Harry's Firefighter Schedule

The schedule repeats in an 18-day cycle, and is subject to absences and substitutions. "Midnight" starts at 12 and ends at 8; "Day" is 8 to 4; "Evening" is 4 to midnight. The first name in each group is the watch leader.

Day 1

Midnight
Cp. Peter
Colleen
Nellie
Ben

Day
Cm. John
Matt
Roy
Marco

Evening
Tarah
Lars
Brandy
Adam

*****

Day 2

Midnight
Cp. Peter
Joelle
Nellie
Ben

Day
Cm. John
Matt
Roy
Albert

Evening
Tarah
Lars
Laws
Adam

*****

Day 3

Midnight
Cp. Peter
Joelle
Nellie
Ben
Marco

Day
Cm. John
Brandy
Roy
Albert

Evening
Tarah
Colleen
Laws
Adam

*****

Day 4

Midnight
Matt
Joelle
Nellie
Ben
Marco

Day
Cm. John
Brandy
Lars
Albert

Evening
Tarah
Colleen
Laws
Adam

*****

Day 5

Midnight
Matt
Joelle
Roy
Ben
Marco

Day
Cm. John
Brandy
Lars
Albert

Evening
Cp. Peter
Colleen
Laws
Adam

*****

Day 6

Matt
Joelle
Roy
Marco

Day
Tarah
Brandy
Lars
Albert

Evening
Cp. Peter
Colleen
Laws
Nellie

*****

Day 7

Midnight
Cm. John
Matt
Roy
Marco

Day
Tarah
Brandy
Lars
Adam

Evening
Cp. Peter
Colleen
Nellie
Ben

*****

Day 8

Midnight
Cm. John
Matt
Roy
Albert

Day
Tarah
Lars
Laws
Adam

Evening
Cp. Peter
Joelle
Nellie
Ben

*****

Day 9

Midnight
Cm. John
Brandy
Roy
Albert

Day
Tarah
Colleen
Laws
Adam

Evening
Cp. Peter
Joelle
Nellie
Ben
Marco

*****

Day 10

Midnight
Cm. John
Brandy
Lars
Albert

Day
Tarah
Colleen
Laws
Adam

Evening
Matt
Joelle
Nellie
Ben
Marco

*****

Day 11

Midnight
Cm. John
Brandy
Lars
Albert

Day
Cp. Peter
Colleen
Laws
Adam

Evening
Matt
Joelle
Roy
Ben
Marco

*****

Day 12

Midnight
Tarah
Brandy
Lars
Albert

Day
Cp. Peter
Colleen
Laws
Nellie

Evening
Matt
Joelle
Roy
Marco

*****

Day 13

Midnight
Tarah
Brandy
Lars
Adam

Day
Cp. Peter
Colleen
Nellie
Ben

Evening
Cm. John
Matt
Roy
Marco

*****

Day 14

Midnight
Tarah
Lars
Laws
Adam

Day
Cp. Peter
Joelle
Nellie
Ben

Evening
Cm. John
Matt
Roy
Albert

*****

Day 15

Midnight
Tarah
Colleen
Laws
Adam

Day
Cp. Peter
Joelle
Nellie
Ben
Marco

Evening
Cm. John
Brandy
Roy
Albert

*****

Day 16

Midnight
Tarah
Colleen
Laws
Adam

Day
Matt
Joelle
Nellie
Ben
Marco

Evening
Cm. John
Brandy
Lars
Albert

*****

Day 17

Midnight
Cp. Peter
Colleen
Laws
Adam

Day
Matt
Joelle
Roy
Ben
Marco

Evening
Cm. John
Brandy
Lars
Albert

*****

Day 18

Midnight
Cp. Peter
Colleen
Laws
Nellie

Day
Matt
Joelle
Roy
Marco

Evening
Tarah
Brandy
Lars
Albert

*****

--M. J. Young

It suddenly becomes crystal clear why MJ's least favorite question is "What's his name?"

I laugh.

--M. J. Young

I never actually asked him to name everyone in my group, only to assure me they all had names.

Thank you for the extra work, MJ. Makes for a very shiny birthday present.

I remember I made a huge list of names once because I tired of making them up. One of the more onerous duties of a referee, if you ask me.

Well, somewhere I wrote of all kinds of ways to handle names of characters. I, too, had a list--mine was about ninety names to a page, about fourteen pages long. I have lost it, probably permanently. I gleaned names from the Bible, from credits on record albums, from claim forms at an insurance company, from misprints, and from just about everywhere, and parceled them out as needed, marking off those I had used but never having the time to organize them to prevent duplication.

I've also written about how to use characters without giving their names but their titles: the captain, the doorman, the mother, and so on.

I've confessed that E. R. Jones used standard names. If I recall correctly, you could walk into any stable in his world and call the stableboy "Bob", and you'd be right; and if you met a "Henry", you could be pretty sure he was a member in good standing of the local thieves' guild. That way he didn't have to remember the names--and neither did we.

In this particular case, though, I simply grabbed the crew list names from his scenario, and worked up from the bottom--it has maybe a score of "extra" names the referee can use to replace retiring or lost crew members. I rolled a die on a sixty/forty spread (sorry, Mike) for male versus female, and doctored the names accordingly. The real work was in figuring out how to lay them out in a logical pattern in which each member of the team works five days in a row and then gets forty hours off before starting another five days on an earlier shift, and there is never fewer than four people on a shift nor more than five. I also had to make sure that one of my designated watch leaders was on every shift, although for that I had the freedom to decide how many such watch leaders I would have. I was prepared to make it five; I think I succeeded with four.

When I did the layout, though, everyone was represented by a single letter of the alphabet; then I did global replacements to drop the names in in place of the letters, and a few patches where things were replaced that should not have been. So this is a copy of the page from the spreadsheet on which I did all that, spread out and reformatted for this medium.

Happy birthday, Harry. How old are you now?

(You are under no obligation to answer that; it's just what the song asks.)

--M. J. Young

Oh wow Osevens, I feel like a heel. I didn't even notice it was your birthday. For your present, I give you useless trivia. Did you know that the Happy Birthday song is still under copyright? That's why they can't sing it in restaurants. (Check Snopes.com if you're skeptical) Happy Birthday Osevens!!!

And MJ, I think you goofed. I seem to remember you saying that Henry was the stable boy. I can see why he would use it. It just seems like a stable boy's name for some reason.

(Doing Therapy)

Thank you both for the well-wishes. And for those who care, I'm 26. My Verser self is physically 24, but chronologically closer to 27.

Thank you both for the well-wishes.

Quite Welcome

And for those who care, I'm 26. My Verser self is physically 24, but chronologically closer to 27.

I think I'm actually chronologically older than my verser self.

(Doing Therapy)

I doubt it, John. Remember the year of blacksmithing? all the time you speed through while practicing your skills? etc.

Yeah, and the year at Pearl Harbor that I glossed over. Maybe he is older than me.

(Doing Therapy)

Happy 26th birthday anniversary Harry.

Hey guys can we stop derailing this thread? Nothing but love for you all, but, well, yeah...

I'm going to post that the fire happened on the day shift of

Day 10

Midnight
Cm. John
Brandy
Lars
Albert

Day
Tarah
Colleen
Laws
Adam

Evening
Matt
Joelle
Nellie
Ben
Marco

mostly because that will bump the thread to the top so I can reference it next time.