MrWhatsit just got hired by the post office. Now, before continuing, I must be clear that his being hired is making us both do backflips of joy at the prospect of now being able to actually pay our bills and maybe even go catch a movie every once in awhile. It is overall a very, very good thing.
But, for the time being, he’s going to be working as a clerk, and it looks like his hours will be something like 4 AM to 1 PM on a lot of days. This is a big change for us. Our previous daily schedule involved getting the kids to bed around 9 or 10 PM, going to bed ourselves around 11 PM, and then getting up sometime between 6-8 AM. Now… well, my schedule is going to be basically the same, but MrWhatsit needs to get to bed by like 8 or 9 PM, if he wants to realistically be able to function the next morning. I’m having some trouble adjusting to the new schedule.
He is also scheduled to work most weekends (he gets two days off a week, but not consecutively, and usually not Saturday or Sunday). So that is kind of crummy too. And, we only have one car, so for now I’m kind of stranded home with the two kids (I telecommute and work during their naps and for a few hours after MrWhatsit gets home) during the day. We can go on walks, but the public library is the only thing in walking distance in this small town, and there is no bus service.
Anyhoo. Basically my question is just whether any of the rest of you have undergone a change like this and how you handled it. Was it no big whoop or was there a lengthy adjustment period, or what?
We both work odd shifts. I work 5p-2a, Saturday through Tuesday. He works…well, it changes every month. Right now he’s on an inpatient service, so he’s going in about 7a and coming home anywhere from 5:30 to 7:00p through the week, plus a 30-hour day on alternate Fridays and Saturdays. We pretty much only see each other between the time he comes home and the time he falls asleep Wed-Fri, and between the time I get up and the time I go to work on Saturday and Sunday. Oh, and Mondays after he’s been on call on a Saturday. (I usually get up early and we go to lunch and maybe do a bit of shopping before I go to work. It’s nice.)
Maybe it was because we’d had a chance to get used to not seeing much of each other during his intern year before I started working nights, but it was never that big an adjustment for us aside from me resetting my body clock. (My god, you wanna talk about cranky…) All I can really tell you on that one is that you have to make the most of what time you do get to spend together.
As far as the stranded issue goes, I’m not quite seeing the problem. He’s off completely two days during the week, giving you free access to the car, and on the other days he’s home early in the afternoon, giving you the rest of the day to do any running you want/need to do. And if it’s that small a town, pretty much everything (what there is of it ) ought to be within walking distance.
We do, sort of; while we both have flexible work hours, different things work for us:
I have to be home in time to pick up our son from daycare. I commute 35 miles through San Francisco East Bay traffic, and I HATE rush hour. To avoid it, I work 6:30 - 2:30 and skip lunch. I have to get up at 5:30 to manage this, but I get home by 3:30 most days so I can take a nap before picking the kid up at 5:00. I am, nonetheless, pretty cranky all the time because i am never rested.
My wife takes our son to day care in the morning before she goes to work; she hates getting up early, and the kid’s a bit of a night owl, so she sleeps in until 7:00 or 7:30, and heads to work as quickly as possible. She usually doesn’t get there until 9:00, or even 10:00. She has an 8-hour work day including lunch, so she gets to leave at 5:00. This leaves her driving 45 miles during the middle of rush hour: across San Francisco and the Bay Bridge, up I-80, across the Carquinez Bridge, and into Napa County. I don’t see her until 6:30 at the earliest, sometimes as late as 8:00. She is not a cranky person, but she’s getting sick a lot because she is never rested.
Our son is 6 months old. He spends half of his time asleep, another third in daycare, and about 4 hours at home and awake on weeknights. My wife has cut back to a four-day work week so that she can stay home with him on Fridays. Weekends are when we get to do the housework and the shopping (most of it). He eats, sleeps, pees, poops, and plays. Sometimes he cries, but he is mostly happy and healthy. Because he’s rested. The little shit…
Well, the being stranded thing isn’t so much about me getting alone time, or time to run necessary errands, or whatever. As you say, I can accomplish that stuff when MrWhatsit is home. It’s more about not being able to take the kids to the park, or up to Grandma’s house for lunch, or whatever. It’s a small town but it’s not that small, and I’m not walking over two miles to get to the park with a 2-year-old and a 5-month-old. Anyway, this will hopefully become a moot issue soon, because we’re moving as soon as we can find a rental place nearer to where MrWhatsit is working. Right now he has a 1.5-hour commute each way, which is not helping. In the new city, which is much larger, there is bus service and we’re looking for a place that is within walking distance of parks, the library, etc.
My hubby works from 4 am to anywhere from 9am-1:30pm for UPS scanning and labeling packages.
It’s been almost one year and we still have no set schedules for sleep.
We don’t have kids either, so that probably makes it easier on us.
He catches a ride to work and then I’ll pick him up if he has time, or he’ll catch a bus home.
It sucks, but like your situation, it’s paying the rent.
I used to work 6am to 2pm four days a week. Ardred worked 4pm to 11pm four days a week. We rarely saw each other for any real quality time. It’s hard to work around.
It sounds like you’ll have some time together, and dinnertime is especially important with small kids.
I recently lucked into a temporary M-F mixed days and afternoons schedule (plus 7 x 24 call outs).
Before that, it’s been 15 years of odd schedules. Public safety being a 7 x 24 business, it ain’t exactly easy to make things work, but ya do what ya gotta do.
It’s a constant strain on Mrs. Jockey, but she reluctantly adapts. We’ve no kids though, so it’s infinately simpler.
Working for the post office though, there’s plenty of room to advance, before too long Mr. Whatsit could be working a normal schedule in a different job class, or even transfer out to a larger station, where living is easier.
No magic bullet though, you do what you can, and the rest falls into place.
Mr. Amanita works a three-week rotating schedule which starts on Thursdays…
Week 1 - 9am-5pm Th/F; off Sa/Su; 9am-5pm M/Tu; 11am-8pm W
Week 2 - 11am-8pm Th/F; off Sa/Su; 11am-8pm M/Tu; off W
Week 3 - 3pm-12am Th/F/Sa/Su; off M/Tu/W; on call throughout week
It doesn’t bother him, because he prefers going to bed late and sleeping later in the morning. We don’t have children, so the only thing we have to be careful of is making sure that we have time together. If I’m going to the gym in the mornings before work, I go to bed no later than 10pm. If we’re not careful, we can end up just waving to each other as he comes in and I go off to sleep.
I work 4:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., Tuesday through Saturday nights; the jillelope works varying hours, usually between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Fortunately, we both have Sundays and Mondays off, so we can do couple-y stuff together. Even more fortunately, I’m quitting this goddam job in a couple weeks.
And most fortunately, we’re crazy about each other, so we consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have each other around at all.
)