The Call Window

I've noticed a trend when it comes to getting called to work in the mornings.

There is a window of opportunity (well, I think of it more as a danger zone) when the sub caller calls.  (The district hasn't gotten one of those computerized systems in place.  It's a small district, so I have no idea if they ever will.)  It starts when the sub caller starts for the day.  It goes until about ten minutes after I can comfortably get up, dressed, and to the school on time (the later calls make for nerve-wracking mornings).

The danger zone lasts about a half hour.  I can get calls later (when the sub caller gets called late), but if I haven't been called in that half hour, I'm most likely not working that day.

Some mornings I can sleep through this time.  Other mornings I can not.

There are some lovely mornings when I wake up, look at the clock, and see the window of opportunity is long past.  While I'm disappointed, I don't have the panic of wondering if the phone will ring.

More often than not, if I'm awake during that half hour, I won't get called.

Yesterday, I was deep asleep in the middle of a dream when the phone woke me.  It was a little later than I would have liked, but it was work, and I was glad of that.

This morning, I woke ten minutes before the window.  I knew I wasn't going to get called, but of course, I couldn't go back to sleep.  I stared at my phone for the half hour, the ten minutes before, and about twenty minutes after.  Nothing.

I suppose I should have turned on the TV or something.  As it was, I was trying to fall back asleep, and I managed to do so once the danger zone was fully past.  But I was on pins and needles, waiting.  I knew I wouldn't get called (as I was awake), but there was a chance.

(It isn't a perfect system.  I only know I'd sleep through the whole window because I have done so in the past.  And there were one or two times when I got called when I was awake.  But these are the exceptions.)

It's one of the occupational hazards.  You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but I'm not.  But I'm working on it.  It's getting easier to sleep through that window of opportunity.  And once I can do that, I'm convinced that I'll get more calls.