I don’t know how often I look out the window in the spring and wish I was out there, instead of being stuck inside, chained to a computer. That question actually came up in my interview for my current day job, and I did what any prospective employee would do – I lied through my teeth.
Lisa Murphy, who’s now my boss, said in the interview my former jobs had a lot to do with the outdoors. How would I handle being inside when I’d rather be out? If I do say so myself, I came up with a great spur-of-the-moment answer. I said being inside during the week would make the weekends I could get out all that much better. I said I actually looked forward to having to scale back my outdoor pursuits. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that.
But that was in early March, when there was a foot of snow on the ground, the wind was howling at 60 miles an hour, and I’d just spent several hours on my knees in the snow digging out a certain GMC Envoy. The answer wasn’t so much an outright lie as wishful thinking.
But here we are in June, and there have already been twenty or thirty absolutely gorgeous spring days outside my window. I’ve caught myself a number of times just staring at the sunshine through a pane of glass. I took my computer outside a couple of times and worked on the lawn, but that just made it worse.
Yeah, my productivity has definitely slipped a bit in the last several weeks. But I’ve started heading in to work early so I can stop at the pond that’s on the way and shoot some pictures. I might cast a line or two in there once in a while, too, but I’m a little afraid of what I might catch. I’ve also knocked off early on the days I get to the office extra early, and I get to enjoy a few hours of the evening on those occasions. It’d be a lot better if I didn’t have to work, but I need my job, so I try to balance getting outside with not getting fired. It’s a really fine line.
