Vacation Elation Don’t Look Now, But Pvs May Explain Giddy Co-Worker
You can recognize the symptoms. A rush to get many unrelated tasks done, interrupted by dreamy stares out the window. Zealous list-making. A tendency to ask “How long can this hold?”
But most of all, a person starts to act giddy. Which is when you know for sure that this person has entered the throes of PVS. Or, prevacation syndrome.
It’s a classic condition which strikes many this time of year. Some are immune, but maybe they’re only better at concealing a smirk. Or maybe they’re taking three weeks off just to put on a new roof.
The fact that PVS can happen to anyone doesn’t make others sympathetic to the person experiencing it.
It’s hard to work around someone who will soon be dozing in the sand with a margarita, no salt, by his side, while you, poor drudge, will continue to stare at this same computer and drink cold coffee out of the same gummy mug, with nothing scheduled but a tire rotation and a dental appointment.
People who are PVS-ing sometimes push it. Someone in the ladies room asks if you know whether it rains in the summer in Paris, and you spitefully say, “No, but you’ll wish it did,” and they happily shrug as if they’d already found a perfect shady spot in the Luxembourg Gardens.
Of course, there is no place that doesn’t sound good to the self-pitying stay-at-home, vacation hours long squandered on some fool ski trip. Someone mentions a duty visit to Nebraska to see the in-laws, and you wish you were so lucky. Shoot. At least they get to go someplace that has fireflies and heat lighting.
Your insurance agent mentions a convention in Duluth, and it sounds madcap.
Meanwhile, those on PVS are slipping further away. They are mentally packing, dashing out between appointments to buy backpacks, little soaps and multi-pocketed photographer’s vests.
They can’t go to lunch because they have to get their cholera shots and pick up their visa.
The problem with PVS is that it can go on for weeks, often lasting longer than the actual vacation. For days someone obsesses over the perfect linen hat, crushable but chic, that will work if she decides to take the overnight train to Berlin and wakes up with bad hair.
Someone should warn her that PVS is a risky time to make serious clothing decisions. There probably would be no such thing as a sarong skirt that turns into a beach wrap were it not for people half out of their minds with travel fever.
The same person whose favorite working colors are black and beige will suddenly splurge on a crinkly hot pink caftan for sunrise walks in Zihuatanejo. You know this because she stops by your desk and asks, “Is it me?” and you’re too kind to say, “Only if you’ll be participating in a bullfight.” Those on PVS, however, cannot be discouraged. Were you mean enough to ask, “So, when will you be back to work?” they’ll give you a look that says, “Maybe never.”
In this period before vacations begin, there’s a belief that getting away will be a life-changing experience. Maybe you’ll stumble across a quaint village in Provence that you can write best sellers about. Maybe someone in Santa Fe will beg you to buy their coffeehouse. Maybe you’ll climb a mountain and enter Shangri-la.
PVS is like an out-of-body experience. The vacation-bound are already somewhere else, hanging onto a subway strap in a foreign city or setting up a tripod in an ancient temple. They only look like they’re at their desks. They step lighter than the rest of us, probably because they’ve started coming to work without socks.
They’d be almost forgivable, if it weren’t for the humming noises they make when they pass by and that schedule for the Greek ferry system in their pocket.
MEMO: Nest Thursday: how to use the spirit of summer to your professional advantage.