I have always worked the night shift. Mostly by choice. As it turns out, there are not any supervisors around during the late hours and early mornings. So, I could be one of those people at work that others may talk about. But, considering the source, I wouldn't put much faith in it.
There are just a few that really stick with me. It is said that the two emotions you can not fake are admiration and contempt. It is either the joyous moments or those that make your skin crawl that you tend to remember. So, contemptuous skin crawling it is. I do not recall a time that sustained any real joy and being at work in the same time frame, unless you can make someone else feel the way you do. Those can be some rather awesome times and let's face it, how much time do you spend with your friends from work - in your real life? Too many people get confused and identify with their work persona. You may be a manager, a lawyer or a doctor but it does not define you as a person. If you do, it could lead to abject loneliness on the other side. That and your Facebook friends might get you a cup of coffee, but I doubt that.
Anyhow, I was given the choice of nemesis on more than one occasion. But one abject failure of personality, cogent expression and dare I say, personal hygiene seemed to be my weight to bear. For this story, let's call her Betty - mostly because that was her name. Betty came highly recommended and I soon learned why, after a couple of days I was ready to recommend that she work anywhere else too.
Betty worked the day shift, when she bothered to show up. I felt some amount of responsibility because of this, as she was generally the person that relieved me. So, do you let work pile up and hope that she shows, off-load the responsibility onto someone else and just go home... or work through it until she showed up. I thought... this can not go on, surely enough late clock-ins would get the attention of someone higher up the food chain. After a month or so, that plan was not working out. No one seemed to notice at all. Then I found that she was never late at all, always clocked in on time and found something more interesting to do, like staring intently into a cup of coffee or playing with her phone.
One morning I walked into the break room hoping to get a quick drink of tea, as I rounded the corner I stopped dead in my tracks - there sat Betty. She looked up and started to say something, but I put up my finger in an effort to stop her utterance and said, "Hold on, I think I hear something." Then I ran out of the break room as quickly as I could. I never saw her again that day. I could say that I never saw her again, but that wouldn't be the truth. I did find that her avoidance of work gave me some amount of freedom and our occasional meetings where passing in nature, which relieved quite a bit of stress when it came to "waiting" for her to relieve me. I just waited somewhere else.
One night, as I was headed to my work station, I noticed a peculiar note stuck on the bulletin board. It had the flowery scrawl of which only the feminine hand can scribe, full of heart dotted I's and looped cartography. The note read: FOUND - SOMETHING VALUABLE IN THE STOCKROOM. PLEASE CONTACT BETTY, TO DESCRIBE AND HAVE IT RETURNED.
Now, describing something that you might not even know is missing or even being cognizant that something was missing at all, when no one had any idea what it was that she had found but she required that the person describe said artifact to have it returned - just really struck me the wrong way somehow. It felt like high school, I didn't care much then and upon further consideration, I realized that I cared less now. So, I wrote neatly at the bottom of the note that I had indeed lost my virginity in the stock room and furthermore, I didn't expect that I would ever be getting those two minutes back.
The note disappeared the next day and I heard that it was a button or some other insignificant thing she had found. Boy, did I feel silly.
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