[update] still breathing, though 'alive' is debatable;
You know you're kind of screwed when you wake up just two hours before your work shift, and in between running around like a beheaded chicken getting dressed and heading out the door, you manage to check your LJ inbox and come face to face with a backlog of 50+ post notifications. All because you haven't been able to get even the briefest of moments to check said inbox.
My life. What is this. I do not approve. At all. Ever. Ugh.
February is proving to be trying and incredibly stressful. No, I am not talking about Singles' Awareness Day (LOLOLOLOL, oh shut up, Noey).
I'm not a huge fan of overtime. One of the things I try to do is to leave all thoughts of work at the office when my shift is done or when the weekend comes along (I don't need another thing to lose sleep over ontop of everything else). But over the last two weeks, I've done a fair amount of that thing I don't really usually do, and the current mantra that everyone (no, it is not just me) is muttering while we all run around trying to make sense of things is: "OT means money and money is always good".
Yeah. The things we do to make ourselves feel better. What I would honestly give to head home after 8 hours of work to just chill and do the stuff that reminds you that you're not a (this is Zyn's term btw) corporate zombie.
It's been a half-joked thing these last few months that my friends hate on my schedule (though I trust that they know that underneath all the flailing on Plurk, I do, honestly enjoy my work, however crazy it can be). But the fact that I've had Mom sad-smiley me via text with "your sched sucks, betok I don't see you anymore" is finally making the exhaustion sink in. I actually see my workmates more than my own family; note: my family and I live under the same roof. :(
Brief segue: It's an encouraging thing to know that though working late and getting my body clock reversed because the only opportunity to sleep is when you know, the sun is up (kindly see my face :|) has been a challenge, I have more than just "managed" to get through it all in one piece.
Months ago when the transfer to this department was first brought up as a subject during my therapy sessions, Doc heavily discouraged me going on the graveyard shift because it would mess with us getting my sleeping habits back on track.
Now, I've experienced it -- well, somewhat. 5pm-2am isn't the real graveyard shift, but it is later than my typical late afternoon
schedule. While it wasn't easy, it hasn't been all that bad. The funny thing about working the odd hours is that you can't help but develop a shared camaraderie with everyone else on the shift. Especially when you're all trying to just make things work while you're shortstaffed on the production floor.
I don't think I could honestly say I would have felt the way if I had to render OT like this in my previous department. Overtime there meant you'd be left at your station while everyone else went home. Here, it means that the people on your shift (and sometime even from the shift before you or after you) ends up spending more time together.
Like I said in a previous post, I think of these guys as friends. I don't think I'm being presumptious to think that they think that way of me too -- after all, in the one time I was too sick to come to work months ago, I had them all pinging me on Facebook to check how I was doing. Same with telling me to rest, to go to the clinic and to take care of myself when an ear infection rendered me half-deaf. I've never had real work-friends before. It's kind of fun.
I laugh of the office a lot more (apparently that I can be talkative and noisy comes as a shock to former co-workers) because the team makes it easy to do so. Moreover, for all that we're short on sleep and our brains feel overtaxed, there is a little part of all of us that feels good to be part of something (even if that something incites feelings in all of us that can be summed up as: /wrist) as big as the one we're working on this month.
Naturally, I can't discuss it here -- but let's just say it's a huge project; the kind people rarely get to play a part in. And we do.
It's mind-boggling, in the okay-so-we're-actually-part-of-this sense. It's groundbreaking in its own way.
But. I cannot deny that I'm exhausted -- we all are. And that we will all be grateful and happy for the two days of rest that comes up this weekend. If they're feeling the same way that I am, no matter how much sleep this body tries to to cram in, its not doing much to get rid of the dark circles under our eyes or the headaches that can only be solved with some decent shuteye.
I want to be clear of this month. I would like to feel properly coherent again. I would like to feel like my day is comprised of more than just work, work, work and what little sleep I can manage to force myself to take because I need to be functional.
(TBH, I am not even sure if this post is coherent enough. But I needed to write something. Anything.)
I will be glad for tomorrow.
Tomorrow is Friday, the first of my two rest days. Tomorrow means I can actually opt to sleep in, or nap in the afternoon, or watch more Lie to Me or cuddle with the dogs (I can do both, actually, provided that they don't act like toddlers fighting it out for the lion's share of my attention), or hang with Dad and let him tell me all about the AZKALS game last night -- and oh, yeah, play "bodyguard" for my Tita Girlie, who flew in from the US. Maybe I'll even get that cover I've been working on done.
And then there's Saturday. I actually get to spend SATURDAY with my brothers (or... well, brother, since Nate will be at class ;;) and with Mom, because I told her we'd go to the grocery to stock up on food for the house. And then omgeez, I can actually watch the AZKALS vs. Mongolia replay (yeah, I felt cheated out of not being able to see the live airing of it having been on shift at the time).
I just... I don't want to do what I did last weekend. Wherein... I had no weekend. Whatsoever.
That I took one rest day last Friday does not count. Everyone I look forward to seeing and catching up with was out, and all I did was to catch up on the sleep I hadn't had. :(
I can deal with the whole ten-day work week we're scheduled for at the end of the month when it actually comes round. But this weekend? This weekend is mine.
And maybe (hopefully -- pleasepleaseplease let it be that) March won't be as bad.
And... I will stop here. This post is incoherent as hell and I am weak from hunger (food hasn't arrived yet) and freezing from the airconditioning (dear universe, hurry up with the jackets we were measured for).
SO.
How are the rest of you? BY THE BY: I miss you people. :( I feel like I'm living on a different planet where a week is comprised of ten days and sleep is irrelevant to one's productivity.
Okay. Shutting up now. Back to the grind.