In recent months, I have had to work a new shift, 5pm to 2am. Time-wise, it is not a bad thing, as I now I have more time on my hands during the day. How I spend or waste that time is another matter altogether.
However, as there aren't many people who are also rostered for this shift, trying to get a day off at the last minute is almost impossible. Other than swopping days off, there are also people who swop shifts, that is, this late shift for the normal 3pm shift. The usual reason seems to be that they have to have an early start on that day itself or the following day, and want to get back home early to rest.
I never really questioned this until yesterday.
I was originally rostered for a 3pm shift, but the person who was on the 5pm shift claimed she had to be at work the following day at noon, so she wanted the earlier shift. So the swop was made.
But yesterday, come midnight, instead of leaving, she hung around the office, chatting with other colleagues. I wouldn't even have noticed her presence if it wasn't for the loud laughter.
She finally left the workplace at 1.50am. That's just 10 minutes before 2am. Which is to say, instead of getting to leave earlier for once, I swopped shifts with her so she could stay and chat for almost 2 hours?
Now, I wouldn't be bitter about this if not for an unpleasant series of messages I exchanged with someone else on account of one of the duties that come with the late shift.
The kind of person whose first thought, if you made a suggestion to her that is 'non-protocol', is that you are trying to push your work to her. The kind of person who would rather invest time and energy in reiterating the 'protocol', waste no time in spewing thinly veiled barbs disguised in polite words, than consider the merit of your words or opinions.
These are the kind of quarrelsome people that are indispensable in an office environment bogged down by red tape, self-censorship, protocols, politics, PR and other wonderful things. They are the rust in the machinery, the dust in the cogs, the mice chewing up wires (and hopefully getting electrocuted in the process!).
