THE GREAT GADFLY:

Because The Night

I have three and a half days left of my soon-to-be former job. Twenty-eight hours. Three more nights I have to go to bed early. Three more mornings I have to wake up early, in an attempt to beat my alarm clock to the punch. Seven more commutes in rush-hour traffic. Three more trips to Au Bon Pain to get my daily French Roast coffee (large) and orange scone (sticky). After today, three more dips into the workaday world, plunging into the freshly scrubbed and mildly disgruntled Chicago throngs.

Meanwhile, it's been getting dark earlier in the evening and light later in the morning. As a result, as happens every year at this time, I want to stay up later and get up later.

In four days, I'll be working at a new job where I clock in during mid-afternoon and leave late at night. Sleeping in will be an option. Staying up late will be an option. Getting a "normal" night's sleep and waking up early is an option.

It's all about options.

People who know me know that I'm not a big fan of the nine-to-five lifestyle. In the past year or so in which I've humored it, I couldn't help but feel a pressure of not being able to truly enjoy anything during the week, for fear that I'd lose sleep or miss out on my spare evening time or somehow or other disturb the gentle tilt of the axis which is maintaining a lifestyle appropriate to a productive work week.

*** BLECCHH ***

I've been waiting over a year for a schedule exactly like the one I will be commencing next week. In my previous life as a NYC resident, I spent two years working nights with a similar schedule, and I loved it. I'm not so sure if I loved working at a Wall Street law firm, but I loved the way my day was constructed, I loved working when everyone else was out of the office, and I loved coming and going with the knowledge that there'd be a bevy of subway seats open to me, and a minimum of the old rush hour push-and-shove.

In the past two and a half years I've lived in Chicago, I've made a couple of attempts at "non-traditional" work schedules, both of which were mildly unsuccessful and wildly taxing.

I did the graveyard shift thing. Not a fan.

I worked an 8:30 p.m. - 3:30 a.m. shift for six months. I can't say I was thrilled with this gig either, though it may have been less about the hours and more about the fact that my work environment resembled a hybrid between "The View" and "House of 1,000 Corpses". I began to get the impression that working late nights tends to attract a, how shall we say, EARTHY element. (Well, DUH.)

Back when I was still adapting to life in the midwest, this was more than a little alienating. Now, it's just a slightly annoying fact of life. Who knows what I'll be walking into next week? Actually, I know a little. A big part of my interview for this gig was spent discussing work environment and team communication and efficiency and all that funky jive. Seems like where I'll be working has it together. And apparently they engage in craft corner projects during downtime. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. Considering how much more money I'm going to be making in less than a week, let's just say it's a good thing.

I wandered away from the night shift work out here because the only schedules I could find were way too extreme, and I was becoming a grey-skinned wraith who hissed at the sun and had to periodically re-attach his atrophied limbs to his torso with duct tape and superglue. It just was not a healthy life. After a while, I figured it was for my own good that I re-explore the nine-to-five thing. Who knows, maybe it's not as bad out here in Chicago as it was in New York.

And it's true - it's NOT as bad out here. But it's the Chicago version of bad. Which ain't good. I'm not going to miss downtown Chicago days at the height of their cranky crowdiness, really I'm not. I'm chomping at the bit to wake up at whenever o'clock in the morning and stumble over to the local supermarket when nobody's around but senior citizens and crackheads, and take my damn sweet time deciding if I want Apple Jacks or Honeycombs for breakfast. Hmmm. Maybe I'll rent a movie before work. Maybe I'll get a haircut. Maybe I'll go back to bed. Nice.

And nights. Nothing beats getting off work and walking outside to deserted streets, the streetlights reflected in the asphalt, the air strangely still in a steady breeze, as if finally able to breathe after another day of chaotic congestion. I like seeing my neighborhood darkly lit and deserted when I come home. It's comforting. I'm not in a rush to get into my apartment, because there's nothing for which I must be on time when it's the middle of the night.

It's like I'm on the cusp of re-owning time...as much as I can "own" time while working for somebody else, anyway.

But getting to next week feels like I'm an ant trying to drag a piece of Texas toast around the Indy 500. The sands in my hourglass are the size of boulders.

Oh. Ergh. Eeg. Bleh.