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Work has become such a drag. Yeah, I know, it’s work. But up until about a year ago I loved my job. I mean I really loved it … when we are in the midst of building a satellite I get to play with all the goodies that move, more to the point, I have to make them move and make sure they will work when they need to. Yes, there is an entire team of people involved, but as a deployment engineer I am responsible for coordinating everyone’s efforts so we get the test data needed to prove the thing will work. It really is pretty cool.

For the last several years the few of us left from the last bird we built have been dealing with design folks and systems weenies to try and influence the design of a new satellite, or at least to the point where we get hardware that we’ll actually be able to build, let alone test. That’s bad enough (too many of these people just don’t get it) but we’ve also got a ton of reorganizing and corporate shenanigans going on. Between the clueless twits, the mentality of some of the “youngsters” (way too many who think they know more than 30 year veterans) and the current corporate culture (the profit is really all that matters anymore) it’s really become a downer most days.

So why do I keep it up? Two reasons: I see the impact our birds have and a promise I made. Mostly it’s the promise. The fella I worked for on the last build is the most awesome boss I’ve ever had. Truly. He asked me to stick it out with him for at least one more … and because I love working for him, I promised I would. But now we’ve reorganized a couple of times and I’m no longer working for him. We still work together, he’s just not my boss any more. The jury is still out on whether or not the current boss is in the “doesn’t get it” camp or not. But I made a promise and am doing my best to live up to that. So I trudge on. I know what needs doing and generally just go about doing what needs to be done. And for the most part, they leave me alone and let me do my thing.

Anyway, a couple of years ago one of the changes made was to put everyone on a 9/80 schedule. For those not familiar with it, that basically means we work 9 hours each day Monday through Thursday, 8 hours one Friday, and we get the next Friday off. It’s kind of nice. It gives us a day when all the businesses are open to run errands. (hubby is on the same schedule I am even though we don’t work at the same place) Last week was our week with the “off Friday”. And since we took Thursday off to deal with multiple pup appointments, we ended up with a 4 day weekend. But that meant dealing with a very looong 5 day week this week. Or so I thought.

With all the BS going on at the corporate level, I mostly ignore all the emails we get. When checking my emails Wednesday evening before I left, there was one email from our department secretary regarding having timecards done Thursday afternoon. Huh? Wait, we’re supposed to work Friday. As it turns out no, we don’t have to work Friday, Because Thanksgiving falls on the day before a scheduled “off Friday”, whatever rules were set up for the 9/80 schedule dictate that the floating holiday that should have been used for that day be taken on another day … and someone (apparently with at least half a brain) decided that it should be the Friday before 4th of July.

So … not only did I not have to deal with a full 5 day week, I also get another 4 day weekend. And this one is mostly all mine since we don’t have a ton of appointments or errands. Definitely a pleasant surprise. 🙂 The rest of it? Well, I’m hoping there are some more pleasant surprises on the horizon. Maybe once I have some hardware to play with things won’t be quite so aggravating.