[Marilyn]

Having time off at Christmas is such a blessing when you can. When the girls were small, I always had to work. The group I worked with had older people in it with more seniority than I had. One man took off from Thanksgiving to New Years every year and the other took off the last two weeks of December and only 2 could be off at a time. They would not even let me take off one day to go see the girls in their Christmas program at school, so one year, I took an extended lunch, left early and drove the 50 miles round trip to see their 11 a.m. program instead of taking my 30 minute lunch as scheduled. Everyone knew what I had done, but no one said a word to me.

Finally when one of the guys retired, I had enough seniority and took 2 weeks off one Christmas. One of the women I worked with got all upset and behind my back was telling everyone that I was intentionally blocking her from being able to go see her parents in Arkansas for Christmas. I confronted her and told her that if she had come to me to discuss the situation we could have worked something out, but since she chose to do what she did and get ugly behind my back, I was going to take both weeks and enjoy them with my girls. They were about 5 and 6 at the time, and we had a really great time together.

People can be so selfish!!!