Swing Shift Review

Two Words: Drunker and Louder

Ah, the ways of swing shift are coming back to me now. It's been about 9 months since I last worked swing shift and these past five days back on that odd shift have taken a LOT of getting used to. One thing that does come back to me as I sit here is updating the blog at 5am, which I'm doing right now!

The shift itself is MUCH busier than the other two shifts. That is a good thing to a point because the normal hours for swing are 8pm to 4am, which I kind of mentally split into two parts, the first four hours and then the post-midnight hours. During every shift this past week, the first four hours have FLOWN by at lightning speed! It seems like before I blink, half my shift is over. But then, after midnight, things start slowing down to a crawl and by 3am, we have way more dealers than open tables. If I were still back at the Station casinos I used to deal at, the asshats in suits would immediately send home every part-timer as soon as they could. Although that does happen a little at my current place, I've never been sent home more than 1 or 2 hours before the end of my shift. What that produces though is a lot of 20 or 40 minute sessions on the table and then breaking. Honestly, there are times at the end of swing shift when I spend as much time in the breakroom as I do on the tables. Once again, I'm not really complaining because the alternative would be to send me home every shift. But it does turn the ends of my shifts into marathons that never seem to end.

Aside from dealing to ridiculously drunk idiots and battling the blaring live music every night, the other obvious drawback are the hours. I've now just started to get used to going to bed every night/morning at around 9am and getting up at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. When I got home from work this morning, I went grocery shopping at 3am. My last night/your yesterday morning, I went down to the bank and took care of some IRA stuff at 10am, which is way past my bedtime!! Swing shift certainly does lend itself to night owls, which I've always considered myself, but after getting used to sleeping when its dark and going out at night with Danielle or my roommates for 9 months, this shift is testing my patience.

And the timing couldn't be worse. I will call Friday night (I guess that's tonight but its my tomorrow morning because I haven't gone to bed yet) to see if I have to report for jury duty on Monday morning. If I do, then I'll have to somehow reset my body for day shift for that one day. If I actually get put on a jury, then I can pretty much expect to be awake during the day for at least the next week! Ugh.

Oh well, at least I finally have a day off. I actually worked a full 78 hour paycheck these past two weeks (there was one stupid 6 hour shift in there) and I kind of want to get out of the house when I wake up later today and spend a little of my hard-earned cash. I'm thinking I might be able to talk Danielle into some all-you-can-eat sushi again, which I think we did just last week. But once again, that'll be my breakfast! Another idea might be to grab a pizza at Grimaldi's, which I haven't eaten at since last March, and maybe make another visit to the Pinball Museum. There's also a little $3 movie theater next to the Pinball that just re-opened. Danielle and I have had that on the list for a while, but haven't had a chance to get there yet.

We'll see what happens. I'll have Sunday off as well since its illegal for my employer to make me work less than 8 hours before reporting for jury duty. If I can somehow stay awake that day, it sounds like a good day to lounge around and relax while watching the NASCAR race that's occuring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend. Go 43!