Work, Here I Come!
Sat, January 26, 2008
Filed under: Humor, Work
Who needs alarms clocks? I have dad who’s got an amazing talent for nagging. He literally nags me awake: tickling, light switching on, TV on max volume, or just plain shouting… it eventually works. That way I can get up in time to waste away a whole hour before I have to leave for work.
This week, dad had to leave town for work, so like most regular people, I had to rely on my phone alarm1. Dutifully, I set it to 6:30am, so I could be at work by 8:00am2.
zzzzz………..zzzzzzz…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
All of a sudden I bolt up, look at the phone and notice it’s 6:20am. I switch the alarm off, quickly go to bathroom… only to return 2 seconds later, deciding to sleep at least 15 more minutes. To be sure I don’t fall back asleep, I switched the light on. As if by mistake, my eyes slide over the clock on the wall which reads… 3:10am ! WTF 
?! I grab my phone… and sure enough, that says 3:10am as well.
Sighing happily, I reactivate the alarm, switch off the light and go back to sleep. Once again I wake up, sleepily reach for my phone, notice it’s 6:27am. I keep the phone in my hand and wait till the alarm starts ringing. Once it does, I switch it off and get up. After a scalding shower3, I sleepily trudge back and start dressing. A cursory glance at the clock on the wall reveals that it’s actually 6:10am… Bewildered, I grab my phone. I could have sworn it rang.
I flip it open, and obviously it’s still 6:10am. To add insult to injury, the little alarm icon was still present, a sign that it had yet to ring. This time though, I didn’t bother going back to sleep. I did ponder leaving for work earlier, but then even I found that indecent. I contented myself with aimlessly browsing Youtube. Come on: what else is there to do at 6am?? Aside sleeping, of course.
What are your most efficient sleeping waking up methods?
___________
1 my alarm clocks have all met their untimely demise at my hands. Interestingly enough, not because they woke me up. I was in the midst of cleaning… 
2 I actually need around 20 minutes of comfortably walk from home to work. Nevertheless, I need 1 hour to properly wake up 
3 you won’t catch me in a cold shower… ever… probably. Even if it’s 40 degrees Celsius outside, I’m still liable to take a hot shower. 
I have two alarm clocks. My phone is usually set to 10-15 minutes before my clock radio. To switch off the phone alarm I don’t need to get up but clock radio is placed so that I have to get up (so that I wouldn’t go back to bed but to shower). Still sometimes I somehow end up sleeping too long, usually when I really should be in time
.
Vera:
… my dad has to wake up at 6:15am every day, and he has some 4 alarm clocks going off one after the other. Mom says she’s got used to them, and can blissfully sleep through them 
Firstly, I set my phone alarm, radio alarm and clock alarm.
All three make a helluva noise.
Unfortunately, I have a tendency to get up, turn all three off and get back into bed.
Either that, or I set them for ten minutes later, and then ten minutes later set them ten minutes later again, and so on.
My last port of call is my mum, who drags me out of bed when she gets up, which is pretty late so I’m usually in a huge rush.
Vera: must love backups
I don’t have any. Alarm clock doesn’t work with me or my mum or my brother, so we just, well, set about 10 of them for 6:30 and then get up at 6:55 (by accident) and then run to school. It has happened, though, that when I was home alone I sleeped trough all of the alarms, waking up at 11 a.m., which is about 4 hours too late. I have amazing sleeping abilities.
Vera: I had nightmares of waking up at 14:00, on a school day which started at 8:00. Thankfully, it’s only a dream so far.
Weird.
I’ve been using an alarm clock since age 6. My mom was pretty good with that - taught me at young age to use an alarm-clock
(maybe she wasn’t in the mood to wake me?) When it rings the radio goes on. And seeing the last few days only very depressing news came on the radio (man, what a depressing way to start a day - you have a bad mood) (News was about Heath Ledger and other deaths…) I put a CD in my alarm clock. Now I wake up to “Die Ärzte” 
Vera: *sings* Hallo mein Schatz ich liebe dich, du bist die einzige für mich…. Yep, sound like a good way to wake up.
Something similar happened to me once. I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to bed early. I set my phone’s alarm, and went to sleep, forgetting to turn off my bedside lamp. When my alarm rang, I picked it up, turned it off, and threw it to the ground- rolling over, to sleep again. About 8 hours later, I woke up, muttered an obscenity, and reached for my phone to see how late it was. Turns out, it was only 6am! I was confused for a bit.
Until I checked my “missed call,” list. Turns out, the first “alarm,” had been my friend calling me to make plans for the next evening! Instead of deactivating the alarm, I’d hung up on her, and she’d heard me go “Ugh…. shit. F*ck off!” Lol.
Vera:
poor friend…
I have a digital alarm clock (giant green numbers!) and also use my phone alarm. Curiously enough, I don’t hear my alarm clock unless I set my phone alarm the day before. Ever. And I don’t hear my alarm clock unless it’s on radio alarm.
Waking up at six is no vacation. D:
Vera: I guess it’s psychological. If you set it the day before you keep thinking “Oh I hope it rings, I hope it rings”. I generally had dreams like that when I had to wake up early.
I’m so awesome I have an internal alarm clock. On weekdays I usually wake up half an hour before I’m supposed to, and then just turn off my sole alarm clock which I wake up instead of the other way around. Unfortunately, on weekends I can’t sleep a minute past 10 in the morning. Can’t have it all, I guess.
Vera: I’m not being woken up during the weekends, yet I’m still up at 9:30… usually. I used to have an internal alarm clock during high school, but with the weird timetable at university, it got fed up with me
My mom’s my alarm, since I can’t wake up to anything else but the knock on the door. Alarms work only errr, once in a while?
Vera: oooh… those are annoying. Dad also does that, and I do my best to burrow deeper under the covers.
My mobile is an efficient alarm, serenading me with Elliot Minor
. It’s set to go off at 6am on the weekdays, with the exception of Wednesday when it’s set on 7am - the beauty of Sony Ericcsons ^^. It does the job, although I do have a tendency to wake up (as my brother says) at silly hours. 
Hah, yeah I used to browser Youtube but now it’s usually checking news on the weather and traffic XD.
Vera: mine just sounds like an old English public phone. Despite being a fancy phone (Sony Ericson too as a matter of fact), it only has 10 ring tones, so the variety for most annoying alarms is not large. But it’s annoying enough so I wake up. With nice songs I’d be tempted to just listen to them
I used to rely only on my mom, which is bad because I wouldn’t listen and then she’d keep coming back and I’d still be in bed and then she’d yell at me and I’d be in trouble.
So then I got a new alarm clock, for which the alarm is always on unless I turn it off, rather than my old clock, where the alarm was always off unless I turned it on (which of course I never remembered to do). So now I have it worked out pretty well. I set my alarm for a time like 6:30 or 6:40 and make an important thing out of pressing the snooze button and all that, but don’t actually get out of bed until 7:00. This goes with my idea that if you wake up early and press the snooze button more times, it creates the illusion that you’re sleeping more than you actually are. (I’m almost positive this doesn’t work, but I do it anyway).
Of course, there are the times when I sleep through it, or forget that my alarm is my alarm and instead lie there listening to the radio, and my mom or dad still come in to nag me most days anyway. And sometimes, even when I get out of bed I can do nothing but lie on the floor.
Basically, I hate mornings.
Vera: disabling the alarm is not that easy, so it does wake me up a bit… till I fumble with the buttons. Oh and you’ll catch a cold on the floor
I don’t need an alarm.I usually just think about what time I want to wake up at the night before and my mind natrually wakes me up,missing by 10 minutes more or less.Obviously I own a godly gift
Vera: sometimes I manage that too… but you’ve seen at what expense. I wake up 3 hours before the necessary time
Ah, I never thought of marketing companies. I doubt they’d hire me … there are hundreds of art, design, marketing and media graduates out there wanting work, but it wouldn’t hurt me to try eh?
If I am unsucessful with my efforts, my next door neighbour designs web sites, and a few other local businesses, I’ll send CVs to them, and if they have no vacancies, I’ll ask for some free work experience for a few days. If I can add to my CV half a dozen weeks worth of experience it might look better.
And, relating to your post, my Dad is just the sae, perhaps worse. I get told off for switching my laptop on, constantly nagged at about my dog, ordered and commanded around like there’s no tomorrow! I wouldn’t have him any other way, and I’m just glad he is still with us after our drama over Christmas…!
Also, Nokia must have some kind of conspiracy, my boyfriend and I noticed that sometimes out phones go off, and occasionally it doesn’t at all… odd!
Also, I hate my real alarm clock - if I use it I throw it across the room but it won’t EVER break!!
Vera: you never know until you try. As I’ve seen, innovative ideas are much more important than fancy art. My parents have Nokia, it takes them even two days to send a text message. A while ago mom sent dad a message asking if she should warm dinner. Dad go it two days later
This sounds sadistic, almost painful. I had a couple of such episodes, ironically at the days when I was most tired and I can only feel for you!
Normally, I have serious issues with my sleeping pattern, dreams, falling asleep so I’d better not give any advice here.
BTW, Latest news has the wrong year on it, I bet you wanted to say 2008, not 2007?
Vera: I’m only like this when I have to wake up and I’m not sure I will be able to. Er yeah… 2008
fixed, thanks. Good thing Wordpress adds the date automatically, or I’d still be in 2007 
parents all the way
for my alarm… I curse myself for setting it and then I click snooze. lol. I want clocky for this…
Vera: um… is clocky a special type of clock?
I know this has nothing to do with this entry, but I saw an ad for this today and thought of you. Someone invented a vacuum cleaner specifically for getting rid of bugs.
Vera: nice… I’m assuming it costs a fortune though…
aww..I think it’s cute how your dad wakes you
annoying, yes, but cute..something you’ll remember years down the road. That’s so bizarre, how you kept waking at odd hours, you were probably dreaming, or just really paranoid, that you wouldn’t wake up on your own, without your dad’s help 
I was always a heavy sleeper, so to wake me for school, my mom would do all the same, even jump on the bed. When all else failed, she douced me with a pail full to the brim, of ice cold water. I felt offended, and showed her up, by sleeping another 2 hours. I was late for school, but she never poured water on me again. lol.
My only method of waking these days, is my children, and, I’m still a heavy sleeper, so, they sit on me and scream in my ear
Vera: hehe. I’m sure the last one is the most effective
Sounds like some of my mornings.
I use my phone as my alarm too. I don’t know how to set my alarm clock in my room. lol. When my father is home and is feeling good he will do the same thing yours does. But he is usually gone during the week and I’m up before he is on the weekends. 
Vera: every morning… ouch that must be annoying.
Gosh. I have one of those big alarm clocks with ringing ears and it literally makes me jump out of bed when it starts ringing. (Really really loud) So ever since I bought this alarm clock I haven’t been late… Unless I forgot to turn the alarm ON in the first place.
But when I had only had my cellphone to reply on, I kept pressing snooze.
Vera: y alarm sounds like an old phone ringing. I always close it, lest my parents got up and think someone was phoning us … though its ring is different
haha so you were just dreaming that the alarm rang?
When i have to go to school or have anything planned I have my alarm clock and my cellphone alarm on. BUT in total I have about five alarms because my alarm clock has two, so i set it at ten mins apart. My cellphone I set ten mins after the last alarm and another one after that. My last alarm i set for what time I have to be out the door.
I have five alarms on my phone but I think setting all of them is a little bit of an overkill. So I’ll settle for five.
Sadly I too have to get up an hour or so earlier to wake up.
Vera: yep… I was so annoyed. I’ve always thought it’s a waste of time to sleep so much… but on the other hand it feels so nice… *sighs*
My alarm is good at waking me up, the trick is not falling asleep again, even though it’s still going.
The only foolproof way of getting me up is my dad. In my vunerable, sleepy state, he is quite scary. He likes to either yell really loud or knock really loud on my bed frame.
Vera: oh yes… I can wake up relatively easily, but I fall back asleep just as easily
Usually, what someone has to do is to simply switch on the lights and I’d be awake in an instant. (I am especially sensitive to light when I’m asleep.)
My handphone alarm works all the time for me so far. Well, almost. If I hit “cancel alarm” instead of “snooze” by mistake, then I’m in for big trouble - like what happened last year when I awoke at 12 noon for a 12 noon class.
My friend was constantly ringing me on the phone, and I was snoozing her calls like an alarm clock!
I always have my alarm clock set just in case, but usually I can rely on my body clock. It somehow adapts so that I wake up in time to get ready for almost anything. I think I’m a witch
Usually my dog’s barking does the trick. That, or my parent’s immensely loud voices in the kitchen. -_-
Vera: heh I’m good at ignoring a lot of such things.
That is extremely…weird and funny at the same time. I usually just set my alarm clock at 6.15 am before I go to bed. In case I forget it or something goes wrong, there is always Mom - always awake by the dawn of day - to gently tell me it is time to wake up (read: to practically drag me out of my bed). I do enjoy waking up in the middle of the night, so I can look on the clock and see I still have 3 or 4 hours of sleep left. It makes me extremely happy.
I also have this weird morning habit. In case it’s really cold, I usually wrap myself into my blanket and roll off my bed that way, obviously ending up wrapped up on the floor. For some reason, that helps me to stay warm.
Vera: my dad’s last resort is stealing my blanket
ah, tell me about problem getting up. I have that problem too. alarms WONT wake me up. it’s my mum that has to nag in the morning to wake me up. *sigh* how do they do it? waking up early by themselves. I just can’t do it. sleep is my life. haha. ok, that might be too exaggerating. :p
Vera: oh I do eventually wake up… especially when my mom comes and starts a mile-long preaching about how we waste our lives sleeping.
Oh man, that sucks. But, I feel your pain, that has happened to me on numerous occasions. Usually it’s just me waking up way before I need to. haha.
I have one of those old alarm clock radios and always make sure that the volume is up really high, oddly enough I can sometimes sleep through it, so I put it up really loud, to the point where everyone in the house wakes up. Hehe, everyone loves me so much!
Vera: that’s one of my fears with alarms… waking up the whole house when it’s just me who has to get up
I can never wake up to the alarm clock. I always turn it off and then just keeps on sleeping, it’s become a routine: sleep, alarm rings, turns off, sleep again. It’s now to the point that I don’t even realize that I’m turning off the alarm clock >.<
However, I’m lucky that my dad wakes up early and usually wakes me up on time. I don’t know what I would do when I go to college next year though -_-;;;; Hoping for a roommate who is an early riser
btw, I took the liberty of linking your blog, hope that’s okay. It’s just easier for me to remember the url (:
Vera: of course it is OK, thank you
I have a phone that I use, and even then I wake up about an hour before I have it set to go off.
Not on the weekends though, I can sleep an entire day if I want to.