The Misery of Night Shifts

My trips to Malabo always start on night shift, I think designed to make me miserable and depressed. There is something about night shift that is totally unnatural, especially 12-hour night shift, so much for the European 48 hour a week agreement. The main problem with night shift is not the fact that I am here all night whilst trying to stay alert and awake, but that there is nobody else here, apart from some miserable old twats who have worked shifts all there lives and I can see why they are so goddam miserable. I walk around looking after my turbines and see no one, I go to bed and get up and see no one in the rotator camp. It is like working on the moon but with less atmosphere. I spend at least 1 hour ringing my beautiful wife just to feel normal and part of something bigger than this tiny outcrop of volcanic rock. I trawl the Internet at night for thing to read, about work and conservation and anything that will drag my imagination away from the job. I wasn’t really aware of the sort of environment I would be working in when I signed for this contract here. I assumed that there would lots of people around to talk to and find out lots of interesting information about their lives and interests but oh no its nothing like that at all. I am removed from that and kept isolated. If I wasn’t as strong mentally I think it could send some guys over the top, its no wonder that only the miserable hardened old farts end up working on places like this, all brutal and toughened from years of abuse in shitty remote places without the normal amenities of life. I have nearly worked my entire night shift rotation and I am counting down the days until I get off not only the night shifts but the island here all together. Even the prospect of having to work in Nigeria doesn’t make me wince but I am delighted to get to someplace where will have contact with human life forms, and be able to laugh and joke and spend time developing relationships. This is how I have been working for the last 15 years and I have to get back to that. My first job as a young man was working in a factory with 1000 other people, mostly older women as it seemed but at least I could talk all day long and have some fun. This is what life is all about, enjoying oneself and lifting other peoples lives with your humour and wit, not growling at folks just because life is a bowl of maggoty bread, we all suffer from the exploitation of our employers but we can make life less of a struggle and more entertaining. Just counting down the shifts until normal service is resumed.