ramblings_of_jc

the callout week

So this is the week where FPL gets to own my life (or at least try). Starting Monday I became the "duty supervisor" which is a fancy term that really means "the guy we grab by the ... and make shove his face in 3 day old garbage" (mmm here's a nice dirty diaper). Basically the collective "they" who no one can positively identify have decided that almost everything is a matter of utmost importance and must be addressed immediately. So therefore I get to spend my nights and weekend tied to my cell phone and pager to answer every beck and call of the dispatcher (and it's not his fault - he just calls because he's told to by "they").
Sometimes it is something legitimate - for example last night I had to drive down to a station at 10:30 pm to find out what had caused a transformer to trip out (luckily the station auto-restored the way it was supposed to). It turned out to be a cat that got its guts blown out by 13,000 volts (you probably didn't know that FPL's side business is getting reimbursed from the government for animal control). Other times it is something really dumb like little nuisance alarms that could possibly be something important but usually aren't but we still have to drive to find out.
Anyway, the point of all of this is mainly to say that we live in a world that has become obsessed with money because all of this "paranoia" hinges on the fact that these "problems" have the chance of affecting "they"s bonus if people's electricity is out for a little bit. Do we ever take step back and think "it's only electricity - life goes on"? No, but that's ok and that's why "they" pay me. Of course all of this goes back to the "fall" and humanity's sinful condition that is only remedied by the blood of Jesus. And for that blood I am very thankful.
As a clarifying statement - I really do like my job and I like investigating problems and don't really mind going in the middle of the night but I don't like having to pretty much discontinue or modify all evening and weekend activities for the week. Luckily it's only once every 3 months or so.

posted by jc @ 8/16/2005 07:38:00 PM