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It's already past 4 in morning. I'm still seated at my monobloc chair despite the fact that I am extremly sleepy and bored already while working alone at home right now. Perhaps a mad dash to my bed thus, stealing an hour's sleep a while ago allowed me to endure this night, still never satisfied my cravings for slumberland. This is the last part of the supreme sacrifice I have to do just to vindicate my shortcomings during the first time I did this primordial shift last Tuesday morning.
As the story goes, the boss understood where I'm coming. I didn't even have to explain what really happened. He just understood that I passed out, and it's okay with him. In fact he even made fun of it based from the remarks of colleagues I caught up with last Wednesday night. Perhaps he also felt that it would most likely happen since he made me do two shifts of work last Monday.
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Tuesday afternoon.
The boss made a surprise text asking me about my condition.
As it turns out, he wanted me to take the night shift again. This time, I would have to guide our new text operator who will take over the responsibilities of the previous operator who just did AWOL.
To ensure that the black out that happened the previous night will not happen anymore, I made a good sacrifice by leaving my home that night to work directly from the office.
Of course, boss was really surprised to see me dragging my ass to the office at 10 pm that night. He even said that I could have worked at home, but I just replied "I want to guide the new operator, that's why I'm here." while giving me a "high-five"
Actually, my initial reasons for working in the office was to get the bad stigma away from me. Surely, it would impress the boss if he sees me helping the new trainees. Another reason was my mom was already complaining that the company uses our own utilities for their own gains. She cannot allow it anymore.
So I packed some heavy duty coffee drink for that shift - the first time I did after the extra joss years. I also ate my dinner before leaving so I didn't bring food in the office that nights.
Lastly, I bought 4 sticks of Marlboro Menthol to ensure my body of a nicotine dose every time things would get stressful since I would be opposing my own body clock again.
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10 pm, the shift started.
There were 5 trainees that night. 2 girls, a butch lesbian, an effeminate gay and an old guy.
The boss was coaching all the trainees that night until the two trainees seated at my side of the work station caught his attention.
At first, all I can hear was his disapproval of their text replies. Then my boss got bitchier and irritated. He even made side comments like "mahihirapan tayo dito" or something like that.
Eventually, his patience run out that he asked the two trainees to join him out of the room. I knew that from there those guys are already eliminated.
When the boss came back. He lamented to me that he had to pay them P350 each for reporting for duty only to be terminated after staying for less than an hour.
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The work was at its climax at around 4 am.
I had already exceeded my quota by almost a hundred messages and at the same time, my eyes, my mind and my hands are already loosing its focus.
I was on the verge of "blacking out" again. Good thing, I was in the office that if ever that happens, someone would wake me up from my work station.
To compensate from fatigue, I had to set my mobile phone timer for 10 minutes whenever I take a nap. After the 10 minutes have expired and the alarm had woke me up, I would just continue answering the pending messages again until the queue becomes empty
Thats what I did for two hours before my shift was over, the napping intervals was the one that saved me from totally having a black-out during the latter part of my shift.
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Afternoon came...
I bought a new TV for my room after I donated my old one to the living room. The living room's TV just got busted beyond repair so I have to surrender my own.
Later that day, my boss texted me once again. Despite his promise to put me back to my normal work schedule, he sent me an SOS.
He needs me again at the night shift.
And so, back at my monitor again. I endured 8 hours of noctunal existence last night until this morning. Since I have already a counterpart at the office, I could just sit back and relax while we shared the pending messages for ourselves.
Since it wasn't a toxic night, Im sure the other guy had stolen some sleep too, just like what I did.
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Finally, I have rebounded myself from the slump I felt last Monday.
I'm sure, the boss was happy too that I never failed him this time, when he needed my help the most.
Surely I missed my morning colleagues. The night guys are soo quiet.
I also found out, for the first time that I just got the brunt of my boss' anger when he woke me up one sunday morning, furious about why I haven't logged on yet.
The night people enjoy so much freedom, that I caught a colleague of mine sleeping almost the entire shift.
At least, even though I am not a cyborg* and will never be (cyborgs are those operators who eats text messages for breakfast, when they are around, they would literally steal your chances of reaching the quota), I have proven myself to be a reliable worker who never abandoned a post despite how difficult the changes would be.
Victory is so sweet after being wounded at the middle of the fight.
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