It’s that time of year again when the pace of things at the federal government grinds to a halt and nearly everyone with more that four or five years on the job has visions of the next two weeks off dancing in their heads. It’s use-or-lose leave season in the federal government and that means for all practical purposes, the bureaucracy ceases to function in any meaningful way. The burning of excess leave is one of the great traditions of government employees and I’m happy to be partaking once again this holiday season.
Occasionally, though, you run into a problem during this time of year; an issue that someone thinks just can’t wait until after the start of the new year. That’s when the endless round of phone tag and a steady stream of email interrupts what you were sure was going to be two weeks of rest and relaxation. There’s really not a tactful way to tell people to bugger off, but I’m going to try my best to do it for two weeks starting tomorrow afternoon around 3:30.
As a rule, I do my damndest to avoid contacting people when they are on leave, If I drop them an email, it’s for something they’ll need to know when they get back to the office, not something they should be working on when they are burning vacation time. I’ll never object to answering a few emails here and there or even returning an occasional phone call while I’m gone… But I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I’m going to spend any more than the barest minimum amount of time thinking about or doing work while I’m gone. So, if you want the cheap and easy answer to your questions, ask me sometime in the next 16 days… or if you want the well-developed and articulated answer, give me a call on January 4th and I’ll give it something close to my full attention.
Until then, I encourage those calling on official business to please leave a message and I’ll return your call in the order in which it was received… eventually.
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