Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Graveyard Shift

Reprobate, owner of a particularly messy blog, has towards the end of March written on a term that is quite familiar for journalists - The Graveyard Shift. I am on one this week, after quite a while. I moved jobs recently and have been put on this dreadful shift for the first time. Yesterday, a couple of fellas on the sports desk decided to stay back. So the loneliness didnt quite get to me. Today, they disappeared and I am sitting here, listening to Dylan's tribute to Woody Guthrie, and it is quite depressing - the working in the night business not the song.
My office consists of just three floors and most of it is taken up by this huge Rs 40-crore printing machine, which churns out three lakh issues in about three hours or so. The rest of it is office space and the editorial is this large hall, full of cubicles. Inhuman, I say. It's a bit like being in a factory; your only friend is your computer. The fella in the next cubicle often exchanges only ten words with you the entire day.
I used to enjoy working in the night. It's anti-social, against the grain, and is everything I value in life. I can sit alone, and work on anything I want, read the whole night, watch three movies, do anything I want. But after doing this for about three years in a row, I am sick and tired of it. I wanna a day job. Nine to Fiver- like in a bank. Doing something that is even more pointless than this.
I have rarely rambled on my blog. But here is how is sound when I ramble. Tune off, if you dont like it.