Happy Humpday
Weeee, this trip is now officially half over! Considering the past few days, I am more than ready for it to be over as well. Work continues to be challenging in that we our resources for the amount of data we are processing, the intense processing flow we have and some less than optimal setup by my opposites and the bizarre byte gremlins I mentioned in my last post lead to some rather stressful times.
I am not sure just how well this work hierarchy model is really working out for me. The fact that I am ultimately responsible for what happens with my team members who are on the boat while I am on break seems to not be working out so well. There have been some personnel issues which from a phone call I made to one of the guys on my team who is on the opposite shift makes me wonder if my opposite acting chief may not be suffering to a lesser extent some of the same issues that my step-mother has. Apparently, his short term memory is less than stellar and he has a tendency to get angry over what should be rather trivial matters. This does sound an awful lot like my step-mother. I am beginning to think either I need to spend a lot of time on the phone to the boat while I am on break. Of course the ideal other than the fact that it would mean a 15 week trip for me to do it with only a 5 week break afterward would be for me to do a triple trip and spend that middle 5 weeks training my opposite crew to the way I believe things should be done. It would also give me a chance to mediate any of the personality clashes which seem to have cropped up. Not a suggestion though, that I want to mention to management since I am not sure I have the stamina to do a 15 week trip!
This was further complicated by the fact that my gym time was one of the things I was doing to try and manage my stress levels. Alas, that may be getting dramatically altered. On Thursday, while I was on the rowing my machine, I started getting a catch in my back. It wasn't particularly bad, but it was indeed noticeable, so I lightened up a bit on the last 10 minutes or so of that workout. On Friday, I stayed away from the rowing machine, just in case. However, while I was on the exercise bike (again in the last 10 minutes or so of my work out, my back started acting up yet again. Saturday morning when I got up, everything seemed fine. After breakfast, I was sitting on a bench outside watching the sunrise. When I got up to get to work though, my back locked up and it was instant agony! Most of the day was spent being very ginger in how I did anything, trying to minimize the pain to be endured. Stairs were a nightmare! I did talk see the medic about the problem and she gave me some anti-inflammatory medications which helped a little. Last night when I went to bed, the pain was down to a dull albeit, strong pain. When I woke up this morning, I was wondering if I was going to be able to get out of bed without screaming various obscenities about how it felt to move! During the day, as I moved about, my back would loosen up and would not hurt so bad providing I didn't sit too long and was very careful about how I went to reach for things. I suppose any gym time for the remainder of this trip will have to be spent doing very low impact activities. (The treadmill comes to mind as about the only piece of equipment I will be using for awhile.)
This evening when I did my weekly ET imitation, I found out that I am missing a fair amount of drama, so maybe I am not really quite so ready for this trip to be over. Apparently, the weather forecast at home is calling for up to 6 inches of ice over the next few days. I also found out that my daughter-in-law had a few panics after taking my son back to the airport as he was leaving to go to his new posting in Italy. She had to call to cry on my wife's shoulder over issues with my son's car, her ex and the pain that he is being and deadlines that she had misread for the arbitration so that she and my step granddaughter can join my son in Italy.
I suppose I have done enough disjointed babbling for one post. At least my weekly reports and other end of week tasks have been sorted, so I can drag my aching arse off to bed. Maybe more about work frustrations will be made in the near future, but don't hold your breath. It is probably a) too esoteric anyway and b) a bad case of me just suffering from PLOM disease (Poor Little Ol' Me) so I may have just talked myself out of an even more whiny post.
I am not sure just how well this work hierarchy model is really working out for me. The fact that I am ultimately responsible for what happens with my team members who are on the boat while I am on break seems to not be working out so well. There have been some personnel issues which from a phone call I made to one of the guys on my team who is on the opposite shift makes me wonder if my opposite acting chief may not be suffering to a lesser extent some of the same issues that my step-mother has. Apparently, his short term memory is less than stellar and he has a tendency to get angry over what should be rather trivial matters. This does sound an awful lot like my step-mother. I am beginning to think either I need to spend a lot of time on the phone to the boat while I am on break. Of course the ideal other than the fact that it would mean a 15 week trip for me to do it with only a 5 week break afterward would be for me to do a triple trip and spend that middle 5 weeks training my opposite crew to the way I believe things should be done. It would also give me a chance to mediate any of the personality clashes which seem to have cropped up. Not a suggestion though, that I want to mention to management since I am not sure I have the stamina to do a 15 week trip!
This was further complicated by the fact that my gym time was one of the things I was doing to try and manage my stress levels. Alas, that may be getting dramatically altered. On Thursday, while I was on the rowing my machine, I started getting a catch in my back. It wasn't particularly bad, but it was indeed noticeable, so I lightened up a bit on the last 10 minutes or so of that workout. On Friday, I stayed away from the rowing machine, just in case. However, while I was on the exercise bike (again in the last 10 minutes or so of my work out, my back started acting up yet again. Saturday morning when I got up, everything seemed fine. After breakfast, I was sitting on a bench outside watching the sunrise. When I got up to get to work though, my back locked up and it was instant agony! Most of the day was spent being very ginger in how I did anything, trying to minimize the pain to be endured. Stairs were a nightmare! I did talk see the medic about the problem and she gave me some anti-inflammatory medications which helped a little. Last night when I went to bed, the pain was down to a dull albeit, strong pain. When I woke up this morning, I was wondering if I was going to be able to get out of bed without screaming various obscenities about how it felt to move! During the day, as I moved about, my back would loosen up and would not hurt so bad providing I didn't sit too long and was very careful about how I went to reach for things. I suppose any gym time for the remainder of this trip will have to be spent doing very low impact activities. (The treadmill comes to mind as about the only piece of equipment I will be using for awhile.)
This evening when I did my weekly ET imitation, I found out that I am missing a fair amount of drama, so maybe I am not really quite so ready for this trip to be over. Apparently, the weather forecast at home is calling for up to 6 inches of ice over the next few days. I also found out that my daughter-in-law had a few panics after taking my son back to the airport as he was leaving to go to his new posting in Italy. She had to call to cry on my wife's shoulder over issues with my son's car, her ex and the pain that he is being and deadlines that she had misread for the arbitration so that she and my step granddaughter can join my son in Italy.
I suppose I have done enough disjointed babbling for one post. At least my weekly reports and other end of week tasks have been sorted, so I can drag my aching arse off to bed. Maybe more about work frustrations will be made in the near future, but don't hold your breath. It is probably a) too esoteric anyway and b) a bad case of me just suffering from PLOM disease (Poor Little Ol' Me) so I may have just talked myself out of an even more whiny post.