My boss, Smeghead (not the Smeghead that posts here, we actually call my boss this, cuz he looks like Rimmer from Red Dwarf), approaches my workstation. He is smiling. That should have been my first warning to run.
Smeg - Hey, Brat, how would like some OT in a couple weeks while I make an enormous mistake and schedlue half the workforce in our group for a training class?
Dumb-Ass Me - Sure, bossman! I’m a frickin idiot, I’ll take the OT, I could use Uncle Sam to get an obscenely oversize cut of my pay as I bust ass to help you cover your screw-up.
Smeg - You aren’t thinking of it right now, and I won’t bother to tell you, but since I’ve made such a gargantuan blunder and sent away half the workforce, I can’t afford for you not to show at work. If your car doesn’t start for some reason or your sister finally has her baby, I’ll still need you to be right here.
Dunb-Ass Me - :: Not paying attention, visions of OT $$$ dancing through my head ::
Flash forward: present day
Dumb-Ass Me - :: counting up hours I’ve worked this week :: I can’t wait for this to be over! 76 hours in one week! 12 hr days! Awake at 3:15am! 4 hours sleep a night! This sucks! I’m a frickin idiot!
:: checks calendar ::
Wha? It’s Friday? Really? Last 12 hour day! I get to sleep in tomorrow! (I have to work 4pm-12am, but I get to sleep in!)
Oh, Brat, you have my sympathy, compadre. I’m on day 13 of my latest OT run…8-12 hours days for me, too. And that bit about scheduling half the staff to be out in training? Par for the course around here.
Well, I don’t have to work tonight (Friday) night, but I’ll be back Saturday night for another round…
The thing I don’t understand, I thought this would be a cake walk!
I thought, One week of 12 hour days? Nothing to it! During the Haiti invasion we worked 43 straight 12 hr days, I can handle one week.
I guess I’m getting older and beginning to value my sleep more. Either that or my cushy civilian job has spoiled me in comparison to my old Air Force job.
Gee, Brat…I dunno…how long’s it been since the Airforce? All I know is a year ago when I took this job, 3 weeks straight without a day off didn’t seem a big deal. Now, 2 weeks straight is enough to make me suicidal…and let me tell ya, midnight shift is not as easy at 34 years minus 4 days as it was at 24, which is the last time I worked midnights…
And by the way…congrats on winning the pool, but too bad the kid couldn’t hang in there 'till the 27th…
I’ve been out of the AF since '96. I’m only 27, but I think it’s having to be at work 4 hrs earlier than usual that getting to me. It’s completely disrupted my normal sleep schedule and I can’t get adjusted to it, so instead of sleeping when I get home, I end up being awake until 10 or 11 at night, then have to wake up at 3am. I’m sure it’s not the hours, it’s the lack of sleep. If I had to stay 4 hrs late instead of coming in 4 hrs early, I doubt think I’d be feeling so crappy.
