Back to work ... It's like that holiday never happened

Last week’s column explored what happens just before you go away on holiday. Now you’re back. Prepare for misery. It starts with the alarm. During holidays you bounced out of bed before the alarm, in the cool dawn as you went on a life-changing trek through the bush to watch gorillas, or buy fresh bread from the friendly twirly moustachioed boulanger.

During your holiday you pondered why it is that mornings need to be so adversarial because it is the best part of the day. As you walked through the cobbled streets of the pretty medieval town of San Somethingo, you got some excellent thinking done. The cool breeze fluttered up your legs as you swished around in linen trousers. Maybe you are a morning person after all, and you resolve to carry this habit back home with you.

Now the first beep-beep of the alarm causes you to roar: “THIS IS INHUMANE. WHY DOESN’T THE GOVERNMENT PROTECT MY RIGHTS?”

Welcome back to your life. The feet that had been able to express themselves in sandals are now back in shoes. There follows a desolate commute listening to the news about someone suing a referee and the rain for defamation or blaming a Dáil committee for Cork’s early GAA Championship exit. Just 48 hours previously, you were flying through the air on one of those kite-surfie thingsthat the young people never stop rabbiting-on about. Or maybe you were lying on a beach taking one last photo of your toes, framed by azure waters.

Now, the stale smell of photocopier toner, meeting-room blame and frustrated ambition assail your nostrils as soon as you come back into the office.

“Good holiday?” asks someone who doesn’t care about your holiday. “Yeah, grand” you reply, bursting to talk about how you felt sitting on that dolphin. But it seems so far away now. Was it all just a dream?

Log into your email. The large number in bold next to the word Inbox tells you exactly just how much has got out of hand while you were gone. The ones to watch out for are the “RE:’s”.

The “RE’s” are emails between everyone else in the office trying to deal with some thrashing, roaring hydra of a problem that hid while you were in work but then germinated, gestated and birthed shortly after you galloped out the door on that magical Friday afternoon when the world was young and innocent and you were going on your holidays.

Read through your fingers as the number of people on the email ‘CC’ list grows and grows and eventually the ‘issue’ reaches the someone who is high up enough in the company to be rarely exposed to such things and who has replied to “RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: FW: RE: RE: RE Customer Issue” with a curt: “Just get this sorted.”

There was supposed to be someone looking after it, but if you remember, your handover advice to them was that — “It’ll be grand” .

The final mail is from your boss. “Hi, welcome back. See below.”

It would have helped if you’d been in assembling your defence before the world and his mother had a chance to prosecute. But you pressed snooze. Turns out you’re only a morning person when you’re in Mediterranean mediaeval villages.

You won’t get much sympathy from colleagues. They all remember how you left. They see how you’ve worn a white shirt to emphasise your tan. They’ve seen the photos you put up on Facebook of white wine in a glass — you don’t even drink white wine — a balcony and a beach.

But don’t worry. All of this will pass. The people who are giving you daggers are going on holidays soon. Which means they’ll have to come back. And you’ll be ready.