Observations from the Admin

New development in my job situation and I feel it is a positive one.

Not to whine, but I have to say the way my job was, it was burning me out pretty badly. It had it's benefits, but it was rough too. Some people would say they would jump on the type of schedule I had and I didn't hesitate with it either. I jumped all over it. The problem is I live 1hr from work, so this was my schedule every week....

Monday - Thursday 11am - 10pm.

Consider I am NOT a morning person, my wife attempts to wake me up when she leaves for work at 7am. It takes me 2 hrs to get awake and moving around (this is true). I spend 7am - 9am drinking coffee and watching tv and checking in on Comic Crack and other sites.

9am I would get ready, take a shower, shave get dressed and leave the house by 10am. Hit the road and start working at 11am.

Work until 10pm (if I was lucky to get off then) or later (sometimes later). Drive 1hr home and get home no earlier than 11pm, sometimes as late as 12:30am.

I am not the type who can go right to bed no matter how tired I am. Typically I would eat dinner (yeah at 11-12pm) and stay up an additional 2hrs. I would typically hit the hay between 1 and 2:30am (sometimes later).

I know people would say....Go to sleep earlier. Get up later.

Forget it, it's not in my makeup. I can't change these facts. I am a night owl and some things I cannot easily change (although I'm always striving to and sometimes I will make adjustments). For the most part...this is who I am.

Needless to say when Monday morning came around I would be more than slightly on the dreading going to work side because literally it felt like I would go into this working twilight zone that lasted 4 consecutive days.

I can tell you, I have a "special" feeling when I get off work at approximately 10pm on Thursday nights. And it's special to know I have 3 day weekends. But literally I am so tired, that I often sleep very late on Fridays and laze around the rest of the day. Saturday and Sunday is typically like everyone else's. I spend it with my family and it feels like my weekend goes by just as fast as a 2 day weekend.

I seemed destined to letting my candle burn out and it was. I have to admit, I have missed a few days work over just being burned out and saying "fuck it, I'm taking today off".

I needed to break my 4 day week up. My supervisor encouraged me to put in a schedule adjustment with her and my managers name copied to it. And amazingly, it was granted. (My supervisor is one of the senior supes and appears to have some pull there, I also think she likes me and may have put a word in for me).

Now I not only have the blessing of a 4 day work week. I am only the 2nd person in the building that houses over 300 employees that I know of that has a schedule like mine. I got my day off changed from Friday during the week, to Wednesday.

So from here on, My workweek will consist of Mon-Tue....Wednesday off, Thur-Fri....Weekend off.

This is about perfect to me. I still only work 4 days. I have one less day of travel. I still have 3 days off a week. But now instead of me feeling like I go to hell for 4 straight days, I get 2 bite sized nuggets. Ultimately, Im getting 2 Fridays a week. By time I'm getting burned out on working, I'll have a day off. I'll never work over 2 days in a row. That makes me pretty happy.

Sure, I lost out on 3 day weekends, but trust me. When you spend the 1st day just kinda sleeping it off, what's the difference? I ultimately only felt like I had 2 day weekends anyway. It was amazing how quickly 3 days would go by. They felt just like 2 days. Trust me...

So now, with the altered schedule, I'm hoping my mindset will be better and I can continue on my quest for building my empire including continuing to work on Comic Crack, continuing my drawings and buying myself more comic books and working on other things I work on. (Like playing my bass).....

In the end, this feels like it's going to make my life better. So I thought I would share....


- G

Screw that. I mean the schedule is alright, but you live an hour from work?
I just opened an airbrush stand in Williamsburg, Va. Its almost an hour away and I will probably drive there once a month, just to check on it. That is just to much drive time. And that is not even considering the tunnel.
You're a stronger man than I "G".

Mike you know there ain't nothing job wise where I live. So traveling 1 hr each way is just part of the deal of living out here. Luckily my drive consists of 90% of it driving down one majorly unbusy country road. The ride is a breeze and it gives me time to reflect. Sure, I'd rather have a 5-10 minute drive. But it is what it is and a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do. If I could get the same where I live, I'd be there. It just aint gonna happen.

Right about now, I'm mourning my 3 day weekends.