Rant #1,018: Six-Day Work Week

I am currently on a six-day work week, and I have to tell you, it is killing me.

Oh, maybe not literally, but it is wreaking havoc on my mind, my body and my soul.

Every year, my place of business puts out an annual that includes every fact and figure we can possibly get on the world that we cover, which is called military resale: the military exchanges (department stores) and commissaries (supermarkets) that serve service members and their families.

This conglomeration of information, mainly related to sales, has to be obtained from the various services we do business with.

It is a nearly impossible task, but we do it each and every year.

However, this year, it has become even more impossible, because as you know, the services are on furloughs each week because of the sequester, and it has become nearly impossible to obtain the necessary information to get this book done.

It has made the book something larger than a bread box or a white elephant, and it is not helping my health.

Three of us work on this book, and we have been putting in time on Saturday to get it done, making for a six-day work week.

I am the early bird. I come in early during the week, putting in normal 10 and 1/2 hour days. I don't pat myself on the back for this, it just fits into what I am doing at this job.

But add in an extra five or so hours on Saturday, and you have for a week approaching 60 hours.

And on Saturday, so the whole day isn't killed, I come in at about 4:30 a.m. or earlier, and now I think you can see why my mind, body and soul are topsy turvy.

I could do this type of schedule when I was younger, but now at 56, it is just so hard to get this done.

I feel that my body is being torn from the edges, and I am dead tired.

Here is how this past Saturday went:

I actually started on Friday, after work at 5:30, when I did my family's food shopping, ate dinner on the run, and got home some time past 7:30.

I went to bed at 10 p.m., tossed and turned for a while, but I was probably asleep by 11 p.m.

I woke up at about 3:30 on Saturday morning, although I was up laying in bed and not sleeping much at about 2 a.m. I took a shower, got dressed, and arrived at work at about 4:15 or so.

I worked until 9:30, then I had a meeting of the committee I am working on to put together a Reunion for my old neighborhood of Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York.

I didn't get out of there until about noon. I drove home, arrived at about 12:30, and I actually could kind of relax until about 2:30, when we went out east on Long Island to attend a birthday barbecue for my wife's brother's wife.

Forty miles each way!

We got home after 10 p.m., and I promptly collapsed at about 10:30.

Yesterday, I woke up relatively late for me--7 a.m.--and we didn't do too much the entire day, which I really didn't mind. I took a nap at about 3 p.m. or so, woke up about a half hour later, and continued with the day.

I went to bed promptly at 10 p.m,  and now the entire cycle revs up again.

I am tired, dead tired, and I really can't wait for this nightmare to end.

I have probably about another month of this nonsense, and then things can get back to normal.

And no, I don;t get paid extra for the pleasure of working this extra day.

That would make it a little easier to take, but not much, quite honestly.

Again, I am 56, not 20 or 30 or 40, and this thing is making me nuts.

I know people have worse work weeks than I have, but I have to worry about myself and my family, and well, right now I am so tired that I can't even begin to worry.

I am just a robot, do what I have to do, and go home.

What else can I do?

(And yes, I realize the photo represents a normal work week for many of us, but I couldn't find a good representation of a six-day week. The dog jumping up at the end is really me on Sunday, but I am so tired, I can't jump very high.)