We have one rule at Sunnydale that is unbreakable. It has to do with scheduling, and it goes like this: everybody, no matter how long they've been with the crew or what their lives are like, has to work weekends once in a while. The official rule is that every person works one Friday, one Saturday, and one Sunday, with an additional Friday or Saturday thrown in, every schedule. The schedules cover eight weeks, so this is not an onerous requirement. Most folks get it over with by working one F/S/S run and then picking up an extra weekend shift as they please.
Except for Keith, who has filled out every tentative schedule from now until Christmas and has not put himself down on any Sunday on any of them. We chatted about that the other day.
"Well," Keith said, after I had pointed out the problem, "I suppose I could try to work a Sunday, since y'all have been so accomodating of my school schedule."
I replied, more patiently than I felt, that he should not try, but do, because it is the one rule that we have. The One Fucking Rule, for God's sake.
Keith said that he likes to go to church on Sundays. Said it makes him feel all "rejuvenated."
Now, even in Bigton, the liberal enclave of Texas, folk like to get their religion on now and then. However, the One Rule applies to everybody. Doesn't matter if you're a Jew who needs Friday off prior to sundown. Doesn't matter if you're Muslim or Hindu or a devout Cafeterian: you work what you agreed to, or you drop back to part-time or leave.
Also, there are two other people on the staff who are devout churchgoers. Even if I and every other person on staff worked every Sunday from now until Judgement Day, we would probably not cover all our bases every week. Plus, that's unfair.
Plus, Keith, this is what you signed up for. Vadge up.
Because, honestly, if you really want to feel rejuvenated in a Christlike fashion, I could nail you to a cross.
So anyway, I sent out an email about it as soon as we'd finished our discussion, because ain't nobody got time for involving the manager in something like a schedule problem.
Keith then regaled me with tales of the first earthquake he'd ever felt, and don't ask me how he got started on that, and how it was a magnitude 7 in some place like Singapore or Central Iowa. I said, mildly, that I hadn't heard of Singapore being damaged by a magnitude 7 earthquake, nor Des Moines, and wondered aloud if he knew what a logarithmic scale actually meant.
I did not use the term "fucking idiot" at any point and for that I should get a medal.