The Headless Chicken Patrol

Last night was likely the most stressful shift I’ve ever had since joining this crew. It was the end of our current job and everything I had to do was messed up, or different from what we normally do. The others I rely on for information, enlightenment, or help were all confused and had enlisted in the “Headless Chicken Patrol” when my back was turned.

I was under a deadline to complete our project, it was all fucked up and I was on my own. Couldn’t be much worse until my computer system locked up and crashed hard. After a fruitless hour of wiggling cables and banging on various servers, routers and consoles, I gave in and got Hardware Support on an internal chat program.

Ten minutes later sat comms go down. No support. Five minutes after that the guy in charge of the other half of the operation walks over and asks me how long till the project is completed? I made a nasty reply and then broke down and had a smoke. Dang. After shift, I read a book for a few minutes and then slept 10 hours straight. I haven’t slept 10 hours straight in I don’t know how long.

Tonight has been the polar opposite. I wrapped up our last shipment, slapped a few labels on boxes and BAM, I’m at loose ends for the next few days. In a matter of five hours, I’ve completed every single, little task I can think of and I’m left with only one more-studying and taking a test I’ve been putting off.

You cannot imagine the horrors of studying something known as a Parabolic Radon Transform. The kind of complete and utter boredom that spoons your eyeballs out of their sockets and saws your testicles off with a dull, rusty knife.