I thought I had bitched about it at length, but going back through my blog post, it seems as if the only I have written down my complaints about waking up at 5:30 in the morning to report for work at 6:30 was the first time I started training at work. And to think it was more than six months ago.
Anyway, I have complained about not getting enough sleep, and after trying it out, I have come to the conclusion that getting up at 5:30 just wasn't going to work for me. It has always a been a drag waking up that early, but beyond that, I think it got to my head. You see, to me, the morning begins at 6 a.m. Any time waking up before then and you're working overnights, in my humble opinion. I used to do that, but that was when I was in my twenties. My body's too old for that shit now. I would wake up at 5:30 and invariably I would think to myself, "What am I, a farmer?" and I would hit the snooze button on my phone.
It is just too early for me. It got to the point where my objection/hate for my 6:30 start time was both psychological and philosophical. So when I learned that the other person who holds the same title as I works 7-3:30, and that I was sort-of expected to hold those same hours, I almost wanted to leap at the chance. Almost, because I fear change, and as much as I decided I hated a 6:30 call, I have gotten used to it. What would await me if I started a half-hour later? Traffic, although it's gummed up a lot in the winter, is a breeze, but is going out 30 minutes later going to mean I hit way more traffic? I have thought a lot about where I would park if I came a half-hour later. Parking ain't great there, and now I am almost certainly forced to walk a ways because people who start earlier will get the prime spots. How will that affect my lunch/sleep time? And I had thought a lot about what I would do for that last half-hour. We are usually fighting to find work at the tail end of our shifts, and now that I am shifted back to 3:30, I really don't know what I'm going to do, especially if (such as today, the day after Presidents' Day when many companies shut down) there isn't anything to do. There are one or two people who stay behind and leave at 3:30 as well, but I really don't know what they find for work. And now I will join/fight for work with them. The only upshot to this is that my bosses all leave at 3, so if I can't find work, honestly, I don't know how they'll catch me.
With all those reservations, I still told my boss last week that, after saying that I wanted to think about it for a few weeks, I decided I want to push myself back 30 minutes, starting today/this morning. To which he replied that, really, neither 6:30 nor 7 should be my start time; no, for my position, it actually should be 8-4:30. The only reason that it's not is that work has been at such a premium that there would be nothing for me to do if I stuck around that far into the afternoon. Which makes me think it might be better for me to stick with 6:30-3. In fact, I don't know if all the reservations I have thought up in the above paragraph won't convince me that this would be a horrible idea if I see them come to fruition. But, unfortunately, I can't change now and I don't think he would let me go back to 6:30-3. And besides, I decided I had to do this because I felt like I deserved to wake up at the "decent" hour of 6 a.m. -- or, actually, 6:01 a.m., because I want to be firmly in the hour where morning begins.
I hope this isn't a bad idea. Then again, I am already staying up before my first day with my new hours (oh, and I didn't tell my co-workers -- should I have?) because of this and a couple other things I feel I need to do before I hit the hay. But hey, that's what the extra half-hour's for!
Anyway, I have complained about not getting enough sleep, and after trying it out, I have come to the conclusion that getting up at 5:30 just wasn't going to work for me. It has always a been a drag waking up that early, but beyond that, I think it got to my head. You see, to me, the morning begins at 6 a.m. Any time waking up before then and you're working overnights, in my humble opinion. I used to do that, but that was when I was in my twenties. My body's too old for that shit now. I would wake up at 5:30 and invariably I would think to myself, "What am I, a farmer?" and I would hit the snooze button on my phone.
It is just too early for me. It got to the point where my objection/hate for my 6:30 start time was both psychological and philosophical. So when I learned that the other person who holds the same title as I works 7-3:30, and that I was sort-of expected to hold those same hours, I almost wanted to leap at the chance. Almost, because I fear change, and as much as I decided I hated a 6:30 call, I have gotten used to it. What would await me if I started a half-hour later? Traffic, although it's gummed up a lot in the winter, is a breeze, but is going out 30 minutes later going to mean I hit way more traffic? I have thought a lot about where I would park if I came a half-hour later. Parking ain't great there, and now I am almost certainly forced to walk a ways because people who start earlier will get the prime spots. How will that affect my lunch/sleep time? And I had thought a lot about what I would do for that last half-hour. We are usually fighting to find work at the tail end of our shifts, and now that I am shifted back to 3:30, I really don't know what I'm going to do, especially if (such as today, the day after Presidents' Day when many companies shut down) there isn't anything to do. There are one or two people who stay behind and leave at 3:30 as well, but I really don't know what they find for work. And now I will join/fight for work with them. The only upshot to this is that my bosses all leave at 3, so if I can't find work, honestly, I don't know how they'll catch me.
With all those reservations, I still told my boss last week that, after saying that I wanted to think about it for a few weeks, I decided I want to push myself back 30 minutes, starting today/this morning. To which he replied that, really, neither 6:30 nor 7 should be my start time; no, for my position, it actually should be 8-4:30. The only reason that it's not is that work has been at such a premium that there would be nothing for me to do if I stuck around that far into the afternoon. Which makes me think it might be better for me to stick with 6:30-3. In fact, I don't know if all the reservations I have thought up in the above paragraph won't convince me that this would be a horrible idea if I see them come to fruition. But, unfortunately, I can't change now and I don't think he would let me go back to 6:30-3. And besides, I decided I had to do this because I felt like I deserved to wake up at the "decent" hour of 6 a.m. -- or, actually, 6:01 a.m., because I want to be firmly in the hour where morning begins.
I hope this isn't a bad idea. Then again, I am already staying up before my first day with my new hours (oh, and I didn't tell my co-workers -- should I have?) because of this and a couple other things I feel I need to do before I hit the hay. But hey, that's what the extra half-hour's for!
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