Random 2AM ramblings

So, I'm working this morning. Yup, a graveyard shift. They suck, mostly because there's nothing to do. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm keeping myself occupied (at last count, I'm watching "The Shawshank Redemption", tooling around on Facebook, scratching out this blog entry, testing a T1 for Bell Mobility and waiting on Telus to give me some test results for a PRI), but even though that sounds like a lot, it's really not and it doesn't leave me with much on the go. I have my iPod, so I can listen to music, but no one's calling me for anything, no tickets are showing up in my queue. There's really not a lot of "test centre" things to be done.

That's what I do now, by the way. I work in a network test centre. I take data circuits (mainly T1's, but some 10/100Mbit and fractional T1's) for customers and troubleshoot them if there's a problem, trying to find faults in the physical continuity of the cable.

Anyway, back to this. The worst part about being on a midnight shift is that I'm the only one here. There's not enough to do to justify having two people on, so there's only one. And it gets quite lonely.

Doesn't make for much of a social life either, and that's the worst part. I'd love to be able to say that the company I work for recognizes I have a life outside of work, but I can't. Not in my experience. Because of this stupid shift work I can't make plans based on any kind of consistant schedule, I have to make sure that all my plans revolve around whatever shift I may be working on any given day, and I'm not able to do the things that my friends are doing on their days off because I'm usually working.

For example, this weekend, my roommates and friends are going out to a cabin to celebrate a birthday. I would have loved to go, but I'm working. Yup, I'm working three graveyards in a row and tonight's the first one. I won't be off until Sunday morning.

I have to find a new job.

So, yet again, I'm not able to make myself available for a social occasion because of my job. I hate that. I'm not the most social person to begin with, and this isn't the best way to change that.

Whatever. I'm looking at possibilities. We'll see what happens.