When I left last night they had me scheduled to work the front desk today.Normally I would rather try to shove my elbow in my ear rather than work the front desk. It's boring as heck. And I'm not real big on being bored. Even on my nights up in the comm room I keep busy moving around and doing things. It just makes the nights go by faster.
But after roasting out on 9 yard last night and the ride in this afternoon (the a/c in my truck doesn't work so well, either) I decided it might not be so bad. Lt Chipmunk asked when I came in "You want to move? I can put you back on 9 yard or A-yard or B-yard if you want! I can move somebody!"
I stood there for a moment, letting the cool breeze of one of the very few working a/c units left on the camp blow over my damp brow and thought about it. Then I said "Nah. That's okay. I'll stay up here. No reason for you to shift people around for me." Acting, of course, like I was doing him a favor.
Let's see, of the known places without a working a/c unit at the moment.... 9 house. Medical. The Control Center. Education. 30 house. 10 house. And last time I was up there, 8 house. And no money in the budget to fix any of them. I was told that maintenance said the a/c in the control center was "not a priority". It certainly will be a priority if the computers and panels go down from the heat and nobody can get in or out...
But for the moment, the front desk had a/c and I decided to take advantage of it. There were a few small minded pimpleheads that called me names over that decision, but I paid them very little heed. Let them suckers go out and sweat. Don't mind me, I'll stay in here where it's cool.
I spent a good part of the night chatting with Vinnie and Ms Odd and The Brute. Hanging out front smoking or chatting through the chuck hole. The Brute made coffee all night long and wasn't skimpy about sharing.
Manning the desk on an average night on our shift involves very little actual work. I maybe "worked" for one hour out of eight total. Most of the time I talked with somebody or read a book I found stashed under the counter. Walked around in little circles now and the and drank coffee.
Like the title said, it was almost like being on vacation. Except I didn't build anything. That's what I usually do on vacation.
Once in awhile is nice. But if I had to do that full time I would go completely bat snit.
Wednesday (my comm room day) will be Name Your Poison Day. I think I'll name mine Albert. That has a nice ring to it. It will also be Upsy-Daisy Day, World Ocean day and Shavuot. This, in case you were wondering, is a Jewish holiday celebrating the day that Gawd gave the Hebrews the Torah on Mt. Sinai. I had to look that one up.
