A Rude Awakening

You know, I'm getting pretty sick of this. Colin works as a projects engineer for a big international industrial electronics company. He is 'supposed' to be on call one week in every four. He's not on call this week, yet at around 8.00 pm yesterday his head of department rang and asked him if he'd go out on a job. But he's not on call! Why can't the on call engineer go?

So off he goes, and he gets home at 1.00 am. I know this cos I was still awake. I also know that when I went to sleep at 1.30 am he'd just got into bed and was playing with his laptop (his computer, naturally, just in case you thought it was something else). Knowing him, he didn't go to sleep for at least an hour, or knowing him so well, probably a lot longer.

5.30 am. His bloody mobile rings. Oh, surprise surprise, it's the company he went out to before. They'd like him to come back out, please, because there is still a problem with their stupid machine, and no it can't wait until normal working hours, we want you here now.

Is it just me, or is it unreasonable of them to expect that, when they know how far away from them we live - at least half an hour when there's no traffic (and they do know, because over the past three years he has spent more time on their premises than he's spent at home), ie he left them probably around 12.30 am, they would have the common decency to let him get some sleep before they demand he comes back out? Obviously. I am staggered, to be honest, but not really that surprised. This is the same company that have on more than one occasion said that they don't care if he's on annual leave, they want him and they want him now! And of course, he always goes. Even when we were in Germany he was getting phone calls about them/from them.

Oh, but wait ... the phone woke me up too, and I couldn't get back to sleep, so that leaves me exhausted today too, as well as Colin. But that's okay, as long as their stupid bloody machine gets some attention (here's a thought - why don't they just get the bloody thing replaced like Colin's advised them to many times already - oh yes, that's right, they're just too flipping stingy).

I am NOT happy - can you tell?