The Eleventh Hour

I'm in hour eleven of an eighteen hour shift. Yes, you read me correctly, an eighteen hour shift. The reason I'm working an eighteen hour shift is that my station is in the eleventh hour of a major equipment upgrade/station switchover, the leaders of which, in their infinite wisdom, failed to realize that a little training might be required for the operation of said new equipment/new station. Since they pushed up the switchover deadline from the end of the month to Wednesday, they thought it might be prudent to train us on a roomful of new equipment four days before the switch! They notified us about the training, and the new deadline, two days ago. Nothing like a little bit of foresight and planning. So this morning I dragged my butt into work at the crack of dawn to engage in several hours of "training" before I started my "regular" shift. I'm tired. I'm cranky. And I'm not very happy.

I guess last minute training is better than NO training (my lame attempt to be a "glass half-full" kinda guy), but the lack of planning has been stressful and frustrating for the whole department. Fortunately, we have come up with a stress-relief solution we refer to as "Kappy's Therapy", Kappy's being a dive bar a short distance from the station. Every couple of weeks, when the stress level has built up sufficiently, we'll head to Kappy's after the 10 o'clock news, have a couple of drinks, unwind, gripe about the company, and laugh until it hurts. It's been quite therapeutic. Every night can't be a Kappy's night though. I don't want to turn into an alchie bum. Anyway, it's less about the alcohol and more about the camaraderie. It makes the B.S. more tolerable (marginally) knowing that we're all in the same boat and that we can at least get away for a good laugh at the insanity.

So I'm thinking that if Wednesday's switchover is the twelfth hour, hours 13-15, at least, will need to be spent in Kappy's Therapy.