Party Avoidance

This weekend, I’m avoiding the work Christmas Party. It’s not local – it’s kind-of-local to the Devon office, but not for my office – and involves a 5-ish hour coach journey. Each way.

Mainly though, I just really didn’t fancy it. Not necessarily as an avoidance of the Festering Season – although that’s a happy side-effect – but more as a reflection of my current state of being.

In short, I’m knackered. I’m really bad at Not Working – even when I’m officially on Leave, and Not Working – and it’s always in my head. As part of an email on Thursday, I realised that my team of three (me, my developer colleague, and the designer) are responsible for no less than fifteen websites within my employer. Not just ‘basic’ websites, but also the systems to manage the businesses – and they’re complete business entities, not just side-projects or marketing biff – so it’s pretty intense. And that means my head’s always on The Next Issue.

I’ve been taking time off, as I had a massive backlog of holiday time to take, but still, I’m wiped out. Primarily because even with that, this month has involved lots of work, silly mileage, long trips, long days, and not much in the way of turning my brain off.

So the weekend would have consisted of an early start (6.30 AM – on a Saturday!) followed by a massive 5 hour drive/ride down to a venue on Dartmoor (No, it’s not Dartmoor Prison), a big company do with 100+ people and lots of drink (a lot of ex-military people equates to a lot of drink!) followed by another (minimum of) five-hour drive/ride home – allowing extra time for people to stop, week, puke and so on. That just strikes me as a weekend where I’d rather do my own stuff, sleep in, and generally recharge my batteries a bit.

Thankfully I’m not the only one missing it – there’s been a few others over the weeks – so I don’t feel too guilty. I’m best off out of it, and with the state my head’s in at the moment, everyone who is going is better off without me there. Quite simply, I’d be no fun.

All of which means it’s a quiet weekend, and right now that’s just fine with me. I’ve still got bits to do, just to get them out of my head, but at least it’s going to be done on my terms.