Either that, or everyone around me is taking stupid pills
I came back from 11 refreshing days of leave yesterday. The running joke all day was, "Oh, by the way, this/that/the other came up while you were gone and it's your job to work it. Now, the reality is most of it was really my stuff that had just piled up while I was gone, but it was still funny for everyone else to let me in on each piece of information a little at a time.
I found out that I have lock up duty this week. That's fine, because the last time before this recentl vacation, I had lock up during the week I was gone and forgot to make sure someone would cover for me. So, on the Monday of that week, my boss called me and asked who was going to do lock up in my place. He ended up having to get someone to cover for me. So, this week's lock up detail is me paying that person back and covering for them. The funny thing was that nobody told me this straight out. Two guys took turns dropping the clipboard and the keys off on my desk while I was doing something else.
I also found out that we had another Joint Language Training Exercise going on today. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem. I keep my station box stocked and ready to go. But, because of recent turnover, the Chief MLI gave my station to another MLI and gave me a new station. It really makes sense in the long run because my old station was the Maritime Interdiction Operations station and we now have a Navy MLI, so he is taking that one over. Also, since I've been here longer than the other MLI's I've had more experience and run more stations than any of them. It was just my luck that I got a station I hadn't actually run before. So, I spent a good bit of yesterday reading up on my material and getting my station boxes ready. I got paired with a sharp civilian instructor, too, so it's not too bad.
Back to the lock up crap. So, while I was gone, either the people in this building started taking a strong batch of stupid pills or the other MLIs haven't been doing lock up correctly. It was a late night lock up because it was a study hall night. I started my rounds at 2015 and it took me nearly an hour to do my building. Nearly half of the offices and classrooms had unlocked windows and doors. Many of the first floor windows were left wide open. We pride ourselves on the fact that we have the newest building on post and have some of the most advanced computer and digital equipment not only here at DLI, but anywhere in the world, as far as language programs go. And we just leave those windows open. It's true that we are on a closed military installation and service members don't steal from service members or the service, but in all honesty, we don't live in that perfect a world. In the two years I've been here, I've had students removed from class for being suicidal or for the protection of the students and staff around them. Some for both reasons. Making off with computer equipment isn't beyond some of the people here, military or otherwise.
So, I spent nearly an hour doing what should have been a 10 minute job. The silver lining is that when I moved on to the building that we share with the other Korean school, the lock up MLI for that school had already locked a couple of my doors. It only took about 10 minutes to finish my area of responsibility.
It's been a fairly hectic two days. I'm scheduled to go on a TDY for five days at the end of the month. I'm actually starting to dread what it will be like when I get back from that. HAHA!
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