I don't know how they do it
May. 14th, 2007 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeWell, this weekend has allowed me to conclude that my tentative thought of taking over the night shift on weekends is a Bad Idea™, for several reasons.
1- It is *hard* on the system. Twelve hour shifts, from 7pm to 7am, three days running. I only did two days, and I am wiped. Doubtless you get used to it, but I don't think I could get used to it fast enough. Also, it borks your weekend quite thoroughly.
2- The weekend Night Shift Girl, while okay in small doses when I see her on Friday evenings, is an entirely differently kettle of fish for long stretches of time.
- She whines about everything. Now, I'm a champion complainer. I bitch about a lot of things. However, this girl has me beaten on all counts.
- Related to the whining, she's got a heck of a victim/martyr mentality. I found out more about her life in the past 24 hours of work than I have in the entire six months we've worked overlapping shifts. She's gone from one bad relationship to the next, and "doesn't understand" why all the guys she dated "turned out so mean." Uh, gee, maybe because you keep dating the same kind of outwardly-romantic but otherwise-controlling asshole?
- She doesn't do much work. She does work, don't get me wrong. She just works less and less as the night progresses, until this morning I found myself doing, well, almost everything.
There were no thefts all weekend, until last night. We got five thefts in the same night. Jackpot. I had to make all the calls, fill out the paperwork on the first two we got (they came in almost simultaneously), and then she broke the printer. I fixed the printer (thank God I used to work as a receptionist: managers always expect you to be able to magically fix the printer when they've b0rked it), and took more calls, spoke to the trackers' supervisor, and dispatched both theft calls.
I also had the alarm page during that time. Luckily, at night, there aren't that many false alarms. It also means, though, that any alarms you get are ten times more likely to be real thefts, so you can't really let them pile up. Did I mention I was handling two theft dispatches at the time? Yeah.
By the time the fourth theft came in this morning around 5am, I was a little swamped. I was dispatching the third theft (the fourth and fifth had non-functioning boomerangs in them, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been), trying to get hold of the Laval police, filling out my paperwork, and trying to stay on top of the alarms.
Since she took the call for the third theft, it was up to her to do the paperwork on it (you have to print out the summary, some maps, a whole bunch of documentation, and fill out the tracking form properly). Except that she didn't. She first handed off the call to the Laval police to me, and then whined that she had "too much to do" and could I finish making the dossier for the third theft?
Then when the days shift began trickling in, she did even less work. The thing about the day shift is that, while they're *very* good at what they do, they don't like to start working before 7am (which is when I leave) regardless of when their shift actually starts.
5am is also when the alarms start coming more frequently. So I was handling the paperwork and the police for the third theft, talking to the tracker for details on the theft on the radio, talking to Bell Canada for locates on the vehicles, and taking care of the alarms.
Then the Night Shift Girls comes to stand directly behind me, watching me work as though she's bored. I thought she wanted something, so I turned to look at her.
WNSG: "Oh, am I bothering you by standing here?"
Me: "Not exactly. Do you need something?"
WNSG: "Oh, no. I just don't have much to do."
Me: *trying to reign in my temper after a twelve-hour overnight shift* "Well, if you refresh your Excel page, you might want to try helping me with the alarms."
WNSG: "I thought you had done all the alarms!"
Me: "No. The fact that I asked for help with the alarms about five minutes ago might have tipped you off to that."
WNSG: "Oh. Well, what do you want me to do, then?"
Me: *biting tongue really hard* "Just... take some of the alarms, would you? I have to finish up this theft with [Tracker Name]."
WNSG: "Okay!" *goes back to her seat and proceeds to practically twiddle her thumbs*
Luckily by then the Day Shift Girl had her shit together and began helping me. I do like her: she's just not a morning person, and it takes her a while to get going. Once she's going, though, she's on fire.
In conclusion? No permanent night shift for me at this job: I will end up murdering the girl and hiding her body in the trunk of a car.
I got seven hours' of sleep today, and I shall go to bed earlyish tonight in an attempt to get back on a proper sleeping schedule. I'm not slated to work nights for at least another two weeks, and with any luck by then they'll have hired someone to fill that slot.
1- It is *hard* on the system. Twelve hour shifts, from 7pm to 7am, three days running. I only did two days, and I am wiped. Doubtless you get used to it, but I don't think I could get used to it fast enough. Also, it borks your weekend quite thoroughly.
2- The weekend Night Shift Girl, while okay in small doses when I see her on Friday evenings, is an entirely differently kettle of fish for long stretches of time.
- She whines about everything. Now, I'm a champion complainer. I bitch about a lot of things. However, this girl has me beaten on all counts.
- Related to the whining, she's got a heck of a victim/martyr mentality. I found out more about her life in the past 24 hours of work than I have in the entire six months we've worked overlapping shifts. She's gone from one bad relationship to the next, and "doesn't understand" why all the guys she dated "turned out so mean." Uh, gee, maybe because you keep dating the same kind of outwardly-romantic but otherwise-controlling asshole?
- She doesn't do much work. She does work, don't get me wrong. She just works less and less as the night progresses, until this morning I found myself doing, well, almost everything.
There were no thefts all weekend, until last night. We got five thefts in the same night. Jackpot. I had to make all the calls, fill out the paperwork on the first two we got (they came in almost simultaneously), and then she broke the printer. I fixed the printer (thank God I used to work as a receptionist: managers always expect you to be able to magically fix the printer when they've b0rked it), and took more calls, spoke to the trackers' supervisor, and dispatched both theft calls.
I also had the alarm page during that time. Luckily, at night, there aren't that many false alarms. It also means, though, that any alarms you get are ten times more likely to be real thefts, so you can't really let them pile up. Did I mention I was handling two theft dispatches at the time? Yeah.
By the time the fourth theft came in this morning around 5am, I was a little swamped. I was dispatching the third theft (the fourth and fifth had non-functioning boomerangs in them, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been), trying to get hold of the Laval police, filling out my paperwork, and trying to stay on top of the alarms.
Since she took the call for the third theft, it was up to her to do the paperwork on it (you have to print out the summary, some maps, a whole bunch of documentation, and fill out the tracking form properly). Except that she didn't. She first handed off the call to the Laval police to me, and then whined that she had "too much to do" and could I finish making the dossier for the third theft?
Then when the days shift began trickling in, she did even less work. The thing about the day shift is that, while they're *very* good at what they do, they don't like to start working before 7am (which is when I leave) regardless of when their shift actually starts.
5am is also when the alarms start coming more frequently. So I was handling the paperwork and the police for the third theft, talking to the tracker for details on the theft on the radio, talking to Bell Canada for locates on the vehicles, and taking care of the alarms.
Then the Night Shift Girls comes to stand directly behind me, watching me work as though she's bored. I thought she wanted something, so I turned to look at her.
WNSG: "Oh, am I bothering you by standing here?"
Me: "Not exactly. Do you need something?"
WNSG: "Oh, no. I just don't have much to do."
Me: *trying to reign in my temper after a twelve-hour overnight shift* "Well, if you refresh your Excel page, you might want to try helping me with the alarms."
WNSG: "I thought you had done all the alarms!"
Me: "No. The fact that I asked for help with the alarms about five minutes ago might have tipped you off to that."
WNSG: "Oh. Well, what do you want me to do, then?"
Me: *biting tongue really hard* "Just... take some of the alarms, would you? I have to finish up this theft with [Tracker Name]."
WNSG: "Okay!" *goes back to her seat and proceeds to practically twiddle her thumbs*
Luckily by then the Day Shift Girl had her shit together and began helping me. I do like her: she's just not a morning person, and it takes her a while to get going. Once she's going, though, she's on fire.
In conclusion? No permanent night shift for me at this job: I will end up murdering the girl and hiding her body in the trunk of a car.
I got seven hours' of sleep today, and I shall go to bed earlyish tonight in an attempt to get back on a proper sleeping schedule. I'm not slated to work nights for at least another two weeks, and with any luck by then they'll have hired someone to fill that slot.
