Daily Bloggery 2009-04-24: Getting my shift together . . .

No WoW or Gwenny news today. Today's news is about work.

The results of the most recent shift bids went up this morning. And the natives are rather restless. Shift bids have two categories of bidders: "winners" and "losers." "Winning" is defined as "getting the shift you want and can live with." "Losing" is defined as "getting a shift that fscks up your life with child care or other issues."
This time I am a winner. Then again, I usually win. The reason I usually win is that I usually take an unpopular shift, defined as working a weekend day.

This time, however, I was very high on the stack rank list, and I chose 0500-1400 M-F. I don't mind early shifts. I *could* have picked something more conventional, say 0830-1730 M-F, but that is possibly the most popular shift. And, for another thing, there are no transit friendly schedules that also work with my medical treatment. Since I might as well take a cab at 4:30am as 5:30 am as matters stand, this is not optimal but no worse. Further, this schedule means that I get off at 2 and can, without taking FMLA time, get to Kaiser by 1530, home by 1700. If I take 2 hrs of FMLA time on Friday, I'm off by noon. Then I hit Kaiser, get done by 1430, at Sac Valley depot by 1730 and in Fremont 3 hours later . . . on Friday. Homeward bound, as long as I hit Ghettoview Station by 9pm I can be home in time for work on Monday -- leaving Fremont by 4:30pm Sunday will do this. This gives us Friday evening, all of Saturday and most of Sunday instead of Saturday evening, all of Sun and a early morning departure on Monday.

Part of this is caused by the rotating bid priority system I mentioned in an earlier blog post. part is caused by certain people stepping up their games -- like me.

Of course, now the natives are restless. At least three people want my shift - one of them has had it for so long he feels he owns it. I don't want to boast and start a bidding war in the secondary shift-swap market . . .
Update: The personal direct emotional appeals for shift swaps have begun. I got an email from a co-worker who figured out that it was I that got the schedule she wants. It isn't hard to do that by checking the published bid ranks and applying a bit of deductive logic. Her reasons for needing to change are compelling, but everyone can make a case based on personal circumstances. I said no.
Not to mention that one of the conditions of employment here is the ability to work any offered shift without respect to personal issues.

2. I went to the doctor yesterday for my leg dressing change -- wounds look good. As I was getting ready to leave for home, I noticed my house keys were missing. Actually they were on my desk in the office. I used the Blizzard Authenticator gadget on the keyring to log into WoW at lunch. Now this gadget was two bus rides and at least one cab ride away from Kaiser. If I was lucky. Even worse, my key ring has on it an authentication gadget that produces a second factor for authenticating into World of Warcraft. No gadget, no WoW. A quick check of the transit schedules made it clear that I could not even get there before the buses stopped. And bugging friends on a Friday afternoon for something that's not exactly life or death (ok, real-world life or death) is NOT an option.

I walked to Starbucks, logged into wifi and had Gwenny send me the phone number for Blizzard Support. I figured if I waited until my roomie was awake he would let me in without my house key . . . but no WoW.

Fortunately, I had my iPod touch with me, and a cute little free app called the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator. When synced on the Internet and linked to the account, it provides the second authentication factor. Of course, the Blizzard Customer Service folks have to do little things like verify the account information first. Once they did that -- "What was the blood type of your first virgin gerbil?" -- and merged the account, I was back online and playing after my roomie let me in.