Flowering Dogwood

When you go around announcing that you are going to retire, everyone wants to know when. My somewhat nebulous answer, “in July”, just doesn’t seem to cut it with some people. They want a date certain. I too wish that I could be that certain, but even at this late date there are some variables left to consider. I’m about to embark upon one final activity that should finish in July, but you never know. I can’t see leaving them in the lurch, so July is more of an estimate, but to placate the numerologists at work, I’ve started a countdown. It is a concept that has worked well for others and I’ve adopted it too. Today’s number is 75. That is, I have 75 more working days left. That should keep me employed through July, but it gets more complicated than that. In the next 75 business day there are two holidays. So, you could say that my magic number is 73 not 75. I also have eight more days of sick leave and they are use them or lose them. That then makes the number 65. Then there is vacation. I could save those days and get paid for them instead, but I’m more likely to use them and either lower my magic number to 50 or use all those decremented days to extend my career one more month and make August a virtual work month. I’ve always gotten paid in the past to lie on the beach. Why should this year be any different?