Bipolar Oranges

I work in the citrus industry…not doing research (we’ll get to that later). For 4 to 5 months out of the year (right around the holidays) your brain is toast, you are so busy that each morning you prioritize your to-do list into:
1.Must be Done NOW
2.Must be Done Today
3.The World Won’t End if This Isn’t Done Today and
4.Can Probably Be Done Tomorrow…and each evening you re-evaluate your list to see where you are a failure and how much you will want to kick your own ass in the morning for not finishing something important, but you must, MUST go home and rest your brain and see your husband and your baby and eat real food.
However, you are rewarded for enduring this, during an already busy and stressful time of year (did I mention that Florida Citrus and Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s all run together, like a sadistic gang?) by having a long and glorious spring/summer of down time. Sure you crunch numbers and make plans and changes for next season, but that stuff is child’s play, a well-trained monkey could do it.

My direct boss is a really great friend from college (who is also a guy, and we’ve always been just friends, resist the urge to call BS on me, it’s true) and his philosophy on the whole thing is that as long as the work that needs to be done in the off-season gets done, he doesn’t care about office hours or filling out HR forms to account for every move you make, just get your job done when it needs to be done and enjoy the quiet time. He thinks this creates a workplace where you WANT to give it your all during season because you have that pot of gold end of the rainbow thing to look forward to. He kicks ass. This is a big part of why I am working with him and NOT in a lab.

Unfortunately, he is not ultimately responsible for cutting my paychecks. Between him and my paycheck is an HR department and gossipy office hens (and gossipy office roosters for that matter).

Because of the seasonal nature of this industry, the majority of the hourly employees are laid off in the summer and come back in the fall. A handful of staff are on salary and work all year. I am on salary; it was one of my conditions of taking the job. Also on salary are some sales guys, HR staff, IT, and upper management. A few of these people live close (not me, I drive an hour each way, whatev) and apparently have no desire to be at home…they arrive early, leave late, and can’t POSSIBLY have that much work to do in the off season, they just prefer to be at work than at home. They can suck it.

I know that you know where I am going with this…this is NOT me. I have a husband that I actually like spending time with and a 9 month old that is pretty awesome. I also have a house that always needs to be cleaned, doggies, a horse and 50 other things I would rather be doing during my slow time at work than sitting in my office, surfing the internet (that IT has basically on lockdown, so it’s not like I can look at anything entertaining) and listening to country music (the only radio station that will tune in…since I can’t listen to internet radio, FU IT). Again, D, my boss could give two $hiots, he’s all like ‘Make sure the accounting spreadsheet is done and play hooky on Friday’ and I’m all like ‘Cool beans, it’s finished, have a great weekend, peace out’.

Until yesterday. Yesterday he calls and he’s more like ‘You won’t like this’ and I’m like ‘Lay it on me’. Apparently someone who likes to come to work for too many hours and surf the internet and listen to country music got a burr up their ass about the lack of structure in my schedule. They complained/gossiped enough that the CEO of the company (seriously people?) called D and said ‘Look, we love S, she is a hard worker and we could give two $hiots what her schedule is, but she is on salary and some people are complaining/gossiping about her coming and going when she pleases’. It should be noted here that D is NEVER in the office during the offseason, but he’s the head of our department and makes the company a nice chuck of change so they can shove it (plus he has ME to be the patsy who drives in each day to say ‘see, our department works all year too, bite us’).

So at least for the immediate time being I have to play nice and arrive somewhat on time and not slink out ridiculously early….and fill out the HR forms for days where I just don’t want to come in at all. It’s all good though, this is part of the reason I started this blog…that’s funny, you don’t actually think I can access my blog from work do you, remember IT lock down? I write on WORD (to yo motha) and email it myself to post at night (lame-o). This will also give me plenty of time to marinate in self-evaluation of my life and peek around the scientific job market (these can be dangerous things, I tend to get dark and gloomy when I ponder my non-scientific career path for too long…especially this time of the month…ew, not that, it’s when my student loan payment hits my bank account). I can also research to death parenting methods and child development and baby food making recipes and toys and preschools and the endless amount of online resources that basically make you feel like a failure as a parent (until IT decides that parenting websites should be on lockdown as well).

I know, I know, I KNOW…be happy I have a secure job in today’s economy, collect my paycheck and stop bitching, got it. Tomorrow I’ll be getting scanned by TSA, I’ll have stories from the Midwest when I return. Oh yeah, and my pony is being looked at today, pray to the pony selling gods…NOW!