One of those Days

Today, there is a local primary election, and my workplace is a polling place. Monday being a holiday, the usual Tuesday election is superseded by a Thursday one. Normally, I would have worked until 5AM, then my co-worker would have relieved me and worked a twelve hour shift, to be relieved by the normal afternoon guy at 5PM. As luck would have it, the guy who would have relieved me at 5AM is out with a broken arm, and the 5PM guy has a parent-teacher conference at his son's school. I'm going to work until 9AM, when the regular day shift comes in, then return at 5PM to work the overnight. Yeah, it's going to be really sucktastic. Our site is typically closed on Tuesdays, so our regular day staff is not present, necessitating somebody from my department to ensure that everything runs smoothly. The regular day staff is well-equipped to handle the voters along with the regular visitors, so none of my guys has to be present- I hope that management doesn't realize that this could become regular policy, an additional twelve hours for the part-timers in my department is a nice bonus.

I had toyed with the idea of spreading a blanket out in a nearby park and sleeping in the shade of a nice tree while catching a breeze, but the weather is supposed to be foul. Guess I'm going to drive home to catch a few zzzzz's before braving the weekday afternoon traffic.

In about twenty minutes, the poll workers will be arriving. I'm going to try to fake it and pretend to be happy to see them. I have come to know the regulars, so faking it will be easy, and will eventually develop into a genuine camaraderie. My happiness upon seeing the regular day shift will be genuine.

UPDATE: Alright, it just got a bit weird. One of the poll workers was a manager at a former workplace of mine, back in the days when I worked in a Fortune 500 cube farm. She left on disability before I broke up with the company, so I had to tell her about the day I gave notice. I sat across from my manager and said, "Janet, it's just not working out... oh, God, I just broke up with the American International Group."

It's always a bit weird when you see someone 'out of context', especially when you used to see them every weekday.

SECOND UPDATE: Yeah, it's a weird day alright. A young woman just came into the building. She had been driving her boyfriend's twenty year-old pickup truck to work when the brakes gave out. Luckily, the vehicle had a manual transmission, so she was able to downshift, though she said the gas pedal also gave up the ghost. I told her that she could leave the truck in our parking lot so that her brother or her boyfriend could arrange a tow. I gave her directions to the nearest bus stop so she could get to work, and asked her to write down her contact information so I could pass it along to the manager on duty when he comes in. She wrote down her name and phone number and an explanatory note: UGLY PICKUP IN LOT.