A Child Of Atom

I remember vaguely from a long ago psych class that there was once an experiment where the scientists put a large number of rats into a small cage to see how they would react to limited space. Inevitably they became aggressive and began killing one another off until an equilibrium between population and space was reached and they calmed down again.

I believe that two months is about the limit that humans can withstand similar conditions. The last change over went smoothly with a minimum of strife and bitching. It came just at the end of the two month mark. This change over, and the previous two weeks have been full of back biting and mean comments, snappy responses and snarky attitudes, a general disdain towards one another's work, and an overall feeling of negativity. We have been living, working, eating, playing, bitching, griping, fucking, and whining together for 10 weeks now. The entire crew has spent nearly every waking hour of that time together, in close quarters, and not exactly ideal living conditions. We've passed the stage of polite strangers and come to the stage of dysfunctional family trapped together for a long holiday.

The great news is that this is NOT the end... oh, no... there's two more weeks and another show worth of this. I have my eye on which rats I want to kill off to regain my space, and I'm sure that the rest of them do too. We'll see who comes out on top of the rat heap.