Back to Life, Back to Reality, Back to Work

When Amanda was in the second grade – and I was in the sixth grade – she contracted mono. She had it bad, too. Thinking back on it now, I feel really bad for her. Back then, though, I was thoroughly jealous. I rarely got sick when I was kid, most of the time I faked it. And in true “Scamy” fashion, I faked mono too. Actually, I tried to get mono by sitting really close to Amanda and I tried to get her to breath on me. I may have gone so far as to drink out of her water glass. And because Amanda had been sick, I knew the symptoms and since I felt fine, I faked them. My mom took me into the doctor and I prayed the test would come back positive so I wouldn’t have to go to school for a few weeks. It came back negative. But because Amanda had been sick, the doctor said it was likely I had mono, too. And so in the sixth grade I faked mono and got out of school for a few weeks.

After a few weeks off of school, I returned. And after 10 weeks off of work, I returned. I was happy to come back to work. I was pretty bored at home. I was feeling better, but couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, there wasn’t much going on in my life besides getting over an addition to pain killers - and besides once you are off those, the TV stops talking back to you.

I was nervous, too. Like the first day of school. Who I am going to sit next to – while I was out my team moved to a different part of the building. Are people going to be happy to see me? What am I going to do all day? How am I going to get through 2500 emails? How am I going to get through the day with my eye sight not at 100%? How am I going to get through the day without a nap? How am I going to get through the day without watching Ellen?

But it was great. My team welcomed me back with open arms. My desk – which was still packed in a box from the move – displayed pictures stolen and printed from my Facebook page, there were balloons and someone brought bagels for the team. In the afternoon there was a Costco cake. It was chocolate – which is so un-American (inside joke, as there was a misunderstanding about how I actually don’t like chocolate cake), but it was delicious nonetheless.

My boss told me this day was my “Welcome back tour.” The head of our Talent team told me I was like the graduated senior returning to high school to tell everyone what it’s like in college.

So I spent my day talking – talking more than I had in the past 10 weeks. I deleted all but 3 emails. I met with my boss about my course of action to get back up to speed and I fooled around on Facebook – a lot. Oh, and I left early. It probably wasn’t the most productive day, but it was a start.

It was official, I was back. And as much as I may complain and bitch and moan about work - I was happy to be there. I was happy to be anywhere but my couch, really. But I did miss it. I missed my friends and my co-workers. I missed doing things and feeling accomplished at the end of the day. I even missed a couple of my clients – but don’t tell them that. I was back. Back to life, back to reality, back to work. And something tells me I won’t be faking mono anytime soon - but I promise nothing.

(July 1, 2009)