Not-So-Manic Monday
This morning, I was an hour late to work. I had something of an alarm clock malfunction, and it was all my own fault.
These days, I use an old style, wind-up alarm clock to wake me up in the morning. It's loud enough to rouse me from a sound sleep, and reliable in case the power goes out in the middle of the night. The only thing it doesn't have that I really want is a snooze button. From all the research that I've done, I see that you need an electric clock to have a snooze function. Wind-ups are not designed with them. I insist on having a wind-up because all the electronic clocks I have ever found are never loud enough to guarantee my waking up. (I don't sleep that heavily, but I need to be sure I can be woken when I'm short on sleep.)
Some time ago, I learned that my phone has an alarm clock function. It also has a snooze capability with this alarm, and the ring is fairly loud too. I might use it all the time for an alarm, except that I don't want to leave my phone on all night. Aside from draining the battery, I don't want to be woken by the occasional late night call or text message alert. What I do now is set the alarm on the phone then turn it off. Then I set the clock to go off about 20 minutes before the phone. When the clock goes off, I shut it off and turn on the phone which goes off 20 minutes later. Then I can snooze it for however long I want. This may sound overly complicated, but it's the only way I can have both options.
This morning, my clock went off then I turned on the phone. Half an hour later, a thought crossed my sleepy mind: my phone alarm was not set the night before. I woke up after it was to go off, but before I needed to get up. Then, I set the alarm for 6:45am and went back to sleep. I expected it to go off about 10 minutes later. When it did go off, I snoozed it a couple of times before I got out of bed. It felt like it was 7:00am. I turned on my bathroom light and waited for my eyes to adjust to the light. Then I glanced at my microwave clock and saw that it was 8:06. 8:06!!! I was already supposed to be at work! Then I realized that when I set my phone alarm, I set it for 7:45 instead of 6:45. I gave myself an extra hour of sleep and I didn't even realize it until I was up. If I sleep too late, I can usually tell right away by the amount of daylight peeking through the edges of my window blinds. This time of year, however, there isn't enough daylight at that time of day, so I didn't even get the sub-conscious clue that I should have been up already.
I quickly took my shower and then e-mailed my boss that I would be late. He wasn't bothered about it at all. I had no meetings or deadlines this morning, so it was no big deal. I did have to use up an hour of personal time to make up for it, but that was all. Better still, the extra hour of sleep put me in a good mood, which helps take the edge off of Monday.
