While I’ve carefully tracked my vacation hours this year, and have spent them fairly wisely, I realized this morning that there’s one additional source of paid time off that I tend to forget until it’s too late.

Entercom grants all employees one pick-the-date “personal holiday” per year in addition to the regularly-scheduled major holidays. I’ve worked here full-time for over eight years and, to the best of my recollection, I’ve never yet taken that holiday. (Anyone who’s known me for more than a year or two is welcome to chime in with a correction at this point.) I’m going to take it this year, however, in addition to the couple more vacation days I need in order to get firmly under the “carry over” cap.

And so, I’m going to take payday (tomorrow) and Wednesday the 28th off as vacation days, and Winter Solstice (the 21st) as a personal holiday. Mind you, it’s not so much personal as it is merely convenient, but in this case my “sense of proper” is overruled by my “sense of mercenary practicality.” I’m sure my pagan friends will understand.

The annual company holiday party is something of a necessary social occasion, from my point of view. It gives me a chance to rub elbows with my coworkers in a situation that doesn’t involve phrases like, “The Internet’s broken, can you fix it?” I like (the majority of) my fellow employees, really.

Mind you, this year’s party sent me packing in fairly short order. Let’s see… Loud, crowded venue? Check. Not a non-alcoholic drop to drink other than water? Check. Food selections consisting almost entirely of bread-based snacks? Check. (Anything meat-based was carried around by a server and doled out piecemeal, so gods forbid you wanted another one of those yummy coconut shrimp.) Jazz band in the corner contributing to the decibel levels so I can’t possibly hear what anyone’s saying? Check and mate.

Nevermind that on a day when, early in the morning, I was assured by the weather service that it wouldn’t be raining for about a week so I left my umbrella home, it started sprinkling just as I was leaving the office to walk over to the venue… well, it was just better for all involved if I left after a nice, brief turn around the tables, you know?

What’s the fun thing about Mondays after long weekends? Why, catching up on all of the fun stuff I didn’t get to fix when I wasn’t here Friday, that’s what! Whee!

• Three laptops needed patching and new software installs.
• One drive-time show needed a new account on their phone-call editing computer.
• One promotions manager may need a new mouse soon, but we’re not sure yet.
• All of the sales managers needed expanded permissions on the network.
• The aforementioned promotions manager needs a video file converted from DV to (probably) WMV (ugh).

Luckily, this is all the kind of stuff I can handle with very little stress. Nothing major broke while I was away, and I’m thankful for every chance I get to say something like that. I love my job, yes indeedy.

I want a shirt that reads, “I survived the audits.”

Actually, it went fairly well if you set aside the fact that our process documentation procedures need more work and we exposed a glaring (if somewhat hypothetical) security weakness with one of our most important computer systems. (Yeah, ouch.) I talked myself hoarse, laid bare every flaw and touted every strength of the infrastructure I’ve built, and learned a few things. I’ve had worse days, I suppose.

I’m still totally worn out, though. Good thing I have tomorrow off…

I love my job even on a normal day, but it’s even better when new toys land on my doorstep. A few days ago six new studio “general purpose” computers arrived, and today an even cooler gift arrived: Two new audio logging computers, complete with 300-gig hard drives and rack-mounted Firewire-connected audio hardware. Way cool, I tell ya. Even better, the simple fact of putting these machines all into service will make almost everybody in the building just a little bit happier. You can’t beat that with a stick.

As a bonus, I’m also getting my hands on a hand-me-down Dell laptop. This’ll be the first time in years that I’ve actually had a usable laptop in my possession. Sweet.

Heck, this almost makes up for the day I had Friday…