But Is It A Break, Really?

While my schedule for the past, oh, year-plus has been regular (in the sense that I am in The Fourth Department the first half of the week and I am somewhere else the back half ... and come to think of it, I don't remember the last time I worked in My Main Department, but whatever), I have been told that my job requires me to be shifted from one position to another on short notice.  That has been needed lately because of emergencies that have befallen two of my co-workers.

What's going to happen today/Monday is different.  On Saturday, my boss texted me that I won't be working The Fourth Department.  Instead, I'll be in, uh, what I will refer to as The Third Department in the morning and then Filing in the afternoon.  My supervisor is going to fill in for me in The Fourth Department even though she doesn't work Mondays.  Here's the thing: He's not moving me because of any family emergency.  He says I could "use a break."

I need to get the more important issue out of the way here before I write about what I wanted to write about for this blog post.  I guess I could use a break, even though I am almost certain I will be back there at some point, probably this week, maybe as soon as tomorrow/Tuesday.  However, I think this move has something to do with an e-mail from him last week asking why I stayed late in The Fourth Department for one day last week (and by the way, I was in The Fourth Department all of last week because of a my colleague's family emergency).  My boss still is getting pressure for his higher-ups to control costs, and one area of scrutiny is overtime.  Now, I have detailed in several blog posts over the past couple years about how there's just too much damn work for me to get out of there within eight hours.  And I not dragging my ass back there, hell no.  I'm working my ass off, and I can prove that, and I can defend needing to work there until the work gets done because otherwise, the work will get pushed back to the next day, and since there usually is a similar amount of work that next day, that work gets pushed off to the following day, and so on.  Yes, it gets to be stressful.  But now that I know how to do most of the work, I have made my peace with the fact that most days, I'm staying there past eight hours.  I don't mind it.  But I will work late to get the work done -- and I will get paid for it.

So I suspect that instead of being given a break, my boss has told my supervisor to come in and work because then, I work only eight hours.  I cannot and will not believe she gets all the work done in eight hours, especially on a Monday, when the person working that job has to deal with all the work that accumulated over the weekend.  I simply won't believe it.  But she leaves when she's "supposed to."  And I now have to wonder, in the back of my mind, if there is an idea of moving me off The Fourth Department, even though the only other people who could work that job are my supervisor, who has other things she needs to do, and my co-worker, who, frankly, may not be back at work this week.

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Man, that's a blog post all to itself.  Anyway, I wanted to write about my boss giving me a break.  I don't think it's much of a break.  While I don't mind getting away from The Fourth Department from time to time (and I have talked about this before here on Wailing And Failing), I work best when I know the details of every outstanding form and the information I need to get.  Jumping back in and picking up another person's work always feels like jumping into a car going 100 mph because I need to know what that other person did and as quickly as possible because the new stuff is coming throughout the day.  I may be hyperbolic, but it's how I feel.  And assuming I'm back in The Fourth Department some time this week, I get that feeling back this week.

There's one other thing, however, and I just realized this as I am looking at the clock on my laptop.  If I am not working in The Fourth Department, chances are my shift starts an hour earlier.  And I have realized that waking up at 7 is a hell of a lot better for me than waking up at 6.  It's just an hour, and yet getting to sleep in for an "extra" hour is a psychological boost that may be worth all the crap I have to deal with working The Fourth Department.

Now consider what I am doing now: Staying up and blogging.  I need to get to work an hour earlier than I usually do on a Monday, therefore by staying up right now I am losing an hour of sleep.  And as much as, say, four hours of sleep is still punishing to my body, trust me, getting only three hours of sleep makes me feel even more miserable.  I have gotten used to going into work at 8, and therefore I really, really don't like getting to work at 7.

Which means I should end this blog post, eat the rest of this cake Mother made for the family, pop a Lactase, drink the rest of this milk, and try to fall asleep for 3 1/2 hours before going to work at a position that might change because I'm costing the company too much money.  Awesome!