Perpetual Ruminations

Saturday

Made it through another Saturday; twelve hours and busy at work. But, not as busy as Saturdays have been. I hope Sunday is a little slower than normal, too. At least I don't have to get up at three tomorrow morning, and it's only a nine hour day. Then, another twelve hours on Monday, up at three, and I have to give an interview after work. It's going to be a long day. Then it's a few days off. But, hopefully we will also start training someone.

We had talked about going camping with our three days off, but then we changed our mind and decided to stay home and work on some projects, like the privacy panels and the pond. It's a good thing we did not make camping reservations, since Rhonda will have to go in and train on Thursday if we get someone hired on Monday. I will also be going in, to do paperwork and get things started.

But, it will be nice when we get another person trained to replace the person quitting on the first of August, and it will give us more time off together to do what we want. Besides, it sounds like it may be very hot next week, possibly into the triple digits. That would be way to hot for camping out, and would put a damper on hiking and enjoying the campground. So, maybe the following week, if it works out. It will also give us a chance to set the tent up and go through all our camping stuff. It hasn't been used in over a year, so we should go through everything before we head out.

The next couple of weekends will be a little easier for us, since we will have someone training, but it will also reduce our hours and paychecks. I still have to work out the training schedule, and I'm hoping to keep our hours up pretty close to where they are now. Even so, it will be nice to have a little bit of a break form these long weekends at work. Of course, it's only over the summer that we have to put in the long days, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I could hire a temp guard to work the summer, but then we don't get near the hours we want.

It's may get better if we get some good guards who can fill in for other shifts,  but for the time being, either Rhonda or I have to be able to pick up some hours if someone misses, and we have to be able to do it without logging over forty hours and going into overtime. It makes it difficult to schedule more than thirty hours a week for us. But, if we get someone who can fill in  and pick up hours, we could schedule closer to forty a week, and that would be nice.

It would also be nice to have a weekend off, once in a while. We have not taken a weekend off in over a year, and don't see it happening until after Labor day, at the soonest. Again, if we get some guards who can pick up shifts and cover for others, we could work out a different schedule and have every other weekend off, instead. That's the way it was scheduled when I started, but even then, it was seldom that I got my every other weekend off. It seemed someone was constantly needing time off on the weekends, so I always ended up having to cover for them. But, maybe one day it will work right.

I don't mind working the weekends and getting time off during the week; in fact I prefer it this way. But, not every weekend. It would be nice to be able to take one off every now and again. Someday, when we have the right crew on, so that everyone is reliable to work, and we don't have to pull such long days to pick up hours.

Anyway, I made it through today, and tomorrow is a shorter day, I don't have to be up so early, and Rhonda will get home earlier. Then it's going to be a bear of a day on Monday, but with a couple days off after, I think I may just survive it. Then, we do a little training and then, maybe, we will have that good crew and can start working on a better schedule. I have a bunch of time off I need to use up, and this fall may be the time to do just that. I know I'm ready for a nice long vacation.