My Worst Job Ever: Beacon-Warden

The Minas Tirith Star Telegraph
Year 2994 of the Third Age
An editorial by S.M. Smathers

Talk about your terrible jobs! When I saw that you were running a feature on the worst jobs in The White City and all of Gondor, I could not resist the urge to send in my experience with a terrible job. Now, don't get my wrong, I love my country and would love to wipe all the terrorists from Mordor and points east straight off the map, but my old job sucked. I applied to this job named "Mordor Battle Consultant", which admittedly sounds pretty freakin' sweet. I thought I would be like a general or something. But, alas, someone *cough* Denethor *cough* thought I would be better serving the country sent high up into the mountains as a Beacon-Warden! As you all know, the job of a Beacon-Warden is to watch the beacons on either side of your beacon and if one of the beacons on either side is lit, then I would have to light my beacon. Since no one would EVER attack Rohan, I spent all my time sitting at the beacon at Min-Rimmon, staring at the beacon towards Gondor.
Each of my shifts lasted three days straight through without sleep, staring at a beacon that was leagues and leagues away. The working conditions were awful as well! I had to wrap myself in five to ten blankets, just to keep from freezing. The only source of heat I had was the beacon that I was told only to light if I saw the previous beacon lit! Talk about an impossible situation. The commute was no good either because after my three day shift, my replacement would ride up on the company horse and take my place. I would ride the (very tired) company horse back to Minas Tirith, which took the greater part of one day. Furthermore, if my commute took me through the night, I feared for my life as there have been all sorts of goblins and orcs roaming through the woods at night. Luckily, I made it out of that job alive and intact.
Now I'm a Private Insurance Consultant at Osgiliath. We'll see how that works out!