At 1 am Friday morning, my husband – and therefore me – awoke to his phone ringing. He is on call 24/7 for IT issues at his company (for the next month anyways) and according to Murphy when problems are going to happen, they happen at night. I too have had to carry a pager, and I often was paged in the night. More frequently than I could believe, the caller was surprised to find that I had been sleeping when they paged me. I am not sure why this would be – I always understood that night shift workers probably wouldn’t relish a call from me at 2 pm.
Often I was paged with a problem I could not solve from my bed linens. “Susan, we can’t find the blah-blah capacitor for the production that was scheduled to start 3 hours ago.” Well, let me look in my pj’s. . . no, not here. “Susan, we can’t find the key for storage room.” Yes, really. “Susan, the line is down, so we can’t run SMT (surface mount technology) for your product you needed”. Um, do I need to know that NOW? Do you want me to get my wrench and come into work and try to fix the machine?
And such was the call Emile received at 1 am. The caller was gobsmacked to hear that he had been sleeping. Granted she was new to the position – although not the human race as far as I know. I am sure she intellectually understands that most people sleep at night. But somehow, she missed it on this occasion. Yes, Emile could likely solve her problem quickly and in this case, he said “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” (yes, IT people really do have to say that sometimes). And it worked – although he then had to explain to her what her log-in passwords are and that SQL was a programming language and in no way had anything to do with Squirrel the Resort Software. Yes, all of this on-call thing is part of his job, I get it, but the day shift/night shift relationships are funny to me nonetheless. (when I am not crabby from lack of sleep anyways)
Is this punishment for us day timers because we got the “good” shifts? Do you just call us to play with us? And laugh away with all of your sallow complexioned night shift friends?
May 11th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: The lack of empathy from night shift team members on sleep schedules of the day shift team members.
Maintenance May Day 11:
Gave $10 back to the teenaged girl at American Eagle Outfitters who dropped it at my feet. I had put it in wallet as I thought I had dropped it, but when she started panicking with her friend and searching for her missing $10, I put things together. (soul) (part of me wanted to keep it when I saw the skimpy tank top she wanted to buy with it)
Ate Savory Lemon Verbana Scone, Basil Panini, Thai Lemongrass Spiced Pulled Pork Taco with Mango Salsa, Arugula Pesto Pasta, Pineapple Sage Marmalade, Lemon Thyme Citron Tart and Chinese Five Spice Pork Loin with Chive Salsa in Niagara perfectly paired with Niagara wines during the Wine & Herb Festival on-going in May. (Body & Soul)
The Daily EO 