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I’mma go post this.
By Chris | January 6, 2008
No, seriously…nothing. Haha. I have to work Mon and Tuesday. I washed my car today. And actually vacuumed it too. And cleaned the windows. Why is it so fucking hard to get the windows clean in a car? Streaks suck. I bought a bunch of fluorescent bulbs last year. The first casualty has died. The desk lamp bulb started randomly flickering. Odd. The others don’t do that. So I put it in a different lamp to isolate the problem. It flickered periodically for about 20 minutes before it plinked out. I’m saving it… I think you are supposed to recycle them due to some sort of metals in the ballast. So I hear.
I start my Financial Accounting class with ERAU on CAFB this week. Wednesday. I was slightly excited about it but as it looms closer I’m a little wary of it. Not because it will be difficult, at least not at the level this overpriced book shows it, but because the classes just drain me. On days I work I will have gotten up at 0545 and worked until 1600, at which point I will journey to the AFB and stay in class there until 2200. That’s a long fucking day - some 18 hours or so. Neither of the two available shifts we have at work would accommodate the class hours either, so I’m screwed either way. Either I leave three hours early (at 1600) or come in three hours late (2200). Another employee got permanent shifts so she could attend classes (though when I had asked the year prior I was given a resounding ‘No’ - though the boss-man doesn’t remember that). I was a little pissed on Thursday when I brought that up, but whatever.
I am so tired of 12-hour rotating shifts. I like days better than nights, but I would prefer nights if they were 8-hours instead of 12. I can do 2300-0700 standing on my head. Everyone else mostly likes the 12’s because you get a three day weekend every other week, and some days off scattered throughout the week. On our rotation (3-2-2-3) you never have the same day off in a consecutive week. And every ten weeks we swap nights and days. Due to my dislike of the shift, and the incompatibility with my class hours, I sorta want a change. Not because I hate my job, because I like it, and I love the people I work with. But I hate the shiftwork. Unfortunately I get paid pretty well, so leaving would require to find another job that pays similarly or better. I only have until 2013 to use up the GI Bill, so I want to get this stupid degree done and then use any extra money leftover in it for some classes in something that might actually be interesting…lol.
Unfortunately, without a degree it is difficult to get a job that pays as well as this one does. Ironically, with a degree, it seems just as difficult to get a job that pays as well as this one does. Catch-22. There needs to be a company that’ll gimme a break in the IT field…haha. Anyone? lol. I do database (MS Access) programming on the side at work and am computer-savvy. I manage a small network at my fire department ;-) Seriously… anyone know of such a place, let me know (/end desperation).
Speaking of the fire department, I am considering dropping it. I’m tired of the drama. I have not set foot in that station in over a month and have no real desire to do so any time soon. I don’t even listen to the fire radio in my truck. I take it off scan and lock it to the PD channel so I can listen to something that maintains some level of sanity for me. After the awards banquet in December it really opened my eyes up to how ‘cliquey’ it’s become up there. When the only two officers the department has give each other awards, and nearly all the other awards are given to the paid people (for basically showing up to work) and not to the volunteers who actually give their free time up, that spoke volumes, I think, in how they appreciate their people. The paid people sit around all day, and are visible, yet the volunteers who have lives, and have jobs are not because they are out doing their lives and jobs.
The only time they think of me is when something dorks up with the computers, and then they demand an instant response. At 3 in the afternoon on the 1st I got a page about the computer at our remote station not logging on to the PDC at the main station. I logged on via VPN to the main station and checked the status of the VPN tunnel from New Hope to Myers. It was dropped. It usually reconnects when the VPN appliance detects a need, so I let it go for about 10 minutes, and it was still not connected. Now, some background - I discovered that the people (often paid) disconnect the network so they can plug their video game (GameCube or something) into the internet. This disrupts the VPN and it doesn’t reconnect. They do not know that I know this, but then again I don’t care. They fuck it up themselves. So anyways, the VPN eventually reconnects itself and I go about my day. I didn’t page back to whoever sent it to me, because it’s pretty evident when it starts to work - you can log back on to the network instead of getting the username/password error at the logon prompt. So a page goes out at nearly 10PM on the same night - something about trucks being moved, etc etc, and the very last thing is garbled on my pager. I didn’t think anything of it. Eric showed me his yesterday where it said the computer won’t connect and that they tried to contact me with no result. Now, had they tried to page me multiple times, and tried to call me several times, then I would say that there was no results. I learned that they disconnected it again for their stupid game. Anyways, had I paged something out like that regarding another member I guarantee that my phone would ring shortly afterwards and I’d be getting my ass chewed. Do you think anything happened to their golden child? Of course not. The network has been working flawlessly (to my knowledge, as I check it periodically throughout the day) since then.
In any event, I think I am about to just give up on it. I don’t have the time nor the desire to go up there, so I am doing some ’soul searching’ trying to decide if I want to continue with it. It’s crappy, because I finally got to the level I wanted to, where I am an engineer (drive/pump the trucks), yet I never have the opportunity to do so. I may just drop the firefighter part and offer to do their networking shit and maybe serve as a photographer if I can go to the scenes, etc. It’ll be difficult to go to the scenes and not be able to help out though. Ironically, I was at this state on 18 Jun 2007. I had a resignation letter typed up the night of the fire in Charleston, and was going to turn it in the next night, but I didn’t. The fire service is something that gets in your blood, and when I lived in North Charleston for 4 years, every time Truck 6 and Engine 6 sped past our apartment complex I’d wonder where they were going, and I’d dial up NCFD on the scanner and listen to the call, just to see where and what it was.
Well, this was a mind dump. I think I am going to consider bed, as I have to be at work in eight hours.
Topics: ERAU, Fire Dept, Public Safety, TrailBlazer, Work |
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