The coffee shop in the recess of my mind

Im taking a break, a coffee break if you please. Will walk up to the 6th floor and steal some Italian brew from their (other SBU) imported machine. Why? Primarily cause their coffee is good and ours sucks, and also cause doing it will help our P&L (hence steal) and possibly show up in our numbers and stuff thus positively impacting my performance bonus. So there!! Yes; thought of all this myself….in the recess.

Given the impact that the break has had on our SBU’s balance sheet I am encouraged to take even more. Suddenly I realize that my breaks are actually contributing to our bottom line and so cannot be thought of breaks in the literal sense. Shucks people; gimme my free time!!!

Seriously folks, what is a break? When does one switch off? How can one achieve total relaxation? Can I possibly shed all my inhibitions (lets assume I have some for technical reasons that make this post viable to readers)? And so we reach the 2nd Who? discovery episode (episode sounds much better than experiment; doesn’t it?).

Driving around in Goa (stop protesting ..details to follow) we indulged in quite a bit that would qualify as “out of the ordinary”, hence relieving the monotony of our daily existence. Lemme try to examine of any of these activities would actually pass the muster and qualify in what we define as a break. Let the countdown begin:

1. The leisurely drive around the countryside. Yes yes very nice. But when on a break (incidentally I am of the opinion that a holiday = extended break for those of you who did not get it) does one have to bother oneself with the niceties of following traffic rules and keeping to the left and bothering with the speed limit and stuff (we could have possibly been pulled up for going too slow and stopping at virtually every wine shop along the way) and state of sobriety while driving. Get the drift? Do I also need to keep looking at the fuel gauge and chk if we have enough gas. Why cant the car just keep running while we are on chutti?
2. It seems that holidays find me at my best behaviour. So while a normal day in the office involves a lot of growling, snarling and baring of teeth, the stiff upper lip and the virtual top hat are on exhibition during the length of the vacation. How I ask myself is one to impress the hotties at the bar and on the beach with such abominable behaviour?? Why not just chuck the bloomin façade and let the animal instincts take over. Let out a good old fashioned wolf howl… ahem…asking them about their favourite footer team might make for pleasant conversation but does it get me anywhere? The fact that I don’t really want to get anywhere while holidaying is no consolation.
3. Probably the worse thing that could happen is being stuck in the gallows of fiscal prudence. Have not been able to catch myself at this, but why do I think that this only makes it worse.

Since I cant remember what comes after 3, I am going to stop and hope that it serves as enough of an illustration. So what is the problem? Perhaps I need to start taking my breaks more seriously. Or perhaps to re-phrase, less seriously.

Maybe I want to break free.