. Are you telling me that an actual human walked into the room just to see you? Everyone must know immediately. Are the squirrels back? Rally the troops for an attack. Did someone say ‘walk’? Make all your friends jealous. Is that a human food in your bowl? Well, life doesn’t get any better and you should tell the whole world. The humans are ignoring you? Make them feel the guilt of your sadness. You’re exhausted after a long day of nothing? Send that snap to let people know you’re going MIA for a bit.
As you can see, our dogs would be superusers. King Boos. My dog would hit the six figure point status in no time and probably be featured on the Explore page for being just absolutely adorable. Is that the secret to winning Snapchat? Feature our pups instead of ourselves? Interesting … there are a lot of advantages to this. You get to see more cute dogs. You don’t have to retake a picture 15 times so you don’t look like a river troll because dog. You don’t have to think of a clever caption because dog. You don’t have to worry about people not liking it because dog. You basically are guaranteed a response because dog. On the flip side, if you receive a dog, you don’t have to see another backdoor brag from someone. You also don’t have to awkwardly watch a video on silent and act like you wanted to listen. All of the wins.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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I’m not sure who is in charge of time, and years in general, but they seem to not have gotten the memo that it’s 2021. Get with the program. COVID was so last year. Actually, it was obviously just an election hoax. Yet here we are. Still in the middle of a raging pandemic with scary high death counts and new cases reports. All the people who keep extending the hard stop for this disease based on unrelated events remind me of the doomsdayers. Who, ironically, may be the only people not affected by the ‘vid since I’m pretty sure they’re still hunkered underground from the 2012 end of the world scare.
As if having 2020’s devilish tentacles slither into a fresh year isn’t bad enough, America is still hanging on by a thread. Literally. If you’ve ever visited Washington, DC, you understand how hard it is to get into a public restroom at Shake Shack, let alone the freaking Capitol Building. I mean, so many questions here. Why being the main one. Followed closely by what. As in, what even did I just witness?
As mentioned in previous posts, I’m not a political person, but our “leaders” are trying hard to keep me invested. You know what I miss? Just plain old work stress. Not being worried about dying from some ridiculously contagious virus. Or about my general safety, not just until January 20th, but beyond, if we’re being honest, after recent events.Remember the good days? When you could go to work and get stressed, then come home and only be worried about not wanting to go back the next morning? What a life that was. It must be a good time to be a therapist. That has to be the most lucrative job in the world at the moment. With incredible job security as a bonus.
With all the craziness that’s happening, it’s easy to forget the little things. Like how Monday is not a workday! What?! Holy guacamole, bless the three day weekend, it cannot get here soon enough! I know, I know this feels like fake news. But it’s true! The first three day weekend of the year is upon us. At the same time that it is every year, yet, it somehow feels like we could be deep into April showers and I would be none the wiser.
This has been a weird two weeks and I have to believe I’m not the only one looking forward to doing nothing on Monday. Other than the usual. Staying hydrated. Catching up on my social status points by binge-watching Bridgerton. Spend a ridiculous amount of time scrolling social media and looking at everyone else doing normal, adult things. Eating all of my meals as takeout, because who has time to cook. Procrastinating on my responsibilities. Just a standard day in the life. Sans work. And the stress that comes with that.
So, let’s dive into the time anatomy of a three day weekend. Because that is something I’ve had lots of time to think about. 24 hours, specifically. Three whole workdays, in case you missed that reference. It starts on Thursday evening. Some might argue that it starts Friday evening, but I have to disagree. Almost all good things start on Thursday, for one. Weekends, if you have the right mindset. Being thirsty. Golf tournaments. Vacation, if you know how to do it right. Anyways, we have Thursday evening. Which is when we mentally begin to prepare for an entire extra 24 hours of freedom. For all the Sunday evening festivities that we won’t feel guilty about. This is also the time where we start to understand what our wrap-up tasks are for Friday.
What’s a wrap-up task? Easy. Something that you have to get done to enjoy a stress free long weekend. Typically people think in terms of work here, but I also like to add chores to my list. Because, again, this is basically a staycation and who has time for chores on staycation? Once you have your list, and you wake up on Friday, you should be ready to hit the ground running. Sprinting, actually, to get all your wrap-up tasks done since the earlier you finish, the earlier your weekend starts. Unless you’re required to stay at work until a certain hour. At which point, my thoughts and prayers are with you, young Jedi.
Once free from a to-do list, you can engage in whatever sort of relaxation you would like. Starting Friday afternoon. Burning hot through the night and all through Saturday. Your fire may get slightly dampened on Sunday morning as the routine side of your brain thinks you have work the next day, but never fear! You will quickly find your feet again as you realize that it’s basically second Saturday. Saturday squared! Which is rarely a bad thing. Anyways, you crush Sunday like a relaxed boss!
Sunday night is when you can choose to begin the descent from your mental high, or you can take the approach of that being a problem for future you. Not going to tell you how to live your life, but I prefer the latter option. It’s more fun. For present me, anyway. Then there’s Monday. Historically a fairly dreaded day of the week. The worst day of the week, some might argue. I think it depends on the week, but you can get all my thoughts on which days are the best days in THIS POST. Anyways, you get Monday off and there’s the official breakdown. That’s a three day weekend at its most basic level. Enjoy yours!
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Ah, Christmas … excuse me, the holidays. Thank you politics for continuing to ruin all good things. Such a magical time of year with the lights and wrapping presents and cookies. SO. MANY. COOKIES. I think it’s funny when people say they’re dieting or “watching their sugar intake” anytime between mid-October and January. What is even the point? Do you hate yourself that much to deny all the best, most peanut-buttery Reese shapes? To choose not to eat a piece of the yule log, or peppermint bark, or anything pumpkin flavored?
I’m a big believer in finishing what you start, so if it’s Q4 and I still haven’t decided to take my diet seriously, then it’s just not going to happen. Finish strong! Besides, that’s what New Year’s resolutions are for, right? Why bother during the three consecutive holidays whose main themes are food? I mean, look, Santa pretty much only eats cookies and he seems to be doing alright. He’s basically immortal. I’m trying to hop on that diet train for freaking sure. He can also fly, and train reindeer, and has a memory that could even make IBM Watson scared. He knows everyone. IN. THE. WORLD. That alone is impressive, but good old Santa is like ‘you know, I can do better than just knowing them … I’m going to keep records of all their actions too’.
Now, this sounds all innocent and cute and what not, but I see what’s happening here. You can’t fool me jolly old Saint Nick. Since the beginning of time, everyone has wanted to know how he does it. How is it possible that one man and eight reindeer can deliver presents to everyone in the world in one night? Not one month, not one week, not even one day … one night.
Enter the naughty and nice list. Why give everyone presents when we can easily play God and judge the actions of others? If they’re naughty, scratch that name off the list. One less house to visit. Now repeat this for all the people clearly dating Satan and trying to impress his demonic self. That’s a whole different topic – some people just need a hug, a smile, and a whole lot of Jesus. Anyways, so we’ve started to weed people out. Satan be gone! Who’s next? Well all the people who made bad decisions – so every adult ever. Boom! Knocking off suckers left and right! Anyone else? All the kids who don’t believe because they’re trying to be “cool” and “grown up”. News flash: growing up is not as cool as it looks. Just trust me on this.
Who does that leave? Literally only anyone under 5 because even Santa has a little bit of a soul and knows they are so innocent they can’t really do anything massively wrong. Problem solved. Santa stalks us and waits to see that one little slip up because you had just broken up with bae and were confused and that couple was all about the PDA life and it was just too much at that time so you told them to eff off and get a room. Welp, congratulations! Your name just earned a huge strikethrough. Good thing I’m an adult now and can buy myself presents to make up for the lump of coal I’ll be getting from the big man.
In a shocking twist, I have some serious concerns, though, about Santa’s delivery method for the people that are lucky enough to remain on the nice list. When I order something, from say Amazon, the package shows up at my front door. I owe the delivery person nothing. The delivery person has never set foot in my house. Life is good. On Christmas, however, this is not the case. Front doors are too visible, I guess, for Kris Kringle, so the chimney is his vessel of choice. And not just to throw the presents down – that would be too easy and law-abiding. No, Santa chooses to break into the house. And we all welcome it! We actively leave snacks for him as a reward for committing a crime. What is this teaching children exactly?
Moving past this blatant disregard for human safety. An unknown man is in our house (because, let’s be honest, nobody really knows who he is), eating food that we paid for, and leaves us gifts that he knows we want since he stalked us. Putting it like that doesn’t sound so ho ho holly jolly now does it? What if he wasn’t a happy old fella and was actually disgruntled and angry? That would be a very different story Christmas morning – why is our living room trashed and all our valuables missing? Mmhmm makes you think, doesn’t it. He could be a serial killer. Yet it’s more important that we have someone else come up with gifts for our offspring than to just go buy something for them. But happy holidays!
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you also feel weird about the conspiracy that’s coming from the North Pole, best to keep that to yourself. As weird as it is, the big man seems sane and happy for now so no need to stir that pot. Thanks for reading!
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Honesty is important in most things. Not all things, but the majority. Like if someone from your favorite team’s rival school asks if you can be friends it may be best to smile and nod even though you know you’ll never hang out. Or if your significant other goes grocery shopping and brings home regular Oreos instead of double stuffed it may be best to say thank you and eat them anyways. It is still an Oreo. An inferior Oreo, but an Oreo nonetheless. Or when you lose a game and tell the other team / player they played well even though they’re being obnoxious and you know you lost it, they didn’t win it. Know what I mean?
Those are obviously just a few examples, you can probably think of some from your life I’m sure. In pretty much every other situation, though, honesty is usually the best route. You can choose to lie, but in my experience that only comes back to bite you in the butt. One of those situations is not picking favorites, however. The whole point of picking favorites is to be biased and rank the list based on your current feelings. It’s an honest sentiment on what things you like and don’t like.
So let’s rank some things! What’s something that every human has to deal with? Days of the week. I like to believe that animals don’t since they don’t go to school and learn the calendar system so they probably just live in a state of bliss. Sun comes up, sun goes down. It makes no difference to them if it’s a Monday or a Friday. Also, they don’t work, so a workweek is not a major stressor in their lives. I’m assuming. That all could be inaccurate, I can’t say I’ve spent any amount of time looking into this other than observing my dog.
Enough about how animals choose to live their best lives, let’s break down the best, and the worst, days of the week. According to me. The Restless Professional. You may feel differently and that’s fine. Not everyone can be right. I do think it’s important to recognize that there is a big difference between vacation days and work days. That being said, there will be two rankings: a regular workweek days of the week ranking and a vacation days of the week ranking.
It’s a Workweek Ranking
Obviously the weekend is prime real estate during the week since that typically means no work. Saturday is clearly the superior weekend day. Friday is the next best thing because it’s the end of the week and that means that the best day, Saturday, is tomorrow. Some people may be wondering why Thursday ranks above Sunday? Simple. Thirsty Thursday comes before Friday which comes before Saturday. What does Sunday come before? Monday, bleh. But it is still a weekend day so it makes the top half of the list. Taco Tuesday just comes with a whole slew of fun evening events for your enjoyment. Wednesday is, honestly, overrated – hooray you’re halfway done. Not as encouraging as it should be. There’s still half the workweek left. Monday feels self-explanatory.
Vacation Elation Ranking
When you’re on vacation, you want the week to slow down! A Monday means you have so much time to not do things like work. It’s fantastic. That’s why I wouldn’t change a thing. Maybe the person who created this lineup was on vacation when doing so? What would your rankings look like? Similar? Vastly different? No preference? I don’t believe that for a second.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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The Restless Professional 