Headbanger's Holiday

One of my subordinates, the part-timer who works the afternoon/evening shift from Monday to Friday, is a big fan of all genres of music, but his two big loves are old, classic blues and various genres of heavy metal.  I'm not a big metalhead, preferring the stripped-down and strident punk rock- I know that people might say 'thrash is thrash', but I always preferred punk's political content to the typically apolitical metal.

I'm not against metal, and a bunch of my friends were, and still are, into it.  One of the guys I went to high school with specifically attended Seton Hall University so he could be a DJ at the storied WSOU (yes, one of the most celebrated heavy metal stations in the US is based in a Catholic university), where he swapped out his consonant-freighted Polish surname for the METAL 'Steve Steel'.  My coworker and I often talk about various bands, and share a taste for various bands with umlauts in their names.

For the last couple of weeks, he was on the fence about seeing the classic thrash metal band Overkill play a venue in Poughkeepsie.  Nobody in his circle of family and friends was interested in going to the show, though he's not the kind of guy to give up on a concert just because he's going solo.  I told him that if he changed his mind, and decided to attend the concert, he could just text me and I'd cover him.

This morning, he texted me right before 8AM to tell me that his brother called him up, expressing interest in the concert.  He jokingly asked me if I had discussed this with his brother last night.  It's funny, I'm perfectly cool with someone taking a night off to rock out and drink some beers- it's a personal day, meant to be taken for any reason, so if he wants a headbanger's holiday, more power to him.

Years ago, when I still worked for Corporate America, I had a manager who, every so often, would announce that she would be taking an 'FTO' day.  Needless to say, I learned well from her when it comes to management style.