The ritual of Friday night

Every Friday, there comes a moment when I say to myself, “Right. That’s it then.”

I close all the open windows. Disengage the SQL Servers. Close the spreadsheets, disconnect the links to Sharepoint sites, close the Word documents, click the little ‘x’ in the corner of the too-many emails I somehow have managed to open concurrently. (I can’t explain that. Really. Just about every afternoon I say to myself, “Oh for heaven’s sake, why, WHY do you always end up with, like, fifteen emails open all at once?!” – and yet somehow, throughout the day, I end up with a card-deck worth of emails sitting open all at the same time.)

I hit the ‘sync’ button. Files scan. Your folders have been successfully synchronized.

Cntl+Esc…S…Enter…bing-bing-bing-bing-biiiiiing…

…and the screen goes dark…

I put away the power cord, the mouse and pad, the networking cable. Slip the laptop into its case and tuck it safely away in the closet, away from rampaging Denizens and their friends. Fold up the portable stand and put it back in the closet.

And in that moment, as I’m emerging from the closet empty-handed, there is a feeling of near euphoria.

Two days off.

I don’t have to get up at 3:40 tomorrow morning.

I don’t have to be on time to any meetings.

I don’t have to focus, a thing which by Friday has become nearly impossible as the combination of fatigue and brain-clutter builds up over the week.

I don’t have to think about source feeds, misbehaving scope flags, missing records, or how to go about sizing the potential downstream impact of the latest proposed logic tweak.

Another week is in the books. Another timesheet filled in. Another paycheck coming.

I’m blessed to have this job. And I love it. It’s about the most fun I’ve had while working this hard. It’s interesting and challenging and fast-moving. I know a lot and I’m still learning a lot and I’m not dreading Monday much at all.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not also wallowing in the joy of my weekend.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh…weekend.

It’s a good thing.