Crying the Blues

I hate having to work overtime. Especially during a 4-day work week when I only get straight pay (under 40 hours = no time-and-a-half).

I've been working my ass off the last couple days, filling in for my supervisor on an installation of a piece of new shop equipment. This involves wiring, assembly, and all sorts of customization. Add to that the fact that our only other truck driver was out from Friday through yesterday (he'd better be back today) on vacation, which meant I kept having to drop what I was doing and go on a delivery or pickup. During all this stuff my regular work has been on hold and piling up in my inbox, so yesterday I stayed a couple hours over to try to put a dent in it. That's about all I did... And it was a small dent to boot.

One bright note yesterday though--I received two orders I placed online on Monday already! That was fast. Only two days is fast, and neither of them were from this side of the U.S. One of the items was an overhaul kit for my air compressor, and the other was the new rear turn signals I ordered for my Harley.

I was hoping to get up to someones house after work and look at or buy a bookshelf I found on Craiglist for Sarah, but she called back and apologized, noting that yesterday was her husband's birthday. We agreed on 6pm tonight. I hope it isn't raining by then. Last night would have been perfect. At least it's very local to me here, so it should be a quick and easy one.

I was out in the garage quite a while last night. It seems like this Harley job is taking forever. I guess that's because I hate long-term projects. I need to relax and just place one foot in front of the other and move at a steady pace. I'm almost ready to start in on the rear fender, and that's going to be tedious-A lot of welding and grinding. I hope I don't fuck it up.

Something else that's pissing me off is the fact that I have a tiny metal sliver in the tip of my right index finger--Right at the contact point for any button or anything you want to push. It's so small I can't even see it, let alone retrieve it. I may have to do some razor blade digging on this one.

(Sigh) I'll probably have to work overtime again tonight. Today the "setup man" for the Haas company that makes the big machine they just bought will show up and do the finalization of it, so I need to have as much done and ready for him as I can to minimize his time ($$) on the job. In the meantime, my regular work will again suffer.

I need a vacation.