Workin’ the Night Shift
Wednesday night I was in my jammies, the lights were off and my head was buried in the pillow, when the phone rang.
Yup… one of the joys that came with the promotion at work, staff calling to say that they won’t be coming to work. And the subsequent joy… the ‘on-call’ staff not answering their phone. So here I am. I’ve been up since 6am Wednesday morning and it is almost 3am Thursday. Mercifully, the residents are all snug and sleeping. And I am getting some uninterrupted time to do some prep work for our annual visit from The State.
In a 24/7 staffed residential treatment facility, the Noc Shift (nocturnal, sounds better than graveyard) is paid to be awake. I had to let an employee go this summer because the residents had reported that they were waking her up when they got up. Fortunate that we have honest residents. The upshot is this… even though I have been up for 21 hours now (it will be 26 hours by the time my relief arrives), it would look bad for me to fall asleep.
As a means of entertainment, here are some of the good excuses for sleeping at work:
1. They told me at the blood bank that this might happen.
2. This is just a 15 minute power nap like they raved about in the last time-management course you sent me to.
3. Whew! Guess I left the top off of the Liquid Paper.
4. I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new paradigm.
5. This is one of the seven habits of highly effective people.
6. I was testing the keyboard for drool resistance.
7. I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work-related stress. Are you discriminating against people who practice yoga?
8. I was doing a “Stress Level Elimination Exercise Plan” (SLEEP) that I learned at the last mandatory seminar you made me go to.
9. Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out a solution to our biggest problem.
10. The coffee machine is broken…
11. Someone must have put decaf in the wrong pot.
12) Boy, that cold medicine I took last night just won’t wear off!
13. Ah, the unique and unpredictable circadian rhythms of the workaholic.
14. I wasn’t sleeping. I was trying to pick up a contact lens without my hands.
15. Amen
