What an inauspicious start to the new year

Last night and today have both been pretty dull. We all stayed home last night. I made dinner for us, put Enzo to bed, and fell asleep on the floor next to his bed. Julian woke me at about 10 minutes before midnight and I came out to the living room, where he was sitting on the futon watching the appendices of the Return of the King. I poured a couple of glasses of champagne, and joined him on the futon. Midnight (and thus the new year) came and went with no celebration.

Today, I haven't even left our house. I've been doing some heavy-duty cleaning. I took the Christmas tree down today and vacuumed the floor, then rearranged the furniture. The corner where the tree has been for the last 5 weeks or so looks so bare now.

I don't know why, but I feel kind of depressed today. I think the weather may be partially to blame. It's been overcast and warm the last couple of days, and has been raining for most of the day. Not a heavy rain, but just a light, misty rain. I had to turn the heat off and turn the air conditioning back on. I think the other factor contributing to my depressed state is that my holiday is almost over. I only have tonight and tomorrow and then it's back to the grind.

Is it sad that I'm so unhappy with my current position that I dread going to work so much that it almost makes me physically ill? This past week has been wonderful -- a breath of fresh air for me. I guess that's what a vacation is supposed to be for, but it shouldn't make it that much harder to go back. I've been checking my work email from home occasionally this week, and that hasn't helped matters. My group received an email from our manager stating that cell phones were not to be used while we are on the clock, were not to be visible on our desks, and were to be turned off. This is after a meeting a couple of weeks ago where the VP over our group said that he fought for us to be able to have our cell phones on since it is our emergency contact, working in a call center environment. It's all the contradiction that bothers me. One person says this, but it's overridden by another person, and another person says something else entirely different. What's okay today may not be okay tomorrrow, but then it may go back to being okay in a week. There's another issue that comes to mind. There's something we were told we could do, then told we couldn't do, so we asked a supervisor for clarification. That supervisor went to HR and inquired for us and sent an email saying that it was okay. I kept the email, just to cover my behind. Then this same issue that HR said was fine for us to do in May...is no longer fine. At least according to our veep. And apparently now if we do this, it could be grounds for termination. Nice. So in the course of a year...okay, not okay, okay, not okay, and if you do it again, I'll sack you. And it's not really that big of a deal, in my opinion. So I won't do it. Blah.

It was so nice to have a week not at work, not thinking about work, and therefore not stressing about work.

I'm sure the anticipation of going back will be worse than what it actually will be. At least I hope so.