Playing Hookey


Josie Leavitt - June 14, 2010

I love my store. I love my customers. But there are times when I need to get away and enjoy a stunningly spectacular day. Sadly, sometimes this day conflicts with my regularly scheduled work times. So, what’s a slightly understaffed boss supposed to do?
Well the first thing I could do is get someone competent to work on Sundays so I could enjoy a rare gorgeous early summer day. But I haven’t done that, yet. So today I continued a long-standing Flying Pig tradition of taking a “gone fishing” day.  Is this a smart business decision?  I think so. We have a very strange dynamic where one busy Saturday tends to mean that Sunday is slow, and this Saturday was phenomenal.
Why do we close two days a year when the weather is so gorgeous it hurts? We say yes to life. There is something about the spontaneity  about waking up and thinking, “It’s too pretty to work.” I live in Vermont and it’s done nothing but rain the past week. Not just rain, but pour, and it’s been about fifteen degrees cooler than normal, so  Sunday, with abundant sunshine and warmth, was a gift that I needed to enjoy with Elizabeth, who had just gotten home from a week away.
It’s really a win-win for everyone. A happy, refreshed Josie is a better bookseller and that’s can only be a good thing, really, for everyone.
The reality of “gone fishing” for me means actually spending the day on my deck, reading.

3 thoughts on “Playing Hookey

  1. Sandy

    Way to go! It’s too easy to focus so much on work that we forget to or feel that we can’t stop to enjoy a good thing when life offers it. Glad you had a good day off =)

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  2. Vicki

    My mom called this a “mental health day” when we were kids. She’d call school & let them know we wouldn’t be coming in, and we’d go enjoy a (rare) beautifully sunny day in San Francisco. (We only got one a year., don’t think we were playing hookey all the time.) They’re some of my best memories!

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