My new job as an application support analyst requires that someone be at the office from 5 a. m. to 6 p. m. during Daylight time. It will shift to 6 - 7 when the rest of the nation reverts to normal time. This week it is my task to show up at 5 a. m. I am not and never have been a morning person. Waking up before 4 a. m. so that I can shower, shave and slide down the highway is not something I thought I was capable of doing.

This is the second day of the shift and I am discovering I am not able to do it. I was so very tired at work today that I could feel myself pausing to contemplate the answers to simple dialog box questions I normally click through in a nearly precognitive fashion. I wanted nothing more than to drive myself home before falling asleep behind the wheel and hitting the sack!

I did that. After a few hours discussing the finer points of tile installation with the bathroom tile installer. Then his family's health. Then their relative poverty. Then I literally had to walk away to get him to drop the subject, all subjects and go home.

I finally got up to the bedroom and fell asleep. This lead to my worse nightmare in recent decades. I scared the dog too as I woke screaming out loud! I think I need to consider what the early shift is costing me.