The inside story at Nevis Labs, Part 7.

When the school year began I started going into work earlier to avoid a traffic jam on the way home, and things quieted down in the lab. I was leaving about 20 minutes before Tom and Iliya arrived, but when I was delayed I was happy to see them. I didn't see Todd often, but he put aside whatever feelings he might have had and acted professionally. I did the same.

We were told about a month in advance that we'd have two weeks off at Christmas - the week before and the week after - mostly because of a shortage of glass. It would be a welcome respite from our 6-day-a-week grind.

On December 14 Ken sent an email that included:

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As most of you know, we are suffering problems with the schedule for building FM2. Iliya has offered to build during the Christmas week, so I am trying to figure out if we can support him. This would require Zeshan to mix and lay epoxy, Kurt to remove hardware, Doug to scan glass, and Marcela to stage glass.

To see if this is possible, let me know your availability on the following days that Iliya could possibly work. We would not work all of these days even if it were possible.

Sat Dec 18
Sun Dec 19
Mon Dec 20
Tue Dec 21
Wed Dec 22
Thu Dec 23
Sun Dec 26
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I wasn't excited about it, but I told Ken that I'd be available when I was needed. A few days later the holiday schedule was posted and I was working ALL of those days. I felt betrayed. I had volunteered based on the idea that we'd only be working a few of the days. It was particularly important to me because Twila was going back to Colorado on January 4, and I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.

I assumed that the decision to work 7 days had been made upstairs somewhere. Since Ken was whom I felt most comfortable with, I wrote to him to say that I was irritated that I'd been misled. He told me that he was responsible for the schedule, and I was shocked. I reminded him that he'd said we would not work all of the days. I expressed some anger, then told him that I had vented and that was that, no hard feelings. But it did affect my relationship with Ken, who was considerably more distant thereafter.