h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It took me a few minutes to wrap my (before 5 am) mind around those work hours you described. Your body-clock must have been in a constant state of change, eh? Especially the days of 2 runs in a 24-hour spread.

Would this have been individual person-rotations? Or would crews work together through these cycles? I ask out of curiosity.

Our own most common cycle was based on 48-hour slices, so working 2-2-2 and then 4 off, allowed normal weekends often enough to ease family times.

we worked in 4 troops - about 15 to a troop - as far as I remember there was a quick change weekend now and again which meant that your opposite troop had a normal or longish weekend.

Basically we were knackered a lot, there was some vague reason why we worked like that, but I'm blowed if I can remember (I turned back into a huma... sorry, civvy in 1990 so it's all distant past now)

I did once work other shifts, in a tiny tiny Commcen with 1 person per shift which went day - night - sleep day - day off (where except for one night a week it was a sleeping night shift). The all nighter was Thursday, and if you worked that your next shift started with Monday night - your opposite shift did the quick-change then.

But then something happened and we went to day - night - sleep day - day - night... etc etc
which left us all grumpy and, in winter, especially lacking in daylight.

PT, incidentally, had to be done on the morning of your night shift (although, since it was a sleeping night shift, most of us went to PT from nights)

and there you have more than you ever wanted to know abut my military service!!!

To be nosey (and forgive me, I haven't read your PS yet) what were you in?

The Canadian military, a blended service. After about 12 years, they gave us distinctive coloured uniforms again, and my assigned was Air.

My line was radio/radar/telecom techncian, ... service, maintain, repair, cannabalize, what-ever to keep the stuff going. So I too met a number of CommCen's.

Milady was a fresh private, when I met her at a remote radar station in central Manitoba. So with her 8 years and my 21, we've a bit of military time in the house.

I have 6-and-a-half, my own has 17 - so we don't match you two!

I went from signals into Military Intelligence (no jokes please) but still on the signals side. I think what we did was a reason for our stupid shifts, I think it gave us some continuity whenever there was some "action".

So... who does the cooking chez Nick?

My work day starts and ends an hour or so earlier than milady, so I commonly make supper Mondays thru Thursdays. She more than makes up for it on the week-ends. I'm certainly not hurting.

I've worked with some Int folks, and despite the expected oxymoron, most were pretty sharp people.

lucky you - my works evenings every day except Mondays (because they are closed) so I have to rattle the pots & pans. Poor little Gruesomes, a in the house and still the food isn't what it should be

I never had anything to do with the Canadian military during my service. But my Dad was in the Blues & Royals, and they regularly did exchange visits with the RCMP. Once I remember he and my mum got quite pally with one of them, who often came over for dinner or the weekend (he was lovely, played with us kids a lot because he missed his own) and often brought us what he called Growly Boxes. I have to say that Canadian ration packs (at least for the RCMP) are/were far superior to anything I've had since.

And I had the opportunity to ride his horse a time or two, which was a fabulous treat for a horse mad pre-teen. I've had a huge soft-spot for Mounties ever since.

I've had a fair bit of exchange experience with USAF, but no Brit or Europeans. Once, a visit by some New Zealander navy lads. My own service was pretty tame, no out of country service at all.

And of course, in our more remote regions, I've shared times with Mounties. Quite a good lot of folks, they are.

The British Army used to (not sure if they still do) have a huge live-firing training at BATUS (well, let me think.... one of the nearby towns might be Medicine Hat - my knowledge of Canadian geography is sorely lacking)

Quite a few of our young lads married Canadian girls. I think the girls mostly wanted to get away from small-town-Canada and the guys all seemed to have an eye on retiring to Canada after their service. That's what they all seemed to do, anyway. Of course in my day the women's army was separate from the men's and we never did the exciting stuff in Canada.

I quite liked the USAF guys I met and the Australian exchange chappies (who were all extremly good looking) but the est soldiers had to be the Dutch.

A place called Suffield, in Alberta, has been a common exchange training site for decades. One of my best friends retired there, an air gunner from WWII who became a padre. One of the maddest motor-bikers you could ever meet, and a wicked sense of humour. Anyway, on retiring from full-time military, his salary there was a split paid bt Brit, American and Canadian services. He loved it.

And to be honest, I've never had much of an eye for the soldiers, domestic or foreign. Just a guy thing, ya know?

we never got female exchange soldiers - everything was about the guys those days.

That's it, Suffield. Your padre mate sounds like a scream. Mind you, most of the padres I met were all a little... well... wacky.

Considering what they meet in a common day, they certainly couldn't start out as fully sane, could they?

So what's been your line of endeavours since the uniform time? You give the impression that it was ages and ages ago, but I somehow think you're a bit younger than my own near-47 years old.

When I became pensionable, I started looking for a real job. And got lucky enough to land one with a contract company, providing exactly the same services for the same people. So I'm still in a military environment, some of the supervisors are people that I trained, and I get to mold a few new folks in the trade.

I like the sound of your job.

Well, my age is given away in my current nickname (clue: it will change on my birthday )

When I left the army, was still serving here in Germany, so I started working as a (badly paid) dependent for the Intelligence Corps in a big HQ. We were all lucky, because they needed someone immediately and I had the vetting to do it. Interesting work, but horribly badly paid. Then I found a job working for a German company organising trade shows.

Somehow I ended up working on a multimedia/CD-ROM thing, just as that was getting known, but the show was cancelled and I was out of a job so I went to work for a computer magazine.

That was ok, a pan-European thing in 3 languages, but the Asian publisher closed that just as I got pregnant. So I stayed at home for 3 years having babies (well, just the 2 of them - the Gruesome Twosome) and then found a job at a rather large international company in their Europe office.

All jobs, though, not careers and definitely not exciting. But it pays the rent.

So you've been around the employment block a few ways. It all sounds interesting, each in their own way. My own work is a frequent challenge, meeting the newest technoligies, often trying to engineer a way to mate it with the old stuff. I also have a little title of "Certified Engineering Technician" (CET), which kinda translates as the guy that designs it, makes it work and keeps it working. Always fun, but as a contracted employee, not a 'career'. No real likelihood of advancement. As you say, it keeps a roof over-head.

In fact, occassionally a little diversion comes around. Next week-end, I'm off to a factory in Rochester, NY for a two week maintenance course on some newer transmitters. A nice government paid change from the day-to-day life of a home-owner/working-stiff.

Now that does sound nice - I've heard Rochester is a rather nice place.

One upside from where I am now has been two incentive trips to Korea during the last 5 years.It's a fascinating place, and to be shown round, by Koreans among Koreans is a real eye opener. Both times, most of the time I've been the only westerner around and boy oh boy, that can be really strange sometimes.

Milady and I have aquired our very first passports, and are accruing a nice little sum of cash. So that we can visit some foreign lands and be shown around by natives for our 20th anniversary in September '07. Really exotic places named Essex, London, Cardiff, Dublin ...

Essex?

Go up North, you know you want to!

sounds like a nice trip. Will you meet up with any hootooers?

*ahem* How do you think we came up with some very distinctive destinations?

I've 2 mates in Manchester that I'd love a pub lunch and chat with. And another Lady well east of that ... But the cost and timings of coach or trains for a day-trip. And I am NOT fool enough to rent a car and drive. You people are always on the wrong side of the road !!!

ah ... ...well, you never know...

I have huge problems driving in the UK. On the rare occasions that my dad lets me use his car I've coped better - but now he has a flamin' automatic jobbie which confuzzles the heck out of me.

I guess if you make it over from Canada the chappies and chappesses from up North might go down and meet you. You're right not to risk the trains, though. Anyway, by then there might not be any left in England!

Ah yes, if I recall from seeing you here and there, ... You're somewhere in my "old country". Once a part of Prussia, now Germany. (The first 2 census takings that included Keip's stated their nationality as Prussia, circa 1848)

The couple of lads I know in the Manc area are not affluent, so I doubt they'd travel far to find me en-route. And the Lady is a relatively new Mommy and marrying on the 19th of this month to another h2g2'er. (See Unconformity and PSG) So if we do manage to find any of them, it'll only be because we find and make time for a bargain-priced travel bit.

yep, I'm in Germany.

Erkelenz to be precise, near Mönchengladbach and very close to the border with The Netherlands.
Not a huge town, but we like it.

Does it ever amaze you, the amount of h2g2 romances there are? (even if they don't last?)