I had been working very hard to meet a deadline. I worked on the weekend and then quite late for a few nights. Then I handed in my work and felt very happy for it.
The next day, I woke up at my usual time. While having breakfast, I realised that today was a good day to be sick. Usually, when I am feeling a bit unwell, I push through it because I have an important meeting, a deadline or there’s work to be done. But on this day, my calendar was blue sky clear.
Regretfully, I did not feel the least bit ill. If I had even a slight cold, I could have stayed away from the office and maybe even taken a therapeutic walk around Regent’s Park in the sunshine.
Can you not take time off and say “I worked on the weekend”? That’s a pretty regular occurrence at my office for some people.
Well, to be honest, I did take some time off later in the week to go to a professional development workshop (i.e. good for my career but not of direct benefit to my job). That used up some of the time I banked on the weekend.
Consultancy is fairly flexible. Even though ‘flexi-time’ isn’t an official arrangement, you can do most anything you like as long as there’s a legitimate way to charge a job or client for it. For example, working through lunch and leaving an hour early.