The things I put up with

For a little overtime.

Last Friday morning around 7:30 my phone rings. I answer and it's my supervisor. He needs me for a special detail near Dawson, WV for the whole weekend. I agreed (because I'm really desperate for some OT) so he gives me the details.

I'm to take the patrol vehicle that night and meet him at the hotel right off I-64 in Dawson. He says he's gotten motel rooms for all of us and he'll fork out the cash for food too. I'm to meet him at 10 PM and bring everything I'll need for a few days.

Great.

I'll do it.

Since I'm assuming I'll be working a night shift as I usually do, I go to bed early to get plenty of sleep for work that night.

My first big mistake... I assumed something.

I get up around 7:30 PM and get my shit together. I go over to the office and get the patrol vehicle and head out for Dawson at 8:30 because it's going to take me at least that long to get there from Athens. I get to the motel at about five minutes til' ten, and there my supervisor is with three other guys. He introduces them and gives us the skinny on what's going down.

Here's where it gets interesting.

He's only gotten ONE room for the four of us. We're going to "Hot Bunk" all weekend.

Great.

Not only do I have to get into a bed that's already been slept in by some sweaty fucker I don't know, I got to share the same room with some other swinging dick I don't know.

Now he tells us I'm to work Saturday and Sunday, days... 5 AM to 5 PM.

Fucking wonderful. Now I'm wide awake, ready to work that night and I'm supposed to go up to my room and go back to sleep.

So me and this other guy, who turns out to be a real mental midget get to the room. It's NON- smoking. I can't smoke in the room, This guy is telling me his life story, and I'm wide awake.

"I need a drink" I'm thinking at this point. I change back out of my uniform and head across the steet to the only other place in Dawson, West Virginia open at 10:30 PM, a convenience store to get some beer. I buy a six-pack and head back to the room and he's got the Religion Channel on and is watching some Fire-And-Brimstone preacher spew some diatribe about the coming apocalypse.

I offer a beer to the guy to be friendly and he tells me "Alcohol never crosses my lips because it's the Devil's drink..."

Ok, now I'm stuck with some religious nut for the entire weekend.

I down two brews and crawl into bed. Shortly after he turns off the TV and the lights and gets into his own bed. He's quickly asleep and I rapidly find that he not only snores like a chainsaw, he's got teminal flatulence.

Why did I even answer the phone? Is the overtime really worth it?

Try as I may, I can't get to sleep. I'm not even going to drink anymore to help sleep along because we've got to get up at 3:30 AM because it's going to take at least forty-five minutes to get to the jobsite in the morning.

So I wind up finally crawling out of bed around 1 AM and wander down to bullshit with the night desk clerk. At least he had some coffee brewed.

At 3:30 I go up and toss my partner out of bed and we get ready and head out at 4. I'm following the directions and shortly before we get to the site, I see a sign, "RAINELL, 3 SUMMERSVILLE 8".

Why the hell did my boss get us a room In Dawson, thirty miles away from the jobsite when there are motels in both those other towns, minutes away?

Can anyone say "The Peter Principle"?

More to follow later... I've got at least a week's worth of rants from this past weekend alone besides some other shit I want to talk about.

Stay tuned!

Copyright 2005 Thomas J Wolfenden