I know this is a day early, but that's because I'm going to be doing a 12 hour shift tomorrow starting at 6 in the morning. This week has been wild. After writing this last week, I went in to work then got a call around 8 at night from my supervisor. He was having car trouble and asked if I could fill in for him on his morning shift. I of course said yes. That meant I was leaving the site that nite at 10pm then turning around and coming back in at 6 in the morning to do a double that would have me leaving at 10pm that night. If you have never done a double shift after doing a late shift the day before, you haven't lived. I'm being very sarcastic there. It was brutal, but there is the little fact that my site is my site, and I absolutely love it. Because of that double though, they canceled my shift for launch day, but I'll get to that in a bit, because there is a lot to that. Ok, since I took over for my supervisor I got to experience a tour going through. It was a delegation of the Florida legislative branch, which meant a very important person was leading that tour, that person is a good person to impress, and guess who managed to do that? That's right, your boy right here. That person oversees certain level of access within the company, and my supervisor requested that I move up the line in that and that certain individual can speed up that process, so fingers crossed. I know that is very vague and pretty hard to follow, but maybe someday if I see you in person I can explain it all to you, but it's a really big deal, and when I saw really big, I mean it deserves all caps, but I'm not a schmuck so I won't do that.
Ok, so the rest of my week went as planned with a day off on Wednesday, and then the added Thursday which was launch day. The reason was because they didn't want to over work me and it came down from higher up in the company. You will see why that is hilarious in just a bit. Since I have access to get out on property, I went out for the launch and it was really exciting to be there for a pretty historic launch. This was Boeing's first successful launch in a few years at the least. I kept getting mixed numbers of how many years, so I'll just stick with a few. While I was out there, mu supervisor told me of the new revised schedule. he is possibly being moved to a new site and his first day was going to be Friday, which was a surprise to all of us, which meant he had to scramble to get people to fill for him. All these people that said they wanted more shifts and hours all of a sudden couldn't make it, so he had the overnight guy extend his shift by 6 hours and then asked if I would come in to fill 7 hours then go to my 12 hour shift at the other building. It was short notice and he really needed somebody so I went for it. I've learned a lesson from all of this. Don't do a 19 hour shift ever again. That being said, some good things came out of it. There happened to be another tour on Friday, and I once again managed to impress some pretty important people. The tour guide being one. He went out of his way to get me a mission patch which as he told me, is very rare and hard to come by since they only made a very small amount of them. This one is mine.
I'm sure you can understand how stoked I am about this patch, just with it being purple alone, but the simple fact that I am one of a select few people that have one is freaking incredible. Oh, should put the video of the launch here as well. Short little note about that. I was watching the livestream of the countdown and decided that I would cut that off at 10 seconds to start filming the launch, but the stream was 30 seconds behind so I nearly missed it, that is why it starts with the rocket already in the air, and you might hear me mention that if you have the volume up which I suggest that you do so you can hear the sound of the rocket. Rockets have a unique sound when you are that close to them and the phones microphone picks it up pretty well.
Ok, so the video is processing again, let's see if this works for a second time in a row. Ok, so my plans for staying up on Thursday night to get my body acclimated to staying up the whole night were shot, since I know had to be at work at 11 in the morning. That of course meant that m body decided that I didn't need sleep and woke up at 2 and didn't get anything more than maybe an hour of sleep after that. That meant that I was already exhausted when I went in. I still represented as I said I impressed a couple more important people. After my 7 on my normal site I took the short drive to the other building which is basically a 1 minute drive away. Now this building I can finally talk a little about. Generally not much goes on there, but when Starliner goes up, the building goes up to 24 hour security. Normally it is just 7-4 Monday to Friday. The reason it goes to 24 hours is because that is where Boeing houses their mission control. Now the NASA mission control is of course in Houston, but Boeing's is in the building and they monitor everything that is going on with the capsule. Here was the big thing that just blew me away. Certain people have access to mission control. That means they can go in and out of the room with no problems. Those people are usually VIPs and the actual employees that are working in that area. Guess who has approved access? Your boy once again. Now, I could have badged in and watched the docking of the capsule with the ISS ( International Space Station ), but I chose not to. I just wanted to let them do their work and get the job done. I was just super excited to be on the list. That was enough for me. I simply watched the NASA TV feed from my security desk and congratulated everyone as they came passed my post. Even though the docking took over an hour, it was pretty exciting to watch considering I had seen that very capsule pass right by me as it made it's way to be mounted on an Atlas V rocket. I truly have the greatest job ever.
With all of the being done the night was very long, but I made it to 6 and then went home to get some sleep. My goal was to get a solid 5 hours in but Ri Ri wasn't having that, so it looks like 3 is it for me. This should work out for the best though, since I'm off today, but have to be at that same building at 6 in the morning tomorrow. I'm sure I will sleep well tonight. My schedule as it stand now will have me doing a 12 tomorrow, Monday, then have Tuesday off, with an overnight on Wednesday, then I should be back to my normal second shift at my normal site on Friday. We will see if that holds up. Either way my check for next week is going to be pretty big, because I was told that I was getting double overtime for I think 3 of my hours last night, since I went over the standard double of 16 hours. That's all going to add up in the end and will make it all worth it. I'm very much ok with all this time, because I know this is just a busy week and it won't last, so I should take advantage of it.
Back to my supervisor moving to a new post. He told me he really doesn't want to leave Boeing and is kind of hoping that they will allow him both posts, but it's looking like he will be moving on. The good news in that is that he told me that he recommended me and one other officer to take over as supervisor of that site. I know that I won't get it, but it is another big deal that he recommended me for the position. That means I'm all impressing him which eventually pay off in the long run. Even though my site is considered one of the top security sites in the area, people tend to move on quickly for one reason or another, so it's just a matter of time before I'm running that site.
That's really all I have for this week. I think I'm going to forgo FSOTW since I have some pretty epic stuff above. Oh, the video is still processing, so my hope of it actually working this time is dwindling. I do hope you had the chance to see it when it was up on my Instagram story which was also shared to my Facebook story.
Ok, have a fantastic week an most of all, peace in and goodnight.
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