The past three days have been surprisingly good at work, which of course leaves me with fleeting second thoughts about my impending separation.
On Monday we had a pretty chill night, where we hung around and did some training. As usual, the guys put football on, which normally annoys me. Typically I just sit there and read stuff on my phone. I’m no fan of professional sports, and humanity’s obsession with such pursuits confounds me. As the supervisor, I know I could be a dick and just make everyone watch what I want. Obviously that wouldn’t go well; I sure wouldn’t like it were the roles reversed. Instead, I usually just sit in our common room for the hour or two that we eat and take time to chill between training and operations. Though I rarely like what they decide to play on the tv(usually either sports or yet another revenge movie on netflix), a big part of my job is doing the Leslie Knope thing. Those few hours we have during our shift together is a time for them to air their grievances with me, the department, politics, the world, etc. Usually there’s little I can do, but in theory my just listening to them bitch makes them feel like someone gives a shit and thus leads to increased cohesion. So I suck it up, watch what they want, and listen to them complain. It’s transactional; I’ve found my doing this builds social capital, which allows me to give orders that will be followed without much pushback.
As I read those few sentences above back, I realize I sound like a fucking manipulative psycho. Oh well, that’s management for you. I hate that I play this game, and I hate that it’s necessary if I’m to get anything done.
Anyways, this Monday I actually enjoyed watching the football with the guys. It was moderately interesting to watch one group of athletes score more goals than the other. And the complaining was minimal while the banter was entertaining. I went home that night with a weird feeling that I actually didn’t hate sitting around work for the last nine hours.
Tuesday we were busy. We started out the night with an operation, and kept running for much of our shift. Plus we had a second supervisor working; I shamelessly thrust the boring incident command role on my equal, and got to go walk through the woods and hunt some violent criminal. I’m usually stuck in the command post as our supervisor schedule has little overlap, command being a slow death by boredom of tracking team movements and waiting for something to go wrong. Being just another guy on the team was refreshing, and reminded me yet again that I was stupid to accept promotion.
Wednesday was another day of mostly training and sitting around bullshiting. That night we had a diffrent crew working, which is made up of more humorous characters. They had me rolling for hours, hell my side started to hurt after awhile from all of the laughing. Normally this crew has another couple of guys that drag the mood down, but they took the night off. It was a lot of fun to watch the guys carry on without the dead weight.
These good nights at work, coupled with the ever present fear of the unknown, had me second guessing my decision to bounce from this career. And then as I think about it, and really dig into it as I write about it, I know what this is. Graduation goggles. “..the nostalgic feeling one has about a time or someone in their life when it is about to end, even if the time was completely miserable” (https://how-i-met-your-mother.fandom.com/wiki/Graduation_Goggles)
Yeah, that’s me right now, one hundred percent.
So how do we defeat this? Just like with everything else. Beat it to death with logic and data!
Yes, I love getting to work on the operational level instead of the command one. But in the past year I’ve had this opportunity less than 10 times. An average of less than once a month, with a lumpy distribution that means there’s months between chances to do fun stuff. Is it worth doing something I don’t enjoy most of the time in exchange for the once in a blue moon opportunity to do something fun? Big no on that one.
Hanging out with the dudes is enjoyable with much the same frequency. Most nights I just listen to complaints, or worse, deal with guys trying to butter me up with hopes that I’ll bend the rules and allow them to do something outside of our policy. A policy that keeps us staffed at a level which maintains safety during operations, and ensures our actions are insulated from civil liability. Even though I stick to my guns and don’t bend on this stuff, and have explained ad nauseam why I refuse to put guys in undue danger, I still deal with such pestering constantly. This is probably why the good nights at work stick out so much-because they’re so rare.
Finally, all the bad parts of working late shift have still been present these past three nights. Didn’t see my kids in the morning. Dragged myself through the last few hours of work struggling to stay awake. Rushing to get into work after dinner and feeling like crap for leaving my wife to tuck in our oldest by herself. Waking up feeling out of wack because hey, it’s noon and that just isn’t normal.
I had a few good nights at work. Even if they were more frequent, would they be worth the above? No. Fuck no.
Graduation goggles have a pull, but they’re a siren song that should be put in its place. I’m sure I’ll have more good nights in my remaining months on the job. I hope that I can remember to recognize them for what they are. A few good times to remember when I leave.
