still here

Friday will mark my three year anniversary at work. This is significant for more than one reason. First, I have never worked with any company full time for this long. I have typically faced layoffs before getting this far. Second, there is a lot of turnover in the department where I work. There are multiple reasons for this that are well beyond the scope of this post, but suffice to say my being at the same place for three years is a pretty big deal.

I generally don't care to mark the anniversary of starting to work somewhere for any reason other as a factual note that I have been around for x number of months or years. For my three year anniversary there are two extra reasons I am noting it: I got a three year gift and I get an extra week of vacation.

For my gift I picked out a pocket watch that is meant to hang on a belt loop. I am not really a watch person, but I have been carrying it around anyway. It also has a small blade, bottle opener, and compass that doesn't work. I picked this specific gift because it was among the more expensive gifts on the list and Golden pointed out that it would make a good father to son gift someday.

More valuable than the three year gift, though, is an extra week of vacation that I will be getting. I have a general philosophy about vacation time that I should always keep a specific cushion in case of emergency or in case I get laid off. In part because of this philosophy and in part because I am a tightwad I have not taken much vacation time in the three years I have been at work. I got two weeks a year of vacation for the past three years and I now have just over two weeks stored up. I only took a week every year at Christmas time and I have taken a few random days for graduation events and homework.

Now that I will be getting an extra week and I have a two week cushion I am going to be a little more willing to use my vacation time. Much of it is probably going to be taken when family comes out to see the baby, but I am not too concerned because I am getting my vacation days quicker now. I am psyched because I haven't felt that I had the freedom to take off a day for myself and I may now be able to do that.

As I initially stated, this third year is uncharted territory for me. It's the year for me to boldly go where Dust has never gone before. We'll work on there being a fourth year.