The Prodigal Son Returns

After six long slow weeks of recovery from ACL surgery I was happy to return to to work today. Well received and apparently quite missed by many I made little attempt to kick ass and give it my 110%. I was asked to take it easy and have fun and let everyone enjoy my return without giving them reason to resent my absence. I was happy for this suggestion, I made an effort to remain humble and unobtrusive, and had a wonderful day letting Rob run the store as I made an appearance in various departments and made pleasantries with my coworkers and staff, and a handful of customers. Regardless of my attempts to stay under the radar as a manager my folding 'have a seat' chair was set out most of the day and I had a number of staff come visit to exhale and carp, talk about so and so, ask for time off, and catch up with their drama. And a relyable few just wanted to know how I had been. It was actually nice to feel needed if only for an ear or to put out interpersonal fires and care for my staff's woes. Honestly I didn't get much done but I feel good about the momentum. I did some laps of the shop, drank more water than I have been doing at home, did some scheduling, gave a lot of compliments, and put out some customer fires that have been smouldering since before I went away. Not bad for the first 8 hour day in 6 weeks.