The Thread Title made me think you worked with a shovel & networked with pallbearers.
Nastybad Daerlyn! No fool with yo’ Uncle Bosda! 
dwc1970: During the day, one agent will usually take about twenty to thirty calls, with about ten-fifteen people working the peak hours (mid to late afternoon). On the graveyard shift, one agent will take five to ten calls, and often most of those will be one or two people who just can’t get something to work, or got told something they didn’t like and are calling back in the hopes of a different answer :rolleyes:. We generally have two people working the shift, except for one night of the week when we have three. No supervisors, though.
We make an extra dollar an hour as a shift premium. The daylight savings issue is handled the same way as at your sister’s company.
My meal times are iffy. I usually only eat one ‘full meal’ a day just before work, then snack every couple of hours on whatever’s handy.
I seem to be able to filter outdoor noises while sleeping with no trouble, but noises inside my apartment will wake me. The phone doesn’t ring too often, thankfully, and is more likely to wake my roomate than me, since she has an extension in her bedroom and I don’t. Unfortunately, the two of us have a fundamental difference of opinion on what constitutes ‘loud’ in terms of television volume, so I’ll occasionally get woken by that, stomp out of my room, turn the volume down without a word, and stomp back to bed. 
panache45: Daytime callers? My mother. She’s a morning person, and when I was finishing work at midnight last year, I couldn’t get across to her the fact that I was not going to be up and chatty at nine am. Now I talk to her right after work, and my problem is friends who were used to me having been up for a few hours by noon, now calling and making my roomate wake me up. There have been many death threats resulting.
Tamerlane: I tried the split schedule for a few weeks, and then discovered that not being feline, cat-naps just didn’t work for me. When you say swing shift, do you mean 2 to 10 am or pm? I worked 3.30 to midnight for several months and discovered that suited me fine.
Bosda: 
I’m terribly sorry. Can you ever forgive me?
Cats get along by sleeping 18 hours a day. If got 18 hours in cat-naps every day I’d probably be fine, too :D.
At my job…
Dayshift: 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Swingshift: 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Graveshift: 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Days are fine if you’re an early riser, as you have much of the afternoon left after you get off. Unfortunately its also the most hectic working conditions ( usually not the heaviest workload, paradoxically ).
Swing is great physically, like I said. Many people love it. Sleep in, have lunch, go to work leisurely pre-traffic, get home at a decent hour and sleep nights, far less bullshit than days ( winding down first couple of hours, then quiet as the “normals” leave 
). More money. However social life is difficult at best and personally I find it hard to get motivated to run errands at 11 a.m. .
Grave - Quiet, low-stress ( when things aren’t fucking up and even then it is manageable ), more daylight hours than swing to do things if necessary. Even more money. But physically wearing and difficult for most.
- Tamerlane
I don’t have any questions, just jealousy! I LUUUUUVED night shift when I worked it way back in the 80s. I’m a night owl, going back as far as being a little tiny kid I can remember having a helluva time getting to sleep at night, and having all my energy and brain power at it’s optimum after 7 or 8pm.
Best shift in the world. We used to work midnight to 8am. I’d go home and sleep from 830 or 9am to about 3 and then be awake for the rest of the day.
I LOVE being fully, completely awake, with hours of awake and ability to think clearly time behind me. I’m at my very best on nights. Lucky you!!!
I too work away from the yellow face. I work at a large and well-known Home Improvement Warehouse, and I love the hours.
An obvious problem associated with working nights is that “dayshifters” assume that all of night crew is a bunch of lazy deviants. A few night crew guys are, but most of the lazy guys don’t last long. Either they quit, get fired, or - more commonly - change shifts to days, after they find out that the work is a LOT harder on nights.
Not everybody on nights is there out of desperation. Many of us just function better this way. I personally do not like to have a manager over my shoulder constantly while I am working. I also do not like customers at all. Being on nights means that I have to do a lot more work than on days, but it is worth it. However, I do still hear (quite often) comments like, " I wish I could work nights and do nothing all shift". There is no changing that perception it seems.
One of the greatest things about graveyard shift is that you feel like you share a world with the day people, but you get to have it in the off-peak hours. It’s kind of like Disneyland in the winter. I love seeing the traffic all backed up on I-5 south, as I am cruising I-5 north in the morning. It makes me smile every time.
As far as getting errands done during the day, I have never had a problem with it: either I take care of things after I get off work in the morning, or I go to bed early, get up in the afternoon and hit the places I need to. I had a much harder time with it when I worked days. I couldn’t get to many things because I was at work. That would mean I would have to waste my lunch, or leave a little early to get to places. No thanks.
I work nights (11:30 - 7:30 A.M) and I love it. It is my shift. I also sleep a split 3 or 4 hours when I get off and 4 or 5 before work. I’ve done this for al long long time and it works for me. During the day i turn the phone off and I am not above hanging up on people. They know my schedule ( or they soon learn). I eat when I’m hungry, it could be two meals or five.
Another night shift worker checking in, I work as a Hotel Night Auditor. It is quiet at night no supervisors to look over my shoulder all the time is really nice.
Sleeping is easy during the day, all the neighbor kids are in school and in the summer I have them trained not to come near my house under threat of being eaten by that crazy cat lady at the end of the road, Me. Although most of my friends think it is odd for me to be awake during the middle of the night they also think it is cute that we have the changing of the guard at my house. I get home from work at 8 am and get the boyfriend up for work at 9 am which is when I go to bed…and then he is getting ready for bed when I am getting ready for work.
My only real complaint is when they decide to have training classes and staff meetings at work they seem to think that 2 pm is the perfect time for them, I keep telling them that they should try having them at 2 am and then they would find out why I very seldom make it to them.
But the best part is when I am driving home going north on 101 and am looking at the parking lot that is the southbound side of the freeway, with everyong headed into San Francisco, I just shake my head and smile at them.