I started a new job back in May for some crummy satellite television teleport (No, not Dish Network or DirecTV). Lemme tell ya, the complexity of this facility could do with some good management, in the human resources respect. Turnover rates are high here because they hire newbs, train them by assumed osmosis, and document very little. A typical new hire gets to know the ropes in at least six months, sticks around for another year or two, then jumps ship as soon as the next, certainly higher-paying job comes along. This is reflected in the two guys with seniority having been on for a max of two years. I am interviewing with DirecTV now. Eff this joint! But I don’t really want to wander off on this subject.

Being the ‘new guy’ puts me at the disadvantage for most related matters. Limited crew size forces twelve-hour shifts. With my presence my newfound, ‘job seeking’ friends can take some much needed vacation time. Welcome to the overnight shift.

Ramping up to a start time of 6:30 pm is much easier than the Ante Meridiem counterpart twelve hours prior.

Day one. The sun heads over the neighborhood trees as I wrap up dinner with my lady in the warm air of our backyard dinner ‘retreat.’ It’s Sunday and I’ve been off from work for nearly four days. The drive through downtown is a breeze. Midnight lunchpail in hand, nothing goin’ on tonight. All is well in foreign-TV-land. So I sit. The clock is your enemy. The brevity of this sentence cannot encompass the endurace required for twelve hours at a desk fighting boredom and the irresistable (and funny) force of exhausted head bobbing.  By the a.m. the morning guy comes in to relieve me; the very same guy I relieved at shift start.

Down the stairs, out the doors, Sony Studios’ enormous billboards looming overhead as I glide to the parking lot. The sun is up. My body feels like it is slightly numb–about as sharp as my mind at this point.

It is almost 8:00 am when I roll up to my home. Click the air conditioner on, drape the windows, set the alarm clock to 4:30 pm just in case. Biology will resist you for a number of days before you can fully embrace the zombie lifestyle. I awoke at 1pm, then 2, then 3, and that was about all I could do. Time for dinner. Breakfast?

The sun is out. I leave for work.

Two weeks of this and somewhere a few days in it occurrs to me: “What day is it anyway?”  I haven’t seen the night sky for a week.  I left for work Sunday evening with the sun setting. I came home Monday morning and the sun was up. It was up when I went to sleep. It was up when I woke up. I’ve been eating lunch at 3 am. Work ends the same day as my next shift begins.  What the hell day is it, anyhow?

And before you know it, bed time doesn’t naturally occur until after 8 in the morning. Wednesday is a half-day. Work ends at 1 am. Time to get home, get one of God’s simultaneously good and worst meals: mmm, mmm, Tommy’s chili burger. Crack open the rum, fire up the ol’ TiVo box, and party like it’s zombies’ night out.

Nothing is permanent.