So here I am, laying in bed, 4:40 am. Nothing better to do than peruse the internet, like usual. I’m not really tired yet so sleep isn’t appealing to me, and I’ve pretty well exhausted my usual haunts (although I haven’t scoped out the AutoIt forums because the site’s not responding, otherwise I wouldn’t be here) so I figured why not write something to go on the blog. I’ve really been neglecting it lately and I’d like to say it’s because of work, which to be fair has interfered a bit, but I have had some time to write, and I just put it off. I always have good intentions of sitting down and writing about a few ideas or opinions that I want to share, or at least get recorded somewhere, but every time I get up the gumption to do it the enthusiasm kind of fizzles out once the site loads up, and then I start perusing the internet again. But this time is different, now I’ve loaded up the page and I’ve already started writing, and once I get started I can sometimes go on for a while…

So, let’s talk about work, shall we? Work lately has been… frustrating. We’re sadly understaffed for the work we have available and so some of us (read: Me) get moved around a lot from site to site, something I’m not exactly thrilled with. Maybe I’m being elitist, but as one of the senior-most employees you’d think I’d get a little more choice in matters, of course most of the time there is no choice. Not just for me, but my supervisor doesn’t have a choice either.
Take this situation for example, recently we picked up a contract for a site (can’t discuss details obviously, so let’s call it the “Plaza“) that required us to go through a safety orientation with the client during their regular hours (ex: Weekdays, 0900-1500). One guy (let’s call him Fred) was supposed to be handling the Plaza and did the training for it but after his first shift he wouldn’t go back. So I get the phone call telling me that Fred won’t go back to the site and that now I have to go in and train for it. Okay fine, the company needs me to come through for them, so I’ll do it. I’ll help. I’ll be reliable. Now, I was thinking that this was only a temporary thing, that Fred was going back, especially since the following day I got called to another site (we’ll call it the Hotel) for a 12 hour shift, which was kind of nice because the Plaza was only 7 hour shifts, so not even full days. Well lo and behold I find out during my shift that Fred refuses to go back to the Plaza, and so I’m going to have to go over there, and stay over there, for the remainder of the weekend. This means that I just got shorted from a 12 hour shift to 7, all because of Fred. But you know what? It’s okay, fine, whatever. It’s only one day, because it’s already Saturday at this point, plus I started at the Hotel at about 1600, and finished at the Plaza at 0500 (with a half hour break in between), so I’ve got my 12 hours in for that day. They only need us from Thursday to Sunday, and I’m told that another guard (calling him Daniel) wants to take over for next weekend. Awesome, we’re all set. So I do Sunday, the 7 hour shift. No biggie. Next day I’m back at the Hotel for 12s again. I get two days in there, and then we’re cancelled.
Okay, all good, we’re at Wednesday. Get a couple days off to relax, and then back at it because on Friday we’re being called in for my favorite site: the Lounge (obviously another pseudonym) and Daniel’s covering the Plaza. So Friday night I go to the Lounge for a nice relaxing 8 hour shift. All is well with the world. Then the next day, Saturday, not even hours before I start my shift, I get a phone call… and a turn around. Daniel hurt his back, sounds pretty bad. Not gonna be able to work tonight, or tomorrow night, in fact, who knows when he’ll be back to work. So guess where I’m going. That’s right, back to the Plaza! The crap-tastic Plaza where I’m losing an hour again. Not only that, but because we’re short staffed, the crew at the Lounge is now doing 12s, so in a way it’s like I’m losing 5 hours! Of course, neither of them can be sent to the Plaza because they haven’t been put through the safety orientation, and they can’t be put through it because it’s already Saturday. And besides that, one of them can’t do night shifts anyway, plus has another job. So there’s no way around it, I’m fucked. There’s literally nobody else that can go in there, besides Fred but he’s… whatever, so I gotta do it. I gotta take one (or five depending on how you look at it) for the company. So I do, not that I have a choice.
So there goes Saturday and Sunday, two 7 hour shifts, when I should have been doing 8’s, (potentially even 12’s). Sure it’s only 2 hours, not much really, but the whole situation is just another frustration. Just another straw on an already over laden camel’s back. I can hear the bones creaking.
The next day I’m back at the Lounge, yay, and then the next day, Tuesday, I get another call… we’re required back at the Hotel. Ugh. Despite the alias I’ve given it, I’m not really all that fond of the Hotel. The worst part of this turnaround is that at the Lounge I’m doing a shift from 2000-0400, and now I get this call at 1900 telling me that I have two choices of shift: Either 0400-1600, or 0800-2000. Anyone that knows me, knows that on my own time I’m up until around 0400-0500, and as such I sleep until around 1300-1400 (although usually later cus I’m lazy). This means that either of the shift choices being offered to me are primarily during my regular sleepy time. Now I’ve already slept all day at this point and I’m basically stuck with going back to bed to rest for the shift, or pulling over a 24 hour day. So I decide on the 0400-1600 because, in addition to it being as close to my usual schedule as possible, it leaves a bit of time in the day to do things. 0800-2000 is really a shitty shift because you’re basically starting work when everything opens, and finishing when everything closes. This turnaround was also frustrating because the reason I got stuck there in the first place was because one of the crew working the Lounge with me couldn’t do that Hotel shift because of their other job, so I get boned because she can’t work something out with her other job. Man, I sometimes wish I had another job just to use as an excuse for this one.
So anyway, now I’ve lost a day in the work week because of this, because when I should have gone in Tuesday I got bumped to Wednesday, so Tuesday has no hours. It worked out okay at the Hotel because I ended up doing a 13 hour shift, at least no 7 hour madness, but I would have really rathered been at the Lounge. Which is exactly where I got to go the next day. I had been worried about getting called back into the Plaza again (cus we’re back at Thursday now), but Daniel came through. Guess his back problems weren’t as bad as we’d thought. Unfortunately, though, the shift at the Lounge was only a short one because we finished the job. Ironically, I was there for 7 hours.

And there you have about 2 1/2 weeks of my life, whoo, good to get that all off my chest.
Oh, and before anyone says anything, I know that I mixed tenses, started sentences with conjunctions, and generally butchered grammar, but you know what? It’s 06:30, and I’m going to go to sleep now.