We got off a little early tonight (by "a little early" I mean two a.m., two hours later than the shift is theoretically supposed to last), so I had my remaining coworkers over for an impromptu gathering in my backyard.
You might think I'm just saying this because I've been drinking, but it's a fact that I love my coworkers.*
And while it does truly suck to work these obnoxious hours**, and I miss my friends and am frustrated that I can't really start anything new or plan anything past the next 18 hours, perversely, I kind of like it.
I like the slumber party/Stockholm syndrome atmosphere at the office, and that I work with people I'll gladly hang out with even though we've seen each other 70 hours this week already. I like that my work ethic is satisfied by the long hours, and that my lazy side is totally justified in watching the dishes pile up in the sink and the dirty clothes get deeper on my floor because each hour of sleep is like gold these days, and who has time for all that stupid cleaning shit?
I like that each extra hour I work is redeemable as a vacation hour later, so that by the time this nonsense stops next week I'll have over 400 hours to spend however I please over the next 18 months. I like getting off work and watching the sun rise, and I like not going in to work until four or six or seven in the evening, and I also like never knowing which one it's going to be. I like that even if I work 100 hours a week, I still don't take my job home with me.
And although I'm slightly dreading going back to the 9:30-6 thing in a few days because right now getting up at nine a.m. is positively unthinkable, I also like that this schedule is finite, and that in all probability it's going to be over for the next year and a half.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to having my life back, and I'm awfully damn sick of work, but rest assured, in my own stunted way, I'm still having a pretty good time.
*So does Roo, apparently. And he'll have you know he posted before me, and with no mutual knowledge of content.****
**By the time I go to Seattle I'll have worked 17 days in a row***, many of those 12- or 15-hour days.
***Really, that's nothing. My record I think is 23.
****Footnotes in honor of Kristy.