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I've never met a person more in need of a weekend off than me.
In addition to everything else in my life, I'm bipolar. I have a peculiarly complex subtype, but fortunately for me, age and a doting psychiatrist were able to mellow me out -- "an incredible amount", according to those who've known me for years... "not enough," according to those who've recently met me. Go figure.
While I've largely overcome it, there are things that really aren't good for me at all. Change in sleep patterns, lack of sleep, and sudden crises are near the top of that list.
So... I moved from first shift to overnights this week. The first night was okay, even though by the end of the shift, I'd been awake for nearly 27 hours. Not all that bad when I was younger, but I'm getting old.
The second night looked like it was going to be okay, even though I only had about four hours of sleep that afternoon.
Then... someone called in sick. There aren't any support people, team leads, supervisors or managers on duty during the early hours... so all the responsibility lands on the most senior employee. Because of the call in, that person happened to be me. And so, me and three co-workers straight out of training prepared to support the entire mid-state area.
Okay... I can do that. Really. Honest. I'm going to be fine... as long as nothing goes wrong.
When I went to lunch at 2:30AM, none of us had taken a call in the last 15 minutes.
When I came back 20 minutes later to check things out, we were 32 calls in queue... at 2:50AM. I'm not real smart, but I could puzzle this one out: we have a problem.
Great. It's too many calls for an outage. They actually affect small areas, and the call volume was more that would be expected if we'd be having one during prime time in the evening. No maintenance scheduled for that hour. Okay, I'll just call the network people and see what they know.
Me: We've a major problem here. We've got an enormous spike in call volume.
Network center: What's happening?
Me: I was hoping you'd know. Any maintenance going on?
Network center: Don't see any. You know, you should check that kind of stuff for yourself before calling.
Me: I did. I didn't see anything listed.
Network center: I don't see anything either. Once you figure out what's going on, give us a call back and we'll fix it. <click>.
And so, I sat at my desk, watching the calls flooding in... mostly I was thinking that there was nothing stopping me from just getting up, walking home and going to bed. I'd be fired and humiliated, of course, but it wasn't like the cops were going to come and arrest me for abandoning my post... or were they? At 2:50AM, there were a lot of things I wasn't sure about. That's what my panic attacks are like... very quiet, very internal.
It seemed like I was a there for a very long time, but it turned out to be only a few minutes.
All right... there's some sort of outage. But where? What would trigger that many calls at that hour? Usually, it's easy to spot one... if I'm taking a call from 101 Whatever Street, and the coworker to my left is taking a call from 105 Whatever Street, and the one on my left is taking a call from 110 Whatever Street, it's a good bet there's a problem on the 100 block of Whatever Street. But these calls were coming from all parts of the city.
Great... the entire system has just melted down... and I'm in charge!
I started calling people who'd called in a few minutes earlier... I started to get a handle on the situation. And then I finally found someone who was actually coherent at that hour. "Yeah, right before it went out, my digital box started doing some crazy stuff..."
I called the network center back.
Me: Are you sure there's not a box update going on?
Network center: Don't see anything here on the maintenance list.
Me: I know g*****n f*****g well that those boxes are updating tonight. I just want to hear it from you.
Network center: [long pause as he appears to be deciding whether this is important enough for him to bother with.] All right... let me check [long time on hold]. Yep, we are rolling them across your area. Everybody's going to be out for about 15 minutes tonight. We all should have been notified.
Me: I wasn't.
Network center: Neither was I. Sounds like the guys forgot to email an update.
Me: You can tell those m***********rs that... well, that they're m***********rs.
And then my co-workers got to see a patented TNT explosion.
Still, the important part is... I survived it. I think.
In addition to everything else in my life, I'm bipolar. I have a peculiarly complex subtype, but fortunately for me, age and a doting psychiatrist were able to mellow me out -- "an incredible amount", according to those who've known me for years... "not enough," according to those who've recently met me. Go figure.
While I've largely overcome it, there are things that really aren't good for me at all. Change in sleep patterns, lack of sleep, and sudden crises are near the top of that list.
So... I moved from first shift to overnights this week. The first night was okay, even though by the end of the shift, I'd been awake for nearly 27 hours. Not all that bad when I was younger, but I'm getting old.
The second night looked like it was going to be okay, even though I only had about four hours of sleep that afternoon.
Then... someone called in sick. There aren't any support people, team leads, supervisors or managers on duty during the early hours... so all the responsibility lands on the most senior employee. Because of the call in, that person happened to be me. And so, me and three co-workers straight out of training prepared to support the entire mid-state area.
Okay... I can do that. Really. Honest. I'm going to be fine... as long as nothing goes wrong.
When I went to lunch at 2:30AM, none of us had taken a call in the last 15 minutes.
When I came back 20 minutes later to check things out, we were 32 calls in queue... at 2:50AM. I'm not real smart, but I could puzzle this one out: we have a problem.
Great. It's too many calls for an outage. They actually affect small areas, and the call volume was more that would be expected if we'd be having one during prime time in the evening. No maintenance scheduled for that hour. Okay, I'll just call the network people and see what they know.
Me: We've a major problem here. We've got an enormous spike in call volume.
Network center: What's happening?
Me: I was hoping you'd know. Any maintenance going on?
Network center: Don't see any. You know, you should check that kind of stuff for yourself before calling.
Me: I did. I didn't see anything listed.
Network center: I don't see anything either. Once you figure out what's going on, give us a call back and we'll fix it. <click>.
And so, I sat at my desk, watching the calls flooding in... mostly I was thinking that there was nothing stopping me from just getting up, walking home and going to bed. I'd be fired and humiliated, of course, but it wasn't like the cops were going to come and arrest me for abandoning my post... or were they? At 2:50AM, there were a lot of things I wasn't sure about. That's what my panic attacks are like... very quiet, very internal.
It seemed like I was a there for a very long time, but it turned out to be only a few minutes.
All right... there's some sort of outage. But where? What would trigger that many calls at that hour? Usually, it's easy to spot one... if I'm taking a call from 101 Whatever Street, and the coworker to my left is taking a call from 105 Whatever Street, and the one on my left is taking a call from 110 Whatever Street, it's a good bet there's a problem on the 100 block of Whatever Street. But these calls were coming from all parts of the city.
Great... the entire system has just melted down... and I'm in charge!
I started calling people who'd called in a few minutes earlier... I started to get a handle on the situation. And then I finally found someone who was actually coherent at that hour. "Yeah, right before it went out, my digital box started doing some crazy stuff..."
I called the network center back.
Me: Are you sure there's not a box update going on?
Network center: Don't see anything here on the maintenance list.
Me: I know g*****n f*****g well that those boxes are updating tonight. I just want to hear it from you.
Network center: [long pause as he appears to be deciding whether this is important enough for him to bother with.] All right... let me check [long time on hold]. Yep, we are rolling them across your area. Everybody's going to be out for about 15 minutes tonight. We all should have been notified.
Me: I wasn't.
Network center: Neither was I. Sounds like the guys forgot to email an update.
Me: You can tell those m***********rs that... well, that they're m***********rs.
And then my co-workers got to see a patented TNT explosion.
Still, the important part is... I survived it. I think.
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