The Latest Changes At Work

So, because a former co-worker quit, only two other people (me and my supervisor) are the only ones who man The Fourth Department.  There has to be one person there each day, and for the first, oh, few weeks or so, the breakdown was I took the front half (two or three days) and she would take the back half (two or three days).  That was a change from before, when my ex-co-worker would take the first half and I the second.

That change changes things.  Starting off on my own after I got trained in, I was so wiped out from working back there that I needed to unwind by going to a bar and having a cocktail or two.  Once I saw that I would be working back there semi-regularly, I realized I couldn't be doing that every day I worked back there, for the sake of both my liver and my wallet.  Nevertheless, I believe going, say, once a week isn't the worst thing in the world.  However, these bars I go to are the "secret" ones -- you know, the ones that don't really have a sign out.  These bars usually aren't open every night.  All of them are open Thursdays and Fridays -- days I used to work in The Fourth Department, so it lined up perfectly.  But now that I'm back there Mondays, Tuesdays and sometimes Wednesdays and I want to knock back one or two, I can only go to one place ... well, actually two, but that "secret" bar downtown is open every day except Monday, so I don't worry about when that won't be open.

And yet there has been another change.  Very shortly after my ex-co-worker departed, someone from third shift decided to move to a normal work schedule and took the same position as me -- not the same work sched as my ex-co-worker, but the one from the ex-co-worker before this one (who, to be fair, just moved to a different job within the same building; we see each all the time).  She starts training tomorrow/Thursday -- not in The Fourth Department but my favorite one.  But the one who trains her is my supervisor.  And I don't know why, but it was decided that this training will take place for two days between Wednesday and Friday each of the next four weeks.  So, whenever my supervisor trains my new co-worker, I go to The Fourth Department.

Now, my supervisor doesn't work Mondays.  Moreover, for some reason, there will be no training on a Tuesday, so my supe can and will work that day of the week.  Which means that for the next month or so, I will start off at The Fourth Department for the week and come back to work The Fourth Department to finish off that same week.  Doing that job is an exhausting grind.  But I have come around to thinking that there are advantages to working consecutive days there.  You are familiar with the work, in particular the forms you have to track, and if getting information one way doesn't work, you know that you need to go somewhere else without remembering where you went to first.  I still don't think I can do that job full-time (unless they double my pay), but I think it would be best for all involved if I just work there until my supervisor has completely trained my new co-worker at this other position.  It's a month.  I don't think I'll bang my head against the wall and quit.  At least I don't think.

But it's probably futile to bring up that suggestion.  So, I will be bobbing in and out of there, not getting into a rhythm back there, and then, once all this training is done, I'll have to adjust to a new schedule that may or may not look like the one before the one I will have done.  It's all so confusing, and tiresome, and so I look forward to that one day a week where I treat myself to a drink or two at a "secret" bar.