I receive an SMS from a friend: “You should do an article about the people who call you bothering you in mid-August to start by asking you: “What, how do they test the holidays?” One of the worst sentences of the year”. Substitute columnists have a duty to address the despair of readers. Let’s go there, then. Indeed, the bad taste of the question “how do you test the holidays?” It can only be compared to what they do to you at the beginning of January: “What, how is the year testing?” They are supposedly kind formulas that we would like to respond with an outburst like: “Well, until you called me, they were almost bearable, idiot.”
They are reactions that we can imagine but not adopt. They would condemn us to drag a fame, probably justified, of edges. In fairness, we should be able to affirm that the one who asks is more rude than the one who bites his tongue not to answer. Calling someone in the middle of August is foolhardy. And, assuming that it is strictly necessary, the most prudent thing to do is to avoid any consideration of the health or mood of our interlocutor and limit yourself to the practical part of the dialogue. In today’s world, in which most people take vacations when the company calendar dictates, the possibility that they are testing you fatal is high.
In fact, there is a misdiagnosis among people who, right at the start of their vacation, feel unwell because the body reacts to a forced disconnection that they might want to manage in another way. With a week of rest and indolence they would have had enough and would appreciate saving the remaining days for other vulnerable moments. Having to do them all in a row can cause underlying stress, which is not publicly admitted, because it is a privilege and a right that has cost too much sweat and blood to be fussy now.
But between us: thirty days in a row can create short circuits that are hard to digest. Especially if, while you are calculating how much is left to return to work happily, they call you to bother you and blurt out the fateful: “What, how do you test the holidays?” Ah, if we could answer with another question: “And how do you want to be tested, idiot?”.
