Friday, February 29, 2008

Um- What's My Name Again?, or, The Night Shift Can Suck

On Wednesday, I had tons of things to do. I finally got to bed at 6 and enjoying the idea of four gloius hours of sleep when my cell phone rang. I live in a studio apartment and slepp in a small loft area, so I went downstairs and hunted down my phone. I answered it.

It was my agency, asking me ever so sweetly if I could go into work at 8 PM. Yes. 8PM. And what time is 8 PM if your usual bedtime is 2 PM, and you usually wake up at 10PM?

At this point the thought of flushing my phone down the toilet passed through my head, but a little voice said 'OK', and my fate was sealed.

I assume this little voice is having a psychotic break from reality or something. That she speaks to both Joan of Arc and Elvis. Because why anyone would say, 'Why yes, I would love to come to work on the subway at 8 PM after having spent the day writing down my entire life history and feeling like the poster girl for a female proctology exam, especially since I have a class to teach the next day!' in that cheery voice one usually associates with Disney princesses and automated bill collectors, is beyond me. Unless that person is completely, mind-numbingly INSANE.

Which, fortunately, I am, or you wouldn't find all this so entertaining.

So, after one hour's worth of sleep, I got up, got dressed, and went in, because some muckety-muck at The Firm had a Very Important Document that had to be proofread and it Simply Couldn't Wait until the proofreader was conscious and not seeing spots.

When I got in, I found out that I had arrived four hours early for a job where the muckety-muck had changed his mind- the document needed more work. In fact, it probably wouldn't be ready for proofing until around noon.

Sooo. I found a chair, sat down, clocked in (ka-ching! $100 dollars for me to sit around doing zip for four hours) and played solitaire. In a room where the lights were so bright I thought a police officer was going to walk in and work me over with a rubber hose.

And now you know why I like night shift- because what is normal lighting for most fully-awake people makes me feel like acid has been thrown in my eyes.

Imagine however, that I am not fully awake. Imagine for a moment that I have only had one hour of sleep, and that the night before I'd only had four. Imagine that the lights are stressing me out. Imagine that I am annoyed and am putting a brave face on it.

In other words, while I am being so calm and nice on the outside, inside I am praying to whatever Deity might be listening to Please Kill Me Now Before I Get a Gun and Shoot Everyone In The Office.

Somehow I made it until midnight, when the people who are in the office where I work in what is near-darkness to a normal person leave, and I can go to my cave without clawing out my pupils with my bare hands at which point I fled. Work came in- a ton. I have no idea what any of it said. I'm not sure it was in English. Then in the morning, when there was an evil yellow thing in the sky and it was freezing enough to make one's parts fall off, I went to Port Authority, caught my bus to Westchester, and tried to find a quiet place on campus where I could sleep- but no basements with unhallowed earth and a large rectangular box or two could be found. So I tried to hid in my office, which was doing a good imitation of Grand Central Station at rush hour, since all the adjuncts have to share it.

Somehow I managed to avoid murdering a single student, although I did give them a rather colorful togue-lashing during which words like 'moron' and 'nimrod' might have popped up- they haven't been good about handing in work on time.

then I came home, got four hours' sleep, went back to the Firm, had a job that lasted six straight hours while I was exhausted, and then went to the Spa.

Sometimes I wish I could scream without being put in a straitjacket.

I will write more tomorrow, and put up some lovely pictures. But right now, I'm going to sleep, and I don't care who knows it, especially since my life-changing exam is being administered to me tomorrow.

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