Today, Saturday, will be my last regular Saturday at work. (I might work other Saturdays, but only if I'm asked, and only in exchange of time off another day or overtime. In fact, this might be a not uncommon occurrence.) Through a series of staff switches precipitated by one woman living her post because she wanted to live with her father in New England, a couple weeks ago I became the next-to-last domino to fall. In short, I am moving not jobs, but shifts: I used to be Tuesday-Saturday, but as of Monday I will be on a, well, Monday-Friday schedule.
And I don't know if I like it.
I jumped at the chance because of what happened to me in the fall. Well, football happens in the fall. Saturdays are when my alma mater plays Games (or, seeing their performance in the Holiday Bowl, "plays"), and I have had to take paid time off on several occasions to be there to run the event on time ... or, if it was too late for me to beg to take the day off, I would have to forgo the event until my shift was over and I would get there, usually, late in the Third Quarter. That seems to wrong for the president of the club, and shifting to a normal workweek would obviously obviate that issue.
The pros take over Sundays. I had worked at my day job on Sundays when the department was underemployed, but otherwise I was free to do the day work for Vikings telecasts I have done for the past 15 years. However, there were opportunities, especially when the coordinator over the summer e-mailed me, to get work in as a runner on set days, aka the day before Game day. I literally was offered the chance to work the day before seven of the eight Vikings home Games. And I couldn't because my schedule at work had me penciled (more like "penned") in as an indispensable part of this or that department. I couldn't take paid time off at my main job to maximize my hobby job, even if I have been at that hobby job for a decade and a half. There was one exception: When I was sent this e-mail, the calendar only extended a few months, and I had the day before the Game against Detroit earlier this month open, so I did use paid time off for that Saturday before my boss would put me in a spot where I would feel I'm letting my team down if I said I wouldn't come in to work. (This also allows me to get money from one job while actually earning money on another -- the "double dipping" I'm so fond of doing.) That headache is gone now that I have my Saturdays ostensibly free.
And yet ... and yet I have to admit I've gotten used to working on Saturdays. I might be used to it because, back when my brother and I were young, my parents forced us to help them at The Store. So unusual work time frames are something I'm used to. And this Tuesday-Saturday work schedule is something that I have gotten accustomed to. The bulk of my duties at my job are data entry, and that's dependent on the forms that are delivered to us, and those depend on people coming and giving urine samples ... which are usually done in a normal, Monday-Friday schedule. It takes a day for those samples to get here, so that is why most of the people in my main department work Tuesday-Saturday.
Data entry is boring, but at least I can listen to the radio while I do it. Mondays are dependent on forms filled out on Sundays, and since most businesses aren't open on Sundays, there is relatively little data entry on Mondays. So, as confirmed by my boss yesterday/Saturday, what usually happens is we go into the lab (the same lab I refused to go into to pad out the rest of my workday yesterday/Saturday) to process these other forms that ... well, I don't know when they come in, but my boss says that there is usually these types of forms to enter into the system in the lab on Mondays. The rest of the day we go back out to the data entry department to enter the rest of the information from these "special" applications.
So the way he describes it, I'm sort-of terrified of what my Mondays will be like. It's boring as hell in the lab; you cannot wear earphones while in there, although you can bring in a radio and blast it. I have a satellite radio device, but I don't know if I can bring it in the lab. If I can't, I have to rely on terrestrial radio, which is stultifying to listen to for four hours, or use my data and listen to Sirius XM over the phone, and that might drive me to my limit in no time flat. I'm in a no-win situation there.
Also, I'm slow to do these forms, mostly because no one calls me out on it and I'm allowed to daydream. I don't know if there is space for my pace to be scrutinized by higher-ups, but if so, I'll have to step to it, and I don't want to step to it.
Finally, my trepidation on working Mondays has an opportunity cost: What I lose by working Saturdays. Take this Saturday, for example. I am in ... let's just say I will be in the department where I am the only one. I am left alone, no one is looking over my shoulder, I can work at my own pace, I can take breaks when I want, I can take my lunch nap whenever I want, and I can blast my satellite radio in there. (Oh, and in that part of the building, my Sirius XM receiver has just about perfect reception; can't say that completely in data entry, and who knows if I can even get a signal if I'm stuck in the lab.) If I'm working a Saturday there, it is just about bliss. I usually am working in data entry, and it'll get mind-numbing to keep myself entertained (moreso when I get to the spring and summer when I can only listen to baseball), but even then, I don't truly mind it. Plus, there's no traffic to fight on Saturdays, when there's all kinds of traffic to confront on Mondays.
The more I think about it, the more I am talking myself out of thinking this switch is a good idea. Which brings me back to what I said about the "dominoes that fell." See, that woman who left for New England had a filing job. A supervisor in filing decided he no longer wanted to be a supervisor, so he took her job. That left an opening for a supervisor, and a woman who has the same title as I finally decided that it was time to move up in rank, and she took that job. Her job was Monday-Friday. I'm taking over her schedule. That naturally opened up my shift, Tuesday-Saturday. And another guy who has the same job as I, who has a weird shift of 10-hour days from Saturday to Tuesday, is assuming my schedule. (His four-day/ten-hours-per-day shift is probably going to be put in the classifieds.)
Do you see what I mean by dominoes falling? It feels as though all of us are in an ordered chain, and so we all move up whenever a link is altered. In other words, even though missing Saturdays this fall has been a pain in the ass, I felt kind of ... obligated to take this shift because it ... feels expected of me. Otherwise, this four-day/ten-hours-per-day guy "leaps" over me to take Monday-Friday. And he got hired after me. (Well, he technically wasn't; he was laid off from this company even though he had spent many, many years there.)
So ... yeah, I don't know if this is the right decision. I need to stay on these days for at least six months before I ask about doing something different. Maybe this will grow on me. Or maybe I will despise it so much that I'll ask the guy "behind" me if he wants to do Monday-Friday instead so I can re-take Tuesday-Saturday. I hate the unknown and not knowing if I'm making the right decision.
And I don't know if I like it.
I jumped at the chance because of what happened to me in the fall. Well, football happens in the fall. Saturdays are when my alma mater plays Games (or, seeing their performance in the Holiday Bowl, "plays"), and I have had to take paid time off on several occasions to be there to run the event on time ... or, if it was too late for me to beg to take the day off, I would have to forgo the event until my shift was over and I would get there, usually, late in the Third Quarter. That seems to wrong for the president of the club, and shifting to a normal workweek would obviously obviate that issue.
The pros take over Sundays. I had worked at my day job on Sundays when the department was underemployed, but otherwise I was free to do the day work for Vikings telecasts I have done for the past 15 years. However, there were opportunities, especially when the coordinator over the summer e-mailed me, to get work in as a runner on set days, aka the day before Game day. I literally was offered the chance to work the day before seven of the eight Vikings home Games. And I couldn't because my schedule at work had me penciled (more like "penned") in as an indispensable part of this or that department. I couldn't take paid time off at my main job to maximize my hobby job, even if I have been at that hobby job for a decade and a half. There was one exception: When I was sent this e-mail, the calendar only extended a few months, and I had the day before the Game against Detroit earlier this month open, so I did use paid time off for that Saturday before my boss would put me in a spot where I would feel I'm letting my team down if I said I wouldn't come in to work. (This also allows me to get money from one job while actually earning money on another -- the "double dipping" I'm so fond of doing.) That headache is gone now that I have my Saturdays ostensibly free.
And yet ... and yet I have to admit I've gotten used to working on Saturdays. I might be used to it because, back when my brother and I were young, my parents forced us to help them at The Store. So unusual work time frames are something I'm used to. And this Tuesday-Saturday work schedule is something that I have gotten accustomed to. The bulk of my duties at my job are data entry, and that's dependent on the forms that are delivered to us, and those depend on people coming and giving urine samples ... which are usually done in a normal, Monday-Friday schedule. It takes a day for those samples to get here, so that is why most of the people in my main department work Tuesday-Saturday.
Data entry is boring, but at least I can listen to the radio while I do it. Mondays are dependent on forms filled out on Sundays, and since most businesses aren't open on Sundays, there is relatively little data entry on Mondays. So, as confirmed by my boss yesterday/Saturday, what usually happens is we go into the lab (the same lab I refused to go into to pad out the rest of my workday yesterday/Saturday) to process these other forms that ... well, I don't know when they come in, but my boss says that there is usually these types of forms to enter into the system in the lab on Mondays. The rest of the day we go back out to the data entry department to enter the rest of the information from these "special" applications.
So the way he describes it, I'm sort-of terrified of what my Mondays will be like. It's boring as hell in the lab; you cannot wear earphones while in there, although you can bring in a radio and blast it. I have a satellite radio device, but I don't know if I can bring it in the lab. If I can't, I have to rely on terrestrial radio, which is stultifying to listen to for four hours, or use my data and listen to Sirius XM over the phone, and that might drive me to my limit in no time flat. I'm in a no-win situation there.
Also, I'm slow to do these forms, mostly because no one calls me out on it and I'm allowed to daydream. I don't know if there is space for my pace to be scrutinized by higher-ups, but if so, I'll have to step to it, and I don't want to step to it.
Finally, my trepidation on working Mondays has an opportunity cost: What I lose by working Saturdays. Take this Saturday, for example. I am in ... let's just say I will be in the department where I am the only one. I am left alone, no one is looking over my shoulder, I can work at my own pace, I can take breaks when I want, I can take my lunch nap whenever I want, and I can blast my satellite radio in there. (Oh, and in that part of the building, my Sirius XM receiver has just about perfect reception; can't say that completely in data entry, and who knows if I can even get a signal if I'm stuck in the lab.) If I'm working a Saturday there, it is just about bliss. I usually am working in data entry, and it'll get mind-numbing to keep myself entertained (moreso when I get to the spring and summer when I can only listen to baseball), but even then, I don't truly mind it. Plus, there's no traffic to fight on Saturdays, when there's all kinds of traffic to confront on Mondays.
The more I think about it, the more I am talking myself out of thinking this switch is a good idea. Which brings me back to what I said about the "dominoes that fell." See, that woman who left for New England had a filing job. A supervisor in filing decided he no longer wanted to be a supervisor, so he took her job. That left an opening for a supervisor, and a woman who has the same title as I finally decided that it was time to move up in rank, and she took that job. Her job was Monday-Friday. I'm taking over her schedule. That naturally opened up my shift, Tuesday-Saturday. And another guy who has the same job as I, who has a weird shift of 10-hour days from Saturday to Tuesday, is assuming my schedule. (His four-day/ten-hours-per-day shift is probably going to be put in the classifieds.)
Do you see what I mean by dominoes falling? It feels as though all of us are in an ordered chain, and so we all move up whenever a link is altered. In other words, even though missing Saturdays this fall has been a pain in the ass, I felt kind of ... obligated to take this shift because it ... feels expected of me. Otherwise, this four-day/ten-hours-per-day guy "leaps" over me to take Monday-Friday. And he got hired after me. (Well, he technically wasn't; he was laid off from this company even though he had spent many, many years there.)
So ... yeah, I don't know if this is the right decision. I need to stay on these days for at least six months before I ask about doing something different. Maybe this will grow on me. Or maybe I will despise it so much that I'll ask the guy "behind" me if he wants to do Monday-Friday instead so I can re-take Tuesday-Saturday. I hate the unknown and not knowing if I'm making the right decision.
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