Am I skipping again?

I’m sitting here, at home, on a Tuesday afternoon.  I feel like I’m skipping work.  But I’m not.  I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that my hours were changing.  I went from working 8 hour days, Monday-Friday, then overtime being posted regularly for 8 hours on Saturday and some Sunday’s to working 12 hour days, 3 days one week and 4 the next.  It started after Memorial day weekend so today is my first day of not working.  Like I said, it doesn’t feel right.  Kids are at school and I’m sitting on my ass at home, which is nothing new, except it’s Tuesday afternoon.  My schedule this week is (paid holiday Monday) and Wednesday and Thursday.  Next week, I work Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  The Sunday will go on the week after’s check to give me 3 days one week, 4 the next.  While I look forward to having the time off (rather than the 12-13 days of work straight that I’ve been working), I’m not looking forward to 12 hour days.

• I’m on my feet, walking on a metal catwalk all day.  So my feet are usually hurting after 8 hours, I’m not looking forward to feeling them after 12.
• During the winter, I will be leaving for work in the dark and coming home in the dark.  It’ll feel like I have no life.  I worked steel construction and it was like that and I hated it.
• During the school year, my son gets up at 7 and goes to bed at 7.  Which means, I won’t see him on days I work.  He really has to have his sleep or you can tell the next day when he’s falling asleep at the dinner table.
• Coming home at 7:15, showering then eating supper, next thing you know, it’s bed time.  So hardly any time at home.
• Limited time and a half and no double time.  I really could use the extra overtime right now with a bunch of our expenses going up.
• After school programs and sports.  This is where it will really hurt.  My mom came to every game possible and I want to do the same, but now with me working till 7, it’ll interfere with games.  Not to mention, I’m coaching Trevor’s team this year and there is still a few weeks left of his season and some games on nights I work, I haven’t quite figured out what I’m doing with those.  Before, I only had to worry about Saturday games, and if I took vacation days, it was only cutting into some overtime.  Now if I use vacation days for his games, it’s cutting into my 40 hours and I can’t afford that.  Right now I can’t afford cutting into the overtime either but it was only for a short time.

Most of the negatives listed above can be equaled with some of the positives below.  But the last one really hurts and pisses me off.  And what’s really upsetting is they took a vote on the hours at work, the 2 leading vote getters were 5-5 and 7-7, I was really hoping for the 5-5 and everything would have been fine.  Getting off at 5 would have been pushing it, but I could have made it work for the games.  But apparently, the majority wanted 7-7.  Damn it!  Main reason, “I don’t want to have to get up earlier”.  Lazy mother f***ers.  I absolutely hate mornings, but I would rather get up early then have to stay till 7.

• I’ll get days off!  Even during the week.  Usually summers are busy at work so a lot of weekends.  Now I’m guaranteed every other weekend off.
• I know my schedule all the way through to the end of the year.  I never knew if I would have to work the weekend until the Wednesday before.  Now I do, easier to plan stuff.
• I plan on taking the kids to the pool during the weekdays that I have off.  So more fun time with the kids.  I have them Monday thru Fridays, all days I worked.  So we didn’t do much in the evenings as a family so hopefully, the days off will give us more time together.  Now if I can just get them to learn to sleep in a little bit.

There are other positives and negatives but I’m not going to go through and list them all.  As you can see, it’s going to be a change for me and my family.  It could be a good thing, it may be a bad thing.  I guess I’m reserving judgment and letting in play out for awhile and see how horrible it is.  I know I’m not going to be happy tomorrow night because I will miss Samantha’s first tournament game.  I might get there in time for the last inning or so, but that’s about it.

After typing all this out, I guess that’s the one thing that I really hate about this whole schedule change, is missing kids games.  Good thing their season is over in mid-June.