17 December 2008

Work Blogging

Ya gotta be careful. If you start blogging about work, you can quickly find yourself in trouble. Cross a certain line, and you can find yourself unemployed.
So I gotta walk a balance beam here. At some point I hope to be able to share the problem with you but for now I'll just say, indirectly it has something to do with this post.

We're short a pilot at our base. We're short a pilot at several of our bases. Not long ago, if I called in sick, some greedy guy would jump on the chance to fill my slot at time-and-a-half.
No more.

I've worked 21 of the past 23 shifts. On New Year's day I will have worked 25 of December's 31 days. Big paychecks just before Christmas are wonderful, but two nights ago Sara Jean asked, "Are we okay?" It's been too long since we've had "together" time. We're both feeling the strain.

I've got a mild bug. I'm hackin', blowin' my nose, continually clearing my throat. So far, I've been controlling it with over the counter meds. But bein' short a pilot makes truly taking care of yourself difficult... there's no "down time".

Another of our pilots called in sick this morning. There's no one to take his place. Our BK sat idle in the hangar all day. My lead pilot just called and asked if I could come in an hour or two early to get the aircraft and crew back in service. I blew my nose, coughed, and said I'd be there.

Mucous. I'm intimately familiar with it right now and trying to figure an interesting way to blog about it.
You've been warned.

3 comments:

Epijunky said...

And I'm trying to come up with a creative way to comment about it.

I hope you feel better...

And... watch your six, of course.

CJ said...

GB -

Oh man. I know that feeling. Around Thanksgiving our 4 man department was down to one - me. Two were on sick leave and one was on vacation. I only worked 15 days in a row, though.

Take some vitamin C, drink plenty of fluids, and I hope you feel better soon!

cjh

ddf said...

Most of us working in America today have suffered with "down sizing". The work doesn't go away, only the people do. When can an employee say "No"? 10% increase in hours per week? 20%? I work with a sniffle, how about a cough? What is reasonable?