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

The bad thing about waking up after four hours sleep if you go to bed at a normal time is that it's the middle of the night, and you just want to get back to sleep (good luck with that).

The good thing about waking up after four hours sleep following a night shift is that it's the middle of the day and you feel more like getting up and doing things. It's like getting an extra day, or at least half a day. If you're lucky there might be some cricket to listen to.

But either way, you still get that sticky-eye feeling.

And then you fall asleep on the sofa and suddenly it's 7pm, which is sort of the night shift equivalent of falling asleep on the sofa during the evening and waking up at 1am I guess.

I do not miss shift work, but I do miss the overtime I often got working shift work.

I haven't had a regular hours job since 1981, and although there are times when it sounds like a very attractive proposition, I'm not sure I could do it again after all these years. I like having days off during the week, I like being able to get up on a workday and not having to rush out of the door to be in at 7.00 or 8.00 or 9.00am, I like I like having a different schedule each week.

But there are things I really miss about a Monday to Friday job, like having the evenings off and being able to go out, like knowing that I can plan something in advance, or doing something off the cuff when someone calls and say we're doing this, join us now.

During my first full-time job I remember that sense of every day of the week having a different feeling, and I still remember what each of them felt like, not that I'd ever be able to explain it. They don't feel that way any more, except for Monday evening. I really miss that Friday evening feeling though, with the weekend ahead

I do like my current schedule. I work 4-10s, Monday thru Thursday. I usually get in between 6:00 and 6:30 and leave before 5:00, hopefully just missing the traffic jamb in a tourist town between work and home (a bridge and 3 close set traffic lights that grid lock when it gets busy. Today my Google Now alerts warned me of a wreck there so I went the long way around Clear Lake, probably saving myself at least an extra 20 minutes added to my 20 minute ride home. The cops in that town, Kemah, are notorious for taking their sweet time to clear the smallest wreck.) After I opted for the 4-10s, the center started a flex-Friday program so most people on site get every other Friday off now. But I get every Friday and that's pretty nice; having a proper weekday off to get business done and long weekends every week. The biggest drawback is I'm eternally jet-lagged getting up at 5am four nights a week and usually around 11 on the other three. I'm a night owl by nature.

I like the idea of four ten-hour shifts a week, and I've been working something like that, up until a few weeks ago when things got a bit radio rental. I'd work two twelve-hour shifts at the weekend plus two eight-hours during the week and get three days off.

Recently though I've worked some extra-long shifts. Yesterday's was a 14-hour, there was a 13½-hour shift last Saturday (and then four hours at Live Oak), and last month I did a 17-hour shift because someone had a little too much SXSW. It'd be nice to do one double shift plus two twelves each week, and get four days off, but I don't think they'd let me do that.

The other benefit of doing less than five days a week is that each day I don't work is one extra day I don't have to put up with the nobheads who use the buses and the nobheads who drive them

Heck, even the overnight shifts aren't too unpleasant if I can start them at 4pm or 6pm, like I did yesterday, and get off at 6am. One of the hardest things to do is hang around all day just so that you can head off to work when it ought to be time to go to bed, and getting home at 7am instead of after 9am makes sleeping during the day a lot easier.

Except on days like today when you wake up early

'radio rental'

Well, things are not so radio rental that I've been able to, finally, get a weekend. Of sorts, because it's happening on Thursday and Friday. But the best thing about it is, for once, I haven't spent half the first day of it in bed (that was yesterday) because I was working overnight. It's a proper two days off with a free evening, like a Friday for those of you who work a normal business week.

And I haven't a clue what to do with myself because after the past three weeks or so I've forgotten what it's like to have time off

That's not entirely true. The place is a mess because I haven't had time to clean and tidy Castle Gosho for almost three weeks. I have to do laundry today. I'm baking bread and a cake today*. I want to catch up on a few films I haven't watched yet. And they've somehow managed to schedule a mandatory meeting tomorrow which will probably only last an hour but, with the bus journeys there and back, will eat almost four hours out of my day

And I'm hopefully going to see Lee Perry tomorrow evening. Hopefully, because the forecast is for severe storms with damaging hail You know what elf'n'safety's like these days. If there's a chance of anyone getting struck by lightning or whacked on the bonce by a lump of ice they'll cancel (it's an outdoor event by the way) for fear of being sued up the wazoo.

*This cake, sans frosting (because, with very few exceptions I always feel like frosting is gilding the lily) http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/01/brown-butter-cake-insane-brown-butter-frosting-recipe.html I browned the butter yesterday and put it in the fridge overnight to harden up. I thought I may as well bake a cake, seeing as how I'll be baking bread today, and we're getting to that point in the year now where it gets unbearably hot in the apartment, even with doors and windows open, whenever the oven's on, so doing all the baking at the same time, wherever possible, is a definite plus.