Away from the base
Well, it's nice to have a break from moon life for a few days - I'm on holiday leave! It's interesting how my coworkers reacted to my taking leave - some were especially irritated, most were indifferent and uncaring, and a few actually encouraged me to take the leave "while you still can". Oh, well, I knew when I took this job that it would be differnt from my planetside staff job :-)
After being a "staff weenie" for 5 years taking a job as a supervisor on the front line of our system looked like a bad move to a lot of my friends. But since I reported back to Moonbase Bravo I've been re-training to re-certify as a controller. Once I get recertified I' get a few weeks' training in the day-to-day supervision of our space traffic control operation and then I'll be turned loose as a supervisor - woohoo!
It's funny how controlling traffic has come back to me - in some ways it's like I haven't been gone for 7 years, but in other ways I still don't understand some of the things we're doing now. Take the new "regional" ships that are flying in and out of Earth's atmosphere - they're smaller than the big ships that have plowed through the sky for so long, but they're also slower so they get in the way. The new display and interface equipment still throws me, and coordinating things via the data stream instead of verbally just feels wrong. But I'm adapting to the changes and am confident that I'll be fine after I'm turned loose.
I'll post more when I get back from leave - Moonbase life is never boring and usually extremely interesting, so I'll have plenty to post about.
posted by Commander Holloway at 10:20 PM
