2/13/15 Who Turned Off The Work?

    I am home on a Thursday night.  Worked a lousy four hours.  I don't feel like I even deserved dinner tonight.  I still ate it, just saying.
    About a year ago, my supervisor had a meeting with me about my hours.  She and management (I'm sure) decided I was working too many hours.  Their genius solution is that I was to work 48 hours the first week and 40 hours the second.  We get paid every two weeks.  She also said I could do it however I saw best to fit my needs.  This after a few years where I was working 48 hours every week, pay cut amounted to a loss of 12 hours if you figure that 8 hours removed were paid at time and a half.
    I should be glad, but maybe I like the abuse, maybe I think a man should work himself to death.  There have been many weeks where I work 72 hours, and I have worked more than that.  Currently, we just dont have a lot of work.  I know work will pick up, but I hate when it happens.  Truth be told, since they pulled me in to tell me this, it has only happened about 3-4 times where I work a forty hour week.  Last check had 60 hours and 70 hours, so maybe I should enjoy the break.
    My strategy is I work the first three nights as I always have, doing 12 hours.  Then on the fourth night, I work four hours unless something hot comes in or we just have a lot of work.  I am still thinking they could call me in tomorrow.
    When you work a 12 hour shift, you get used to stretching things out.  Tonight, when I figured I would be out early, it felt like I never even got started.  I arrived on campus at 515pm, went to gym for 30 minutes.  I started working out again, and have tried to keep to this routine.  I was done by 545 where I then headed to our lab.  By the time I logged on and read my email, it was almost 630.  Email told me I needed to rework some stuff we had attempted just the day before.  I loaded it and proceeded to FIB sample.  FIB slicing is like taking a knife and cutting thin layers off.  This exposes a new face on the material getting FIB'd.
    Between doing this and arguing with my wife that I was coming home early, messing with crappy laptop, and responding to other things on my email, the following three hours passed in blink of an eye.  Had to gulp down second cup of coffee, or it would have gone down sink.
    Anytime this happens, Wife starts with maybe we need to find a roommate, or sell our house and get something smaller.  I know it'll be a different story in 2 weeks, so no point in getting depressed or excited.