Why Taking A Personal Day Is A Terrible Idea

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In life, we often need a “personal day.” This is a day devoted entirely to doing whatever it is you need (or most likely want) to do for yourself. This could be laying in bed, going to see that new movie you’ve heard about, raging with your friends who have also taken a personal day, or going on an adult adventure. Here are some ways that personal days differ before and after the real world consumes your soul forever.

1. First and foremost, after college you will most likely have to actually plan a day to take off. You can’t just wake up and say, “Nope, I’m not going to do what I am supposed to today.” Skipping work has more repercussions than skipping that 8am psychology class.

2. You don’t have friends. Your friends are all at work, not just waiting to get out of class at 10:30am and then have fun with you the rest of the day. While your lazy ass is taking a day off, your friends are on that 9-5 grind, and will most likely be too tired when they get off to even hang out with you.

3. Now that you are an adult, you have certain things that you are responsible for. Things that you must get done on your day off. Namely, bills and laundry. There’s no waiting until you go home so mom can wash your mountains of dirty clothes that you already wore three times. There are also these horrid things that come in the mail that you must fill with your money and send back to the heartless bastards that charge you way too much for rent/power/water/gas/cable/sewage. (Speaking of, someone actually does charge you for sewage sometimes, so get ready for that smack in the face.)

4. You know that going back to work tomorrow is going to be a bitch. All the stuff that you didn’t get done today at your desk is in a pile that’s looming over your head, even though you are trying to blissfully enjoy your personal day.

5. Expectations. The best piece of advice I can give you to help with your postgrad transition? Never get your hopes up. Then, when something bad happens, you won’t be as upset. And believe me, bad things will happen to you now more than they ever did in college.

6. The night before your personal day will not be different from any other night. If you planned a skip day in college, you could guarantee that there was someone in your network of friends that was more than willing to throw down with you the night before your day off. In the real world, there is no such friend, unless he/she is unemployed and gets drunk every night anyway. You can bet, however, that raging with this friend during the week will only end with them crying over how their life is going nowhere and you feeling sorry for them. Bummer.

7. Since you have no friends to hang out with, you will have lots of time to yourself to reflect. This will typically end in you figuring out that life is a real bitch and endlessly searching the internet for jobs that you would consider killing for, but are ultimately not qualified to have.

8. One thing that won’t change is that Facebook will always be there to make your FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) flare up. The nature of Facebook will change, though. In college, it was a magical place where you saw parties, breakups, more parties, etc. and you enjoyed looking through your friends lives. Now, it is a dark place where only engagements, vacation pictures, weddings and proud baby mommas live.

So, there you have it. I would recommend never taking a personal day, unless you sync it with a friend’s day off. Skip days are mighty lonely once you get your first real job, and are to be avoided. That is, unless you are thinking about murdering your boss or setting the building ablaze if you don’t take one.

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My parents always told me to make the most out of life. Hence my 5-year college plan. Now I'm just trying to figure out postgrad life, one happy hour at a time.