No Match for Mother Nature

How do you avoid a screwed up crew change?

Of course, the correct answer would be, ”Don’t work on a boat.”

However, since that ship has sailed (see what I did there?).

Screwed up crew changes are a fact of life.

Sweep the leg!

Back to the original question…

How do you avoid a screwed up crew change?

You do a preemptive strike.

And I don’t mean we blow up some military base in the Middle East.

Although, I’m cool with that.

What I mean is... 

Before things get screwed up, you screw things up.

Lost yet?

Good.

After our ‘switch-a-roo’ crew changes for the holidays, we were finally supposed to be back on our regular rotation for Wednesday crew changes. However, it’s winter. And with it being winter, Mother Nature doesn’t always cooperate with our desire to go home to our families.

The current forecast for the Northeast (where +50% of the other crew comes from) is not looking good. Snow. Wind. Ice. Plague. Locusts. Typical Northeast winter weather. (Note: This is a link to my wife's blog. You should go there. It's funny and irreverent. You should leave comments. Plus, it comes with a money back guarantee.)

Quick! Go buy up all of the milk and eggs!

Which means flight delays, cancellations, and treacherous roads.

Well there's your problem right there.

The possibility of crew change getting screwed up was determined to be somewhere between “hell yeah” and “without a doubt”.

So, instead of waiting and dreading what we all knew was going to be the inevitable forthcoming debacle, we screwed up crew change ahead of time.

On purpose!

Take that!

Actually, it was a well thought out, discussed, calculated, and planned move.

No, really!  

Save the eggs.

We have all read the story about how Lake Charles, LA had decided to take over the #1 spot in F*#ked up crew changes (If you haven’t read it, HERE is the link. Click it. It won’t hurt. I’ll even wait for you to come back. Okay, now that we are up to speed…)

Once again, we will be in the Lake Charles area. Once again, the weather forecast is less than optimal. So instead of trying to get one of us hurt, killed, maimed, or just scared to death trying to pull off a crew change, that we were pretty sure was going to be screwed up even before we get to that point, we pushed it back a day.

Thursday crew change for the win! (again)

Sure, it’s not optimal. Sure, my wife is going to be angry. Sure, my kids are going to be disappointed. Sure, everyone’s plans are going to be messed up a little.

But it sure beats being dead. Or worse.

Which is smart.

Take that, crew change! You are no match for our intellect!