Is it Friday yet?

I nearly fell asleep getting my hair cut today. I worked only about five hours this morning. This doesn’t usually wear me down so much. However, we almost got the day off, so the five hours seemed like an eternity. Not to mention that I had only seen my children for about two hours this week at that point. My total sleep hours from Monday night totaled about 22. This doesn’t count the times I fell asleep on the couch trying to spend time with Mary.

Come to think of it, the boat worked more buoys than my 22 hours. I think we did 23 this week. That includes the one we accidentally worked. While we were hauling chain on Grave’s #13, we snagged the chain from the 1992 version of Grave’s. After 15 years sitting at the bottom, that thing was ripe. It still is. When we pulled in yesterday, Deck Force parked it over by the Thunder Bay. It smelled even worse in the 70 degree sun at 7am this morning. Thank God the wind picked up eventually.

I had duty on Tuesday. I only had my signature twice in the logs because we didn’t get in until 9pm. It was my shortest duty day ever. Keven is still breaking in as a watchstander. If I had a long week, he had an unbearable week. He had duty on Sunday and Wednesday, and he’ll have it again tomorrow. He also had to learn how to cook all week. He’s progressing well. Thursday night he served his first meal that was entirely his. It was Baked Ziti (or, more properly a Fake-Baked Ziti as Rachel Ray would put it). He did a bang-up job and the crew loved it.

One thing I have noted as Keven’s been working to learn his job: staying out of the way to let people learn can be extremely difficult when quality might suffer. The last thing I want for the crew is for them to work a 10-hour-pre-dinner day, come in to a crappy, cold, or late meal, and then go out for another 4 hours of work. The last thing I want for Keven is to feel like crap after it happens. But this is all part of setting his feet on fire; he needs the experience, he needs the confidence, and he especially needs the built in pressure that the meal hours naturally create.

Meanwhile I need to have patience and discipline. I have to keep out of the way most of the time to let him work through things. I also need to step in before he gets crushed by an experience that would retract from his development. It’s a very fine line. I imagine this is what a baseball manager might go through with a pitcher struggling on the mound. When do you pull him when waiting to long might destroy his confidence, and acting to quickly might do the same?