Fifth Shift

9:00 PM to whenever: the fifth shift of the day. Once upon a time, these were the hours for nighttime trips to the movies and slow-going restaurant visits (coffee and dessert by definition), long hot baths and leisurely-read magazines. Now, on the fifth shift, I am occupied with trying to make progress on the many unfinished tasks and projects that will someday make this brand-new house a finished home.

Unhemmed drapes, furniture needing another coat of paint, light fixtures to hang---these sirens beckon me as the evening wears on: Come to us, we don't take long, think of how lovely it will feel to say you've finally finished! Some nights I try to ignore their songs from my spot on the couch; I flip through channels in search of some program that will seem like a better use of my time. Other evenings, I swim through a 5-minute bath (in my giant soaking tub, this is a ridiculous waste of water I know) and collapse in bed still wet, reasoning that I simply must catch up on my rest to be of any real use later on.

It's 9:59 PM right now, and I am taking time on the dreaded fifth shift to write this blog: seems like cheating! Tonight there was effort toward finishing the new play table and stools, but what about the unpainted niche near the master bedroom? That's only ten minutes of work, surely I should check that off my list tonight...? I can't. Well, what about hanging those speakers in the family room? No, that needs a ladder and it will be loud to set that up, might wake the kids. Paying bills? Unpacking the last 10 boxes from the move? Sorting one of the junk boxes in the garage? No. No. NO.

Really, what the fifth shift needs is some additional hired help. Too sad, too bad: the only other worker around this house is a union kind of guy, strictly an AM character who cannot be made to work the fifth shift under any circumstances. He is a single-shift show-off, kicking back with a beer and a bowl of ice cream at 9:00 PM, tv remote in hand. No threat or promise can get him to work the fifth shift, he shuts down when he shuts down and that's IT.

I have threatened to simply stop working the fifth shift. Canvases will remain half-drawn, wires will hang loose from the walls, decorations will stay tucked in their rubbermaid totes as the seasons come and go. "Go ahead and strike," single-shift man says. "I'm not sure I'll be able to tell," he snickers.

Maybe I will. After tonight's fifth shift. Just maybe.

The Elusive Mental LOA

Once upon a time, businessmen were shoulder-to-the-wheel kind of guys, toughing it out every day to earn an honest buck. If the stress of the job started to escalate, or the normal daily pressure of making the grade began to get to them, they for sure tried to hide it. They sucked it up and just did what it took, for the most part; after all, a job is sometimes just a job, not the pinnacle of life. Besides, what would have been the point of complaining about it all? Regardless of the tedium, there still had to be food on the table, clothes on the kids, whatever.

Now, there is no shame in cracking up on the job. Can't take it any more? Too many demands, too little possibility of meeting expectations? For this era's business droid, there is the Holy Grail of the benefits package: the Mental LOA. With the Mental LOA, you get a paid break from the daily grind without really stepping all the way off the corporate ladder: a few weeks to 'restore' yourself, maybe even a month or two to really rejuvenate, and you're back on your career path. Even better, there's always some ambiguity about WHY you're out on LOA: could be a family meltdown, maybe some alcohol abuse, who knows? When you finally return from LOA, you ease back into your familiar chores but with much less expectation of completing actual work. Easy street. After all, if you try to do too much too soon---BOOM! Back on LOA for another round of R&R.

Unfortunately for me, you need one key component to pull a Mental LOA: the 'friendly' family physician, who will gladly write a note explaining your probably-temporary and certainly-curable (with rest, of course) condition. And such a friendly physician I do not have tucked nicely away. Such doctors prescribe antibiotics and Xanax over the phone without missing a beat, as long as you are a patient of note who---ironically---is able to 'handle' such drugs without incident. To sum it up, you need to be a NORMAL patient to have a doctor who will recommend the elusive Mental LOA.

I asked an HR Professional in my world, "Hey, what do I have to do around here to get some Mental LOA?" After all, I am constantly being told that I am unstable, volatile in fact. "Line up behind every other fool around here," she told me. "If you're smart enough to angle for the Mental LOA, you don't need one."

Rate the Day

Every schoolday, the rating: a sticker, some codes, or even a note. Teachers now are required not only to offer the usual "3 Rs," they have to provide an incessant stream of information about each student in the class. Years ago, parents got 'feedback' about their child's school performance in 2 forms: 1)the Report Card; and 2)the note from the Principal. No more. In this info-driven era, parents demand complete and timely updates on their heirs to the throne.

The dreaded BINDER comes home each day in the backpack, returns to school the next morning. In it you will sometimes find friendly reminders ("Your daughter's lunch balance is $-1.90"), extremely detailed cries for support ("Can you act as a Parent Volunteer for the library reading program"), or just bits and pieces of schoolwork (a self-portrait, scrawly handwriting practice). The Binder is so complex, it has as its first page a laminated instruction for the parents in case we are too stupid to be able to figure out what the obviously-labeled sections designate.

Each day in the Binder, the Teacher rates the child (parent?) by marking a simple daily calendar. Smiley sticker = good; no sticker = bad. Of course, there is a very complex legend explaining all the secret codes that the Teacher uses to quantify and qualify the "no-sticker" block; here we see that #3 means our sweetheart "didn't respect others' property" and #6 means "talking during quiet time." With a little more room, perhaps they could expand the legend to include #53 "refuting the theory of evolution" and #27 "operating from a win-lose perspective."

So every day there is a rating, simple yet evil. Instant daily judgment, requiring either celebration or an act of contrition to Father and Mother. No more chances to make up the difference, catch up by the end of the race, pull an all-nighter to meet the deadline. Forget the mid-term and final exams: in this new world you have a daily score, one that stands alone. Sticker = good; no sticker = bad. How many sticker days do you need to average out a single no-sticker day? Don't worry about it, because it doesn't work that way. Every day you start out with a clean slate, and at the end of the day you are what you are.

In college, I had friends who did extensive research before signing up for a class: they wanted to know how the grade would be figured (weekly quizzes? homework required? bonus points available?). Aside from the math aspect of the grade, they needed specifics on feedback as well (quarterly progress reports? teacher-student conferences? study groups?). With all this information in hand, they selectively planned their semester.

Me? Give me the Final-Exam-Only option. I'll wander aimlessly through the semester, always with the option of catching up/digging in/turning it around. I like the mystery of who will pass and who will fail, who will come into the homestretch with a final burst of speed. Can't the Hare jump up from his nap and zoom past the Turtle after all?

Maybe I should add some notes of my own to the Binder. I can explain to the Teacher that the BINDER is draining the life-force out of me! I can't take the pressure of opening it to the page where the sticker might be (must be!), the defeat if there is in fact no sticker but instead, code #1 "not following instructions."

Skip the daily rating, if not forever then perhaps for just a week or two---? I can be like my parents, blissfully ignorant of the daily minor infractions of the kindergarten set. Just like college, can I sign up for the plan where you only tell me how my child did in May when the school year ends (a single giant sticker, perhaps)?

Guess not.

The Dark Road Home

It's fall. It doesn't feel like fall very much when it's 75 degrees around here, but I guess it's still fall. Last week we got that blessed extra hour of sleep, turning the clocks back an hour to de-activate the dreaded Daylight Savings Time. And suddenly it was fall, or something like it, with the nighttime coming in at 6 o'clock for the evening commute back home.

My frequent passenger doesn't like the long drive in the now-black evening. "It's scary," he says quietly from the backseat. We head far into the suburbs, where there are still long patches of no-retail, no-gas highway, the sky dark enough to see stars. The bright lights of major intersections and the red taillights smear together in a blur; I am tired.

The dark fall night makes me think of college in New York, or maybe driving on Fridays to clubs in Pennsylvania when I was younger and wilder. Those were even blacker skies with less civilization intruding on the country road, an hour of drive before you saw anything to speak of besides the shiny-eyed deer in the near woods. I wish now there was cold to go along with the dark.

Soon we are going through the Tunnel of Trees, the most sinister part of the dark road home. At any moment there might be something to jump out from the tight bushes lining the 2-lane path cut through this farm. I finally have an occasion to legitimately use the high-intensity sodium beam-lights mounted to the front of my safari vehicle: I press the button but nothing happens---a blown fuse, maybe? And then I am leaving the Tunnel of Trees, and there's no need for the extra illumination any more.

Left turn, right turn, left again and HOME.