The Night Shift 8-20

It has been said that of all the shifts you could possibly ever work the night shift is the one where rules are bent, and points don't matter. It does manage to test the mettle of a person because lets face it while everyone else is asleep in bed, you the lucky person to be on night shift are awake. Praying nothing bad happens so you don't have to wake people up with a call that no one wants. The night shift always starts the same, you come in exchange pleasantries with your coworkers and then read the log. This log contains information that pertains to what has happened throughout the day, think of it like a running twitter feed if something happened it's in the log minus the hashtags. After the log has been read and you have written that you did indeed read the log and assumed your duties for the shift it's email time. Working within the military as a civilian you learn to both love and hate emails, because of the unique amount and variety of the content. But still in that English spirit you soldiered on and conquered the email giant.

This is where things can get interesting because normally one of two things will happen. The first is what normally happens nothing, the phone does not ring and no one comes in this is both the best and worst case scenario because not only do you have nothing to do but you can relax to a point of extreme boredom. Or the second can happen and you are either assaulted by multiple calls or guests coming in requiring your assistance in multiple tasks. Either way you will not win, it's just not possible, the one thing you can do however to make it survivable is to approach each encounter with a smile and a positive attitude which later on in the shift becomes a chore on its own.

I honestly have the unique experience of being able to work the night shift with some of the funniest people in the world. Couple that with the late night comedy channel stand up and you have the recipe to make the night shift fly by. Even though this night was rather uneventful with nothing more than a few people with key problems coming in, the main attraction for the night was figuring out how to make a perfect automated answering service for our job. Soon after we started the work seemed to flow and before we knew it the clocks read 0600 almost the very end of the shift.

Looking outside of the windows the inky blackness of night seemed to be melting into a royal purple and the sun seemed to want to play a game of hide and seek behind the mountains, the tell tale sounds of human activity started to grow louder and was confirmed when the shrill sound of a jet engine starting up broke through the morning silence. Like a starting gun at the olympics a lot of events started to happen at once but in a very choreographed manner. The next time I happened to glance over at the clock the magic hour of 0730 had arrived and I gladly bid my replacements a farewell and clocked out.

The night shift can be a daunting shift and is certainly not for the weak but it also gives you a peek at the true nature of humans and human interaction, even if that is not your cup of tea watching the sun rise over the mountains in the morning is a sight that will stick with you for years to come.

The first trip?

These are just part one pictures from our recent trip to San Francisco, an awesome time, a tad bit cold but hey you can't have everything in life.

The beginning

School started this past Monday, and with it died all the fun of summer vacation. This summer has taught me a lot about how to keep yourself occupied when you are bored and even more about how to deal with all different types of people. My job requires me to deal with people from every corner of the world, and for the most part they are really nice but like everything in life those select few who are not in that great of a mood come in to. Over the next few weeks the different "life lessons" will make their way on to the page for everyone to enjoy.