More Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes At Work (Which Is A Change Back To What It Was)

Weirdest thing at work on Wednesday.  My boss, who I insist is still a good boss because he's a good listener but still has the ability to be brusque when he decides to be, came storming in and going up to me while working (thank goodness he did when he caught me actually working and not looking at the Internet) and said that he is changing the hours in The Fourth Department back an hour starting immediately.  The lab, from which The Fourth Department gets its work, is going through such a chronic state of staffing shortages (not just long-term but also through people calling in sick every day, apparently) that the people who do show up are pulling double duty, and so it appears as if the work that involves me will be set aside till later in the day, thus necessitating (maybe) me shifting my, uh, shift down an hour.

I was blindsided by the suddenness of the move.  I'm glad the move wasn't immediate for me because I was off Thursday and Friday.  But blog posting about this right now actually is one of the reasons why I should be happy that The Fourth Department is going back to its original hours: I can stay up.  I have mentioned many times here (I think) that waking up at 7 rather than 6 makes a world of difference.  So, how about sleeping in yet another hour?  That makes going to bed around my usual time of 2:30 or 3 in the morning that much more palatable.  And besides, more often than not I am staying at work till 5:30 anyway; the "new" hours won't make that much of a difference for me.

However, coming in later will, by necessity, mean that I will leave later.  And since the work appears to be back to its "plus" workload, I will be staying after eight hours most days.  If I keep myself to just spending an extra two hours at work (meaning ten hours total), I will get out of work at 7:30.  That's pretty damn late, and if there is a movie or a United FC Match I want to go to, I either am SOL or I just have to decide to leave work for another day, or for my supervisor to do if I am not working in The Fourth Department the next day.  I may need to be careful what I wish for.

For now, and maybe even for only this week, I will do 9-5:30.  But I might propose something else.  Monday is the busiest day because I am dealing with work that has been backed up since Saturday.  Regardless if I come in at 9 or 8, nearly all of the work will be waiting for me on Mondays.  I don't think I will be wanting for work if I stay at 8-4:30 throughout the week, to be frank, but I can show my boss all the e-mails and forms that piled up on me over the weekend that cause me to stay very late on Mondays.  I may confuse myself if I suggest a schedule of 8-4:30 on Mondays and 9-5:30 the rest of the week, but the workflow from here on out might be conducive to it.

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So I said that The Fourth Department is going back to its original hours.  I thought I blog posted about this before when I started working in The Fourth Department almost exactly two years ago, but when the person I replaced left, he was working 9-5:30.  And if I didn't write about it then, my boss told me around that time that he was shifting the hours up an hour, to 8-4:30.  And I remember not liking that change, and I think I told my boss that I didn't like that change.  Well, look at me, not liking change again even though it's changing back to 9-5:30!

It's clear that I doth protest too much.  Well, I think at the time the change was decided, and in fact whenever I am told that anything is going to change, I'm going to complain about it.  I'm a creature of habit, and I want my expectations to be reinforced unless it's obvious a change for the better needs to be made.  For The Fourth Department, all I knew two years ago was the hours were 9-5:30, and the shift up appeared to be arbitrary.  I thought it was going to be a drag getting up and going in to work an hour earlier than I had anticipated.  But honestly, I haven't thought about my bitching for the last two years, so it looks as though I adjusted just fine.

And so, just like with that, it appears likely that I will adjust to the new/old hours just fine after an initial eruption of surliness.  I foresee conflicts because the lateness I also anticipate will seriously eat into a good chunk of the evening, and there are many fun things I know I will want to do that start at 7 or 7:30.  (Why that didn't worry me when I thought my hours were going to be 9-5:30 I don't know, even though it's possible I didn't know I would be staying late most days in The Fourth Department when I started working that position.)  Maybe I can ask my boss if I can come in one day an hour early; I've done that before.  And maybe he'll be OK with Mondays 8-4:30.  Anyways, it's another change that I will eventually get used to, to the point where, if the hours change again, I'll go, "Why do we have to change?  I hate change!"