At home, alone

Tonight is the first night L is turned loose from training and working independently.  She had a rough period in the middle of training, because as she put it, the person who was training her’s idea of “training” appeared to be “the beatings will continue until morale improves” alternating with “look how much faster I can do this than you can,” a combination sure to grind down even the most optimistic.  Fortunately, she had the sense to sit down and come to an Understanding with her shift lead about this, and after that the work environment got better.

Her new schedule is 2100 to 0800, Wednesday through Saturday.  She seems to be adjusting fairly well to working through the night and sleeping all day, as she expected.

It’s taking a lot more out of M and me.  M misses having L home in the evening while she’s still up (L is awake for maybe two hours before she leaves for work, well before M’s bedtime), and she still isn’t comfortable being at home alone after dark, even if she’s going to be asleep with the house locked tight, so the notion of me being able to do anything at all on weekend evenings is right out.  There’s not nearly as much fun or interesting to do on Sunday through Tuesday evenings, and the more so if you have to do it alone.

All of this adds up to my feeling cut off from society, and that’s a very unhappy feeling.  And I recognize that with jobs as hard to come by as they are, I shouldn’t complain too much and the situation can’t really be helped, but it still feels bad.  I wish I could think of ways not to feel this isolated, but at the moment I don’t really see how.