Eyes Wide Shut

It's the first time in months that I've got a free moment at work where there's nothing pressing to do. Just waiting around till 6pm to do a stereoscopic review. It's really nice. I may even get to go home at a reasonable hour. Sure there's still some documentation to do but that can wait.

Phew... (taking a breather)

It's an amazing feeling to let your brain go blank for a bit. It's a bit like going to sleep with your eyes open.

zzzzzz........................

Sad Existence

It's getting ridiculous. The inhumane hours, the grueling schedule, the lack of resources and the combined, crushing weight of everything is about to smash me to pieces. I've had enough! I don't know how to describe the excruciating frustration and fatigue that accumulates from days and months of working to the point of insanity. There has be to a better way. And there is, but right now I'm sitting in a deep, dark trough. The air is thin. It's hard to breath. It's an empty place and feels a like thick mud. I've dipped so slowly into it I've not realised I've sunk right in to my neck. And as I try to draw a breath to scream my torso is squeezed so tight I can only gasp short breaths. The tiny pinhole speck of light above seems to be closing. I want to put my head down and cry. What is the point of this sad existence?

It's quite incredible that two days of working after a great birthday long weekend could turn me back to being a morbid depressive.

Better re-read this funny email to cheer myself up:

Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 11:12 AM
Subject: FW: I LOVE MY JOB.............................

Next time you have a bad day at work think of this guy:

Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2 FM in Ft,. Wayne, Indiana , who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.

Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints.

What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit.. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi. Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse... With in a few seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened.

The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator.... His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically.

Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression.

When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber.. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut.

So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt. Now repeat to yourself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job."

......

I FARKING LOVE MY JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!