The basic ethos is if you can't staff it, you work it. I wasn't anticipating a double shift on a holiday weekend with the second of those being an unexpected overnight though.
Many years ago, during my full time, unpaid graduate internship, I took a part time job in a program just like this working overnight shifts. I worked alone and was told I could write my thesis on the program's computer as long as I was available to the clients if they woke up. Most slept through the night. Some did not.
One night, after typing for several hours, I found myself delirious in the last two hours of the shift. The sun hadn't risen yet and it became nearly impossible to keep my eyes open. My eyes kept rolling up into my head. I drifted in and out of semi-dream states. I tried to focus - slapped my own face, splashed cold water, when outside in January without a coat, drank gallons of coffee - but that last stretch of the shift was brutal. I leaned back in the office chair and closed my eyes. Sleep overwhelmed me.
WAKE UP! a voice in my head said sharply not two minutes into my involuntary slumber.
My eyes snapped open. A naked man was standing within two feet of me. He was painted from his hairline to his toes with black shoe polish. I rocketed backward in the chair and nearly tipped over. He turned - the back side of his body was not painted with black shoe polish - and walked out the front door into the frigid pre-dawn ice and snow.
I wonder what tonight has in store.
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