Thursday, November 30, 2017

Well, At Least I Tried; Well, At Least I Know Now

One big thing I noticed since I shifted my workday one hour later: Whenever I went to my car for my afternoon nap, the sun bakes my head.  I didn't notice this when I working 8-5, but then I was parking in a different part of the vast lot.  Maybe the sun in my old area was blocked out by trees.  And actually, this week it's been sunny when it's been cloudy most of the time before when I started this assignment.  Regardless, whenever I get into the passenger seat and recline onto my already-reclined seat, I feel a part of my head start to get really hot, and so I have to move my head and neck to avoid getting burned by the sun that shines through my windows and onto me.

I thought it was tolerable.  But today I felt as though I wanted to try something else.  If the sun was streaming through my back windows, why don't I park my car the other way, facing the sun?  In this job, nearly all the car spaces on the lot are oriented in one direction, and I have always parked in such a way as to face away from the sun in the afternoon.  But I have a sun shade, so if I change up my routine and park so that I face the sun in the afternoon, the sun shade should block out the sun completely.  Right?

Uh, no, that isn't what happened.  The sun is big enough and was in a part of the sky where it went around the right side of the shade, so that when I got into the passenger seat this afternoon I was staring directly into the sun.  So I got out and moved to the driver's seat, where, after I reclined my seat, I was also staring directly into the sun.  The sun was inbetween my two sun visors, so even though I had them flipped down, it didn't help at all.  And the sun shade is cut out so that that part of my windshield is not covered.  All the shades do that.  That pisses me off so much.

But I still laid down in the driver's seat because I could contort my body in order to avoid burning my skin.  But I had to hike my body lower in the seat.  Now, the seat in my car doesn't have great lumbar support to start with (I think it's part of the reason why my back is starting to really hurt).  But the seat is contoured so that it would arch forward naturally where my back arches forward.  When I hunkered down, I didn't have that.  Instead, I was sitting so that the contact point on the seat were my tailbone and the middle of my back, where my spine arches back.  If you don't have any support inbetween, well, you get me right now, back barking at me for putting it in such bad shape.  Add to that that this was the driver's seat, and so I had to rearrange my legs because my feet are too big to fit inbetween the gas and brake pedals, so my legs hurt, too.

So after about 40 minutes I had to get out of the car, and my back hurts and my legs hurt and I didn't get any sleep.  And once I got back to my desk of course I felt all tired again.

So no, parking my car the other way was a mistake, and I should have lived with the sun coming through my back window.  But hey, at least I tried something else in order to alleviate myself of an annoyance, and now I know better.  Right?

Man, this hasn't been a great 36 hours.

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