About v-Fluence
Home, at Last
Being the only one without family during the holidays gets depressing.
But when I came to work for v-Fluence in October 2006, I knew that this year would be different than others.
My parents live in a beach town, Buzios, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Getting there is time-consuming and costly, especially around the holidays.
For various reasons, the last time we celebrated Christmas together was in 2002, when they briefly lived in Fort Lauderdale. We had the tree in the roof garden.
The following year, however, found my parents living in Brazil and me in Los Angeles working as a newspaper reporter. My job didn’t allow me sufficient vacation time to justify the cost of an airplane ticket, so I flew back East and celebrated the day with an old friend in New Hampshire.
In 2004, I was back living in New York, but, again, the cost and lack of vacation time prevented another visit. Instead, I worked. As a rule, December 25th in a newsroom is either completely dead, or major news breaks. In my case, major news broke; the big story came as a homicide, the fourth of the year in the small town of Stamford, Conn. I walked through the snow to the housing project where a bouncer had been shot and died in his uncle’s arms. I found the aged, sick uncle there and talked to him for an hour. Back at the newsroom, I wrote my story, then sat there brooding over my ham-less, goose-less, family-less evening.
The story won an Associated Press award. Was it worth missing out on seeing my Mom, Dad, brother and countless cousins yet another year? With my name misspelled on the award plaque, it’s hard to say.
Christmas of 2005, I didn’t have to work but faced the same scenario: overpriced plane tickets and not enough vacation time. So I went to D.C. to spend it with my fifth cousins; we have the same great-great-grandparents. They are great people, and we had a fun time, but I felt a bit like a sixth wheel.
When I came to work for v-Fluence in October 2006, I knew that this season would be different; I wouldn’t be alone this year. During my interview, in fact, I realized that the flexibility of working from home would finally, finally allow me to see Mom, Dad and my brother for the holidays.
And indeed, I spent three weeks in Buzios this past Christmas. I worked for two of those weeks and took the next one off. I worked from my parents’ backyard, overlooking the Atlantic ocean. I had family dinners every night, family lunches and family breakfasts. We had fourth cousins in the house, as well as various guests for Christmas dinner. I was home again.
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