OT.
      Over time.
      As you know, I work from home, doing Help Desk work for a major-mega-corporation-organization-conglomeration-evil-empire (just kidding on that last bit).
      Rarely, in the course of my day-to-day zombie-shift, is there the opportunity for overtime. Thank God. I mean, I am absurdly grateful for my position. I work in the comfort of my home where I can spend time with my husband and puppy, write without feeling other people’s eyes on my screen, sit in my PJs if I choose, or fully dressed, or naked (not that I would, but I could!). I have a small modicum of responsibility, a fairly decent hourly wage, and use of a laptop & monitor.
      But forty hours a week is enough for me.
      You know?
      By the end of the week, come 7am on Friday morning, I am done. DONE. Utterly done.
      Typically, we have more than one person on any shift. But the over-night guy on the weekends – who works 7pm until 7am on Saturday & Sunday – has been all alone on those two nights for… months. Ages. This weekend, for the first time since I came to Third Shift last Autumn, he called off on a Sunday night. And as the ranking whosit-and-whatsit on the shift, I got the first call to cover for him.
      I’m a team player. We didn’t have any pre-existing plans for the evening. Thus, I accepted.
      Unfortunately, my sleeping schedule is a little fubar these days. Most of the time, I sleep from 8am until 2pm, then maybe a nap between 9pm and 10pm, before starting work at 11pm and working until 7am the next morning. But Fridays, being the start of my ‘weekend’, I often don’t sleep as late as I’d like. Partially, that’s a vain attempt to make me tired earlier, so that I sleep at a decent hour Friday night and then can get up for game day on Saturday. Partially, it is because I want to steal every moment I can with my husband, whether we sit at home and dick around, or go to Costco, or take a walk, or play a video game… whatever.
      At any rate, this weekend, I wasn’t able to sleep until almost 9am, then got up at 1:30pm. So, I was a hurtin’ unit, as they say. I ended up taking a long-ass nap, from 11pm until 1:30am, after which I could. not. sleep.
      So I was up until after 3am, reading and trying to get back to sleep. The next thing I knew, it was just shy of 7am and I was up. Totally awake, conscious, ready and raring to go… except game day wouldn’t start until 1pm or so, and that’s a lot of hours on a very little sleep.
      I figured it didn’t matter – I could just nap at like, 11am and be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for game time.
      Well, no nap materialized. The game began. All was well, and then (shockingly!) I was about to fall asleep at the table by about 7pm. Every one was gracious and when they broke up to go get dinner, I took a 30 minute power nap that lasted over an hour.
      Then, when the game ended at 1am, Mark fell asleep almost immediately and I, lucky girl, was up until after 3am, writing and reading and not being even the slightest bit tired.
      We got up at 10, and I figured that was okay, I had thirteen hours to kill before work so I could sleep whenever and all would be fine.
      Only it wasn’t.
      I got a call and a text while I was dozed off after a leisurely romp with my oh-so-sexy husband, and ended up working that OT I mentioned above.
      Needless to say, I hadn’t gotten enough sleep, I still haven’t gotten enough sleep and the Good Lord knows, by the time I publish this blog entry – I probably still won’t have had enough sleep.
      C’est la vie.
      At least it’ll look nice to have a marginally larger paycheck this week. Four extra hours…time-and-a-half. Even after taxes it might… not quite…be worth the aggravation.
      Tee-hee.

Note: Image is “All in Time” by (cozgrl05) from SXC.hu