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Saturday, February 2, 2008

How Much Longer?

There's a poll about me going on at my primary job. I say primary because I actually work at two jobs in order to make everything work. I hesitate to say "make ends meet," because that isn't happening yet, but we are surviving.


Well, as I was recently hired and got a decent pay increase, I now make enough at my primary computer job to cover all the expenses provided I get everything caught up. My secondary job is pretty simple to relay: overnight stocker at the 2nd largest employer in the United States. The first is the federal government. My schedule between both jobs runs 8-5 Monday thru Friday on job 1, and 10p-7a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. If you work out the math, you could say I work 64 hours a week, but let's face it -- I'm at those jobs 72 hours a week, and longer away from home if you add in drive time.


A week contains a total of 168 hours, and you tend to sleep for anywhere from 42-56 of those (that's 6-8 hours per night). Drive time will add about an hour per day, and morning prep time amounts to about an hour as well, so there burns another 14. The children actually sleep more than 6-8 hours; their schedule can run up to 10-12 hours of sleep. So let's see how much time I have left: 168 - 72 - 14 - 42 = 40 spent with the Queen or 5 per day on average; 168 - 72 - 14 - 70 = 12 hours for the kids (allowing only ten hours of sleep per night average) or less than 2 hours per day.

To some, I just said, "blah blah blah," and I can respect that. The bottom line here is that the family is going nuts over my schedule and that schedule has been going on since last June. I'm wearing out, and the Queen is more than occasionally unhappy about the arrangement. She understands, of course, but understanding it and happy about it are two different things. For that matter, I'm not happy about it.

But as you can see from the numbers above, the real impact comes from the children, who apparently barely see me. And with everyone barely seeing me, there's no time for just me either. I used to watch tons of movies, but now, there's no time. I used to have memberships with Blockbuster AND Netflix actively running AND get movies from the library, but I can barely make enough time to watch one movie a week. Life is demanding is many more ways than one.

No one knows how I keep this schedule, though. The other guy in my department at work, who has given serious consideration to changing his name to Optimus Prime (it's that serious), is blown away by my ability to maintain my level of consciousness after working such long hours, especially from Sunday to Monday since I go basically non-stop from 9pm Sunday to 6pm Monday without a rest or nap or anything. It's very hard, but it's coming to an end soon. I said I'll evaluate in May, and I plan to uphold that (even though the current opinion of Optimus puts me quitting right after my first full check, or about March 1st).

But as I came in this Saturday morning from my overnight job, I was met by The Socialite, who dubbed herself "the Middlest" shortly after Sassy Pants was born. She wasn't the biggest, and she wasn't the littlest, so she came up with the term when she was four, I believe. As far as I know, no one gave her the word; it was her own creation. Actually, when it comes to actual height, Sassy Pants is nearly her height already. The Socialite will end up being the shortest of all three girls, but knowing how she is, it won't affect her.

Sassy Pants is sick. And she's not one to admit being sick. If you ask her if she isn't feeling well, she'll get mad and say no, but when she's really not feeling well, she'll be totally honest about it. She'll also take care of herself fairly well too. She's not hard-headed about resting; in fact, she got up for a moment earlier to use the bathroom, and of her own volition, went right back to bed. She actually woke up and said she had to throw up. We went to the bathroom, but she didn't want to throw up in the potty. She wanted a bowl. I got her a bowl and she leaned over a couple of times before complaining, "It won't work!" in that little kid voice that says "I don't understand." Little thing is never like this unless she really feels bad.

At the moment, everyone else is fine. No other known illnesses. There is a minor concern as my mother just learned on Friday that she has the flu, and we saw her on Thursday. Crud. I'm hoping Sassy Pants isn't that bad off. We won't have insurance for another 30 days, so no one is allowed to need a doctor visit until after then. We've got her doped up on Tyenol, mostly, and it's helping her to feel better.

The Queen is sleeping restfully in our bed a short distance away here. The biggest bummer of working nights is we sleep different schedules. But at the moment, I think it's high time to get off here and curl up behind her...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love our brief "naps" together on the weekends.