*Is not as close to killing people as she was last time...*

I've discovered something entirely new this week.

I love paid vacation. Really. Whoever thought of it was flippin' brilliant.

Of couse, deciding to take it away from all of the poor, pitiful part-timers is something that should've been more carefully thought out, but hey, who am I to complain?

So anyway, this is the last year that my company is giving a week of paid vacation to it's part-time employees. Since I came in just before the beginning of 2007, that means I get my happy little paid week off. However, I couldn't take said paid week off until after I'd completed a year of service. Thus, I was left with the last week of November or one of the December weeks to either take my vacation or lose it entirely.

December is the busiest time of year in the retail world, and I'm one of the few good cashiers my store has. Does anyone else see the problem here?

So yeah, I've been on vacation this week, which I am enjoying so so so SO much! But somewhere, nagging at the back of my mind, is this guilt because I'm not at work the week before Christmas. It's entirely not my fault that it worked out this way, but I still feel bad, because I know what it's been like down there recently and what it's likely like this week being down one strong person (plus having our store manager and one of our three assistant managers having to be up in one of our other stores--long story, not worth telling here).

Let's just say, I wouldn't want to be one of my poor co-workers this week.


...but on the other hand, I wouldn't have wanted to be the next customer who bit my head off for no apparent reason, either. I was getting so close to going seriously postal on some of the more...interesting...customers we have come into our store it's not even funny.

*sigh*

Thank You God for vacations.