2003-11-13 - 5:14 p.m.

It's 5.14pm and I'm still at work (I'm supposed to finish at 4pm), so I thought I'd just stay back a touch longer and write in here for a change. Once I get home I never seem to feel like turning the computer on, connecting to the net and writing, so it seems logical to get changed as if I was going home, sit here and write while I can.

Work has been very hectic for the last 3 days, and alternately satisfying and stressful. To some extent it makes me value myself more when I have a shitload to do and it's more or less all me rather than the shift team having a shitload to do. The days when I have little work to do I feel a bit lost, and as though if I were a more organised and proactive person I'd be finding things to do and not wasting time. Monday was a day when I felt very satisfied with myself and my position. It made me think that I could have continued on project for another 6 months (I was offered but I decided to go back to shift for the money and because it would give me a chance to reflect on the last 4 months and contrast them to what I've gone back to both professionally and socially and decide how much longer I really want to stay on shift). On Monday as well as last week Craig (a co-worker) and I conducted interviews to recruit a Summer student and the decision was with us so that gave me a feeling of reasonable responsibility. Plus there's all this new testing required to be done and I have been setting up the tests, writing the methods and training people. But I'm getting paranoid about the way people perceive me. I get really enthusiastic and I don't want to come across as pushy. Just before he left to go home today Craig made it clear he was annoyed at me for interrupting him when he was speaking in the presence of our manager, and thinking back I can so see it but at the time I just couldn't help adding my contribution. There are a lot of things I have to pass on to people and I worry they'll resent me for the extra workload even though I have no control over it. I'm working on getting a thicker skin and I think I am but in the meantime it's still stressful.

Then I get home, do the washing up from the night before sit about or sleep, Jane gets home about 7.30pm most nights after going to the gym, one of us cooks and before we know it we're in bed (no, not what you're thinking :P, or at least not always ;)In a way I think Shift work will make the time Jane and I spend together just at home after work more quality time, because there are longer stretches of time where one of us is on our own so we can do necessary things then and just spend the time together as time together, but on the other hand when I'm on nights during the week she'll be out of the door while I'm still in bed and when I get back from work she'll be in bed. We had that for a bit while we were housesitting and it's not ideal. Plus any weekend shift I feel is more of a bummer now that Jane and I are living together. When we weren't, yes we didn't see each other on that day, but then shift was all I knew. Now I know that if I wasn't working we'd be doing something, even if that something was nothing. Yeah that makes the world of sense ;)

I can see myself making the move to day work permanently within the next two years. At least I'm confident the opportunities are there now.

Still stressed but I really feel positive about the experience of the last 4 months, which is something I was wondering to myself back in July. I am usually a textbook case of chronic remorse but I'm pretty happy about what I've done in this instance.

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