Rantings of a Night Shift Lunatic

Let me preface this post by saying that it was actually written at 3am last night. I couldn’t post it immediately because of shifty internet connection.

Proceed…

It’s been a few days since my last post (thanks for the reminder, Hurricane). This is mostly because my work schedule is ridiculous this week. A special project is coming through my company, and we are running it on our presses 24-hours a day. They asked me to help out on the night shift, which is from 6pm-6am. Yes, I know it sucks, don’t rub it in. But that is why my posts will be irregular this week…however they should be interesting because I’ll be writing them in the middle of the night, running on no sleep.

So on to the post…

I’ve been trying to sleep all day so I can stay up all night for this special project shift. I’m generally really bitter when I stumble out of bed at 5pm to go to work for 12 hours in the middle of the night. I’m EXTRA bitter when I roll out my townhouse and there is an effing ice cream truck in my ‘hood, blasting that annoying as hell creepy kiddie music. First of all, ITS NOVEMBER, not to mention that by 5pm its starting to get dark outside. What perv is cruising around in his ice cream truck in Alexandria in November trying to sell ice cream at night? I totally bought some. Haha, sike. (Is that how you spell sike, psych…)

So working the nightshift pretty much sucks, but there are some interesting folks lurking around. It’s like the nightshift is a parallel universe within my company. Everyone kind of looks like a mutated version of their dayshift counterpart, forced to roam the office in the middle of the night, kept hidden away from all the regular daytime workers.

There is this one guy that I swear is Chris Farley, resurrected from those SNL skits where they talk about “Da Bears” and “Da Bulls” and “Ditka”. He has a huge red ‘stache. He is also wearing jean shorts, high black socks, work boots, and a trucker hat. Not what Farley wears in the skits, I know, but I imagine if Farley came to work at our company in the middle of the night that is what he would wear.

And then there is this other guy, who is doing quality control. His job is to check proofs to make sure everything is correct before we start printing. Not only is he checking the proofs, but he is so bad ass that he is ALSO doing arm curls with free weights while checking things over. Whenever I walk by he whispers some ridiculously huge number to himself as he does another curl, “One-thousand-fifty-seven, one-thousand-fifty-eight…” Imagine a guy reading a book very closely, flipping pages with one hand and doing arm curls with the other. I’m not lying…that is really what he is doing.

I should start walking around the office carrying free weights. I mean, think of the workout you would get. Instead of sitting through another boring old meeting trying not to fall asleep, why not spruce it up a bit with some bicep curls:

The boss asks, “Um, we’re discussing the implementation of a new revenue source, what the hell are you doing?”

My reply, “Sir, I really like to include exercise in ALL aspects of my life. Keeps me in the game, you know, helps me keep that competitive mentality.”

The boss says, “You know what, I think you’ve got something there. Spiffing good idea.”

Next day…EVERYONE carrying free weights around the office.

And that is why they keep workout man on the night shift.