One of the annoying things about working retail is the lack of a fixed schedule. I know I’ve written about this before, but it’s come up to bother me yet again.

Having no regular days off makes it really hard to plan non-work activities. For instance: I can’t decide on a whim to go to an SCA event, or spontaneously hang out with friends later in the week. I have to plan, but I can’t plan more than a week out in advance. Luckily, working early mornings has given me plenty of downtime in the afternoons to generally slack off or “get stuff done.”

And I’ve pretty much gotten used to waking up at 4 in the morning; it sucks, but at least it’s a consistent schedule I can get used to. In the past, I’ve had weeks where my shifts can vary from mid-day to closing (mostly closing). Since what socializing I do get around to is mostly done with friends who have more typical 9-to-5 schedules, working evenings cut into that time a lot more than I liked. Sure, early mornings get to you after a while, but at least they’re consistent.

But this week is inventory week, which means it’s all sorts of weird. Like today: they’ve taken a bunch of people who are used to starting work at 5am and having them work until 11h30 at night. Which is about two hours later than I’m usually asleep. I can see what they’re trying to do: they’re trying to get everything they need to done tonight so they can have their usual morning people come in Saturday night for the count. But I can’t help but think that they won’t get the best quality of work out of people who are dead tired.

Oh, and Saturday? I work another evening shift until 9pm, and then have to be at work at 5am the next day. That’s technically eight hours between shifts…

I realize I haven’t said anything truly deep or meaningful here. But every once in a while it can be good to just rant for a bit. I’ll spare you the drama llama GIF.

This time…