Freakishly Linked To The Concept Of Time

I am the author of this story.

A quick update: the coworker from the previous story has left, and the one in this story is his direct replacement. Also, the six-day workweeks have ended for my production cell, for anyone curious.

It’s the end of the night, and I have to begin my cleaning procedures and starting paperwork. We’ve missed our goal count, which isn’t unusual, and with all the problems production had, there’s no physical way to make the goal at this point, so I just begin shutdown three full minutes early.

Me: “Count was 241 tonight.”

Coworker: “[Coworker #2] is still going, though.”

Me: “I don’t know why you said that like it matters or something. We’re done.”

Coworker: “Don’t you wanna clear off the line?”

Me: “For five? No. We’d still be more than twenty off count. We made 241. We’re done.”

Coworker: “You do know it isn’t even 10:00, right?”

Me: “It’s 9:57. That’s the same thing.”

Coworker: *Laughing* “What the h***? It’s not 10:00 for another three minutes!”

Me: “Listen to me: 9:45 is ‘almost 10:00’ and 9:50 is ‘10:00’. Time is a meaningless construct, and if I don’t keep time like that, it loses all meaning to me and I’ll be here until Monday without realizing how long it’s been.”

Related:
Freakishly Linked To Your Coworkers