I scheduled two weeks off at the beginning of December, because I'll lose time if I don't take it, but I have no idea what I should do with it.

Think warm sunny Florida. (I am so predictable)

And then there's also Southern California...

Yeah, I'm not back to work until later next week, most likely. But even still my brain is like "but you should be DOING things!" Not feeling well today (tummy unhappy, head a bit achey, can't get comfy in cast wherever the pressure is depending on how I put my leg). Bleh.

Make sure you eat with the pain meds even if you don't feel hungry.

Not feeling well today (tummy unhappy, head a bit achey, can't get comfy in cast wherever the pressure is depending on how I put my leg).

All excellent reasons NOT to try to work. I haven't had your particular circumstances, but I once went back to work with a mild concussion and had to keep leaving early and feeling broken. I wished I could have just taken more time to recover my equilibrium. (And that's without broken bones or surgery!) So, yes, please, take what time you can, your body needs it. Try to convince your brain that what you SHOULD be doing is clearing space on the DVR or finally making headway on that crochet or cross-stitch project, etc.

Aw, I'm sorry meara, that sounds unfun.

What everyone said, meara. Try to stay away from work and heal. It might actually be a shorter recovery time.

Our recent ex-Dean and I now sit on a University committee together. Now, we always got along fine, but definitely boss/worker. Today after the meeting we were chatting and all the f-bombs came out -- that would have never happened in the before relationship -- so I feel like we've moved to colleagues? So weird! We're allowed to curse now!

Meanwhile, I have a job I can't seem to fill. I don't know if it is our posting, our university, our salary range or all three. I don't know what to do with it, but, then again there is only one thing I can change in that group.

My coworker has managed to delete her local copy of the files we work on. It's just disappeared. There's nothing I can do about this, but she's going on about it at great length. I guess I should be more sympathetic, but I'm failing. She will have lost some work, but nothing catastrophic.

meara, what everyone else said. The location where you perform your job is irrelevant. Take it out of the equation. Treat yourself like you'd treat a co-worker or subordinate.

Sparky, my employer is having problems too. They posted for a counterpart for me in the West to take some of the stress off of me back in March, and no one applied. They finally took the listing down last month.

meara, you need to take care of yourself, too. But if you really do need to go back to work, do you have flexibility in your schedule? Maybe a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon, just enough to keep up with the email? Or what I did after my back surgery, work the same number of hours but extend the day to add a couple of hours to rest.

Tom, I'm also a big fan of going to sunny places in cold weather. Another option -- playing tourist at home. Go see some of the sights that are just a short train ride away, but you never get to because daily life gets in the way.

I have a week's vacation at the end of the month, but that's going to include a colonoscopy and associated bonding with my bathroom. Yay.