This. Some people really just don’t understand that their 4PM is my 4AM, and that asking me to do something in the middle of the afternoon is equivalent to me waking them up in the dead of night and asking them to get their lazy asses out of bed and do me a favor. :mad:
I liked working the 11-7 shift, back when, and was OK with the 7-3 shift. I absolutely HATED the 3-11 shift.
Ah, rotating shifts! I knew them well! Is there anything else more damaging to the body clock?
A co-worker at the chemical plant summed it up thus, “You’re always going to the bed hungry and going to the table with a hard-on.”
I worked graveyard for maybe 13 or 14 years. First 11 p.m.-7 a.m., then ( the bulk of it ) 10-6. At the time I liked it. Pay premium ( first 8%, then 15% ), low hassle, it worked sorta well with college ( when I was still attending ) and I adjusted to it much better than average.
I never had any trouble sleeping in the daytime - in fact it eliminated the insomnia I used to be prone to. I did find with a little experimentation over the years that the absolute best practice was to go home and go to sleep immediately. No futzing around for an hour or two, no trying to run errands or do chores. Just be in bed within five minutes of walking in the door. By contrast the absolute worst practice was splitting your sleeping period, with a few hours in the morning, then trying to nap before work - bad idea. In fact napping before work generally didn’t work well for me, though necessity forced it on occasion.
So I liked it and generally handled it well. But as I got older I started to notice cyclical patterns of exhaustion starting to appear. I’d be fine for several weeks, then go into “zombie mode” for a week or two, then shake out of it again. I began “binge sleeping” a bit - going out for 12 hours at a time on the weekend like I was catching up on sleep debt, even though I was ostensibly getting enough during the week ( 8-9 hours a day ). I was slowly wearing down, but not in a real overt or alarming fashion.
Then we had a shakeup. After a brief stint of rotating shifts when I started, we had switched to “permanent” shifts, bid by seniority and classification once a year. Due to a phenomenal management clusterfuck way to complicated to go into, I found myself involuntarily shifted to swing shift ( 2 p.m.-10 p.m. ). Within a couple of months of transitioning I noticed a significant improvement in how I felt. Remarkable how much sleeping at night will improve your outlook on life :p.
I’ve never looked back since then and have stuck with swing. Less money ( 10% premium, rather than 15% ), less time for errands, the intermittent insomnia has returned, possibly even worse for the social life if that were possible - but nearly as serene a work experience and it feels a hell of a lot healthier and I seem rather more alert.
Because I’d unplug the phone and then, three days later, wander by and discover that it was still unplugged. Oops.
Regarding the lack of management and decision making:
At my first Security job, I simply decided that if anyone demanded to speak to my supervisor, I would tell them that I was the supervisor. That cut down on a lot of bullshit. When I became a supervisor, I told my subordinates that if I wasn’t around, to tell the people that they were the supervisor and deal with it themselves, and I’d back them up 100% after the fact. I only got called on it once. I explained the how and why, and my boss thought it quite reasonable. (Because it meant that we weren’t waking him up to listen to some dumbass truck driver scream at him at 3am over something we had no power over.)
At the University, I did the same thing. However, my bosses were retired cops who were extremely rank conscious. Like feudal knights hypervigilant to protect their rank and priviledge. (seriously, these guys are a joke.) I laughed at them and said “When it’s me and one other officer at 3am and some angry guy is screaming at the student dispatcher that he wants to speak to a supervisor, I am the supervisor. If you want to write me up for it later, go right ahead. But I’m dealing with the problem because I’m the one who is here.”
I suggested this a couple of months back. And when she found out what it was she pretty much looked at me like I had sprouted an extra set of ears.
But now that a fellow Doper has recommended it I may revisit the suggestion.
eta: I’m usually subjected to a semi-annual sinus infection so may make a deal to try it for myself if she will.
I forgot some of the worst aspects (related to a social life)
If you want to do ANYTHING normal on a Friday afternoon, football game, family gathering, whatever, you have to use a vacation day to do it, since you’re supposed to be at work…unlike first shifters who can leave work, and go do normal things with their family.
So if you want to have any life, you have to go through more vacation days than normal people, even for a simple family outing.
It also ruins your weekend. I’m working 'til 2AM Saturday (that’s my “Friday”). So traveling anywhere on Saturday is a pain…either you leave sometime near noon (assuming you get 8 hours of sleep) and get to your destination with only a few hours 'til it closes (assuming 6PM or so) OR you just get up REALLY early, making yourself a zombie, and thoroughly ruining your fun because you’re dead tired.
Your weekend is also short, a short Saturday, and then Sunday. Oh, gee, you have a long Monday to do whatever, but everyone else who is “normal” is at work!
I don’t know if you are interested in another perspective, as I have never worked night shift. However, my husband has in the past, the first year we were married he was on night shift, and he currently works second shift. From the spouse’s side of things, I can tell you it has been really hard on our family, and he does not do it out of choice. He works in tool and die, and it is slim pickings around here right now for jobs.
I work 3 days a week, office hours, and I try to stay up late to see him at night for a bit before I fall asleep, but that means I usually don’t get enough sleep myself and we are always tired. We have 2 kids that don’t see him very much. Luckily, they are not in full time school yet (our oldest is in 2 day preschool) so they at least have 2 mornings a week to see him. They are in day care whenever I work, because my husband has gone back to school (to get out of this industry!) and has class in the mornings 2 days a week. So they don’t see him from Sunday night until Wednesday morning, then they see him again on Friday morning and sometimes part of Sat. depending if he gets overtime. Sunday is the only guaranteed time we have together.
Our 4 year old adores his dad and it is really hard on both of them. He asks when dad is going to be home almost every day, and has a hard time when he leaves for work.
I feel like a single parent most of the time, and evenings especially are hard, doing dinner, feeding a baby and putting both to bed on time. I feel like they don’t get much fun time with either of us, as most of my time with them is spent trying to get things done like baths, dinner, etc. I also don’t get out much, I have to get a sitter to do anything for myself, or take 2 kids with me. Any event on a weeknight I pretty much just don’t go, and all the evening school events are tough to get involved with.
We are coming up with a way to get him out of this job. When he interviewed with this company, he was told he would do a 6 month stint on second shift, then get moved to first. That was almost 2 years ago. He is gearing up to quit by the end of the year, and just work a couple of part time jobs if he has to, while I bump up my hours to get benefits. This schedule is just not sustainable for our family anymore.
I can see how it would be great for a single person, but it is really tough for our family.
I worked a part-time graveyard shift in college; 3 a.m. to 8 a.m., M-F. It was perfect. Traffic was easier, less management to deal with, and it gave me all day to get my errands done.
For most guys, they just stayed awake throughout the night, then went to bed when they got home. For me though, I went to bed around 8 p.m. the night before, then woke up right before work.
I really hope it helps, sinus infections are miserable. I have had an infection since I started using the pot but it only lasted a few days, normally they last a week or so. In another thread someone suggested using a baby food jar filled with rubbing alcohol to sterilize the end of the pot after using it, I thought that was a good idea.
Absolutely!
We’re fortunate that I make (just) enough for my wife to stay at home but it’s still a challenge, especially as the kids start going to school. Being a single-income family has meant only having one vehicle which makes it more difficult getting younger kids to and from school. We don’t want to add another loan but it’s tough, more so in the winter months; we get a LOT of snow here. It’s busy enough with a baby in the house much less giving the other kids quality time as well. I feel for your husband; one advantage of working 12-hour shifts is there’s an extra day off in the schedule where I get to spend more time with the kids. I know it stresses my wife out trying to get everyone bathed and ready for school, bed, church, whatever, by herself.
I’ve worked nights at a couple ambulance services. I’m currently working 2030-0630, Sunday-Wednesday. It’s a great shift. No management. We also get higher acuity calls- it takes a bit more to call 911 at 3 in the morning. We get more weirdness to make up for it, though. I also like that I don’t have to fight traffic on my commute or while I’m at work.
St. Urho
Paramedic
I was sorta pushed into my current job on the night shift. I work for a small logistics company that focuses mainly on parts and material inventory control in major oil refineries and chemical plants. As a necessary side piece of the business, we run hotshot deliveries from suppliers to the plants, although most material is kept stocked and delivered by route people during the day.
I was in the safety and driver services end of this when the boss decided he didn’t like the way I did my job. ( truth is- he was right, I was terrible at the clerical parts )
He wanted to fire the night dispatcher, so he told me- " You can take the night dispatch job, or go look for a new one!" I was 63 years old and didn’t fancy job hunting at that age.
I took it, and after 2 years, I won’t give it up.
Shift is M,T,W,T from 530 PM to 630 AM. I have loads of time to do the work needed, plus some tasks carried over from the old position, and with complete access (with permission) to good computers, a T1 connection, and an ability to learn, I am now a net and forum junkie at almost 66 years old.
I’ve been working nights for three years now, working nine to seven. It’s a sweet deal; I work two nights and have four nights off, rolling schedule (we’re gonna switch to three-six in two weeks), and it comes with a hefty bonus.
It took me several months to work out a rhythm that suited me, but now I’ve got it down. I have no trouble with tiredness or any kind of health issues. The sleeping problems I had all my life are a thing of the past - my body knows that when it gets a chance to sleep it should fucking take it.
I am single and have no kids. Maybe it would be different if I had a family; I don’t know. I think it could work out though, I have a lot more time off than your average boyfriend/husband/father.
The only thing I have to bitch about is working weekends rather than working nights. It’s harsh to go to work and pass people queueing outside clubs and bars, already liquored up. It’s harsh to miss some things because you’re working Friday and Saturday. It’s harsh to miss your friend’s thirtieth birthday party because you tried and tried to get an answer about when it was going to be so you’d be able to get time off but everyone else played it all relaxed since it was going to be a Saturday anyway and everyone can come on a Saturday so nothing was decided until it was too late.
I love it. Can’t see myself ever going back to working normal hours. It gives me extra money, time to work out and time to write. Oh, and I never have to get up in the mornings. It is bliss.
It turned out to be kind of weird for me that this thread showed up when it did, because about a half-hour after I last posted in it, I sort of got strong-armed out of third shift, and onto first, after working nights for nearly two years. Of course, the strong-arming involved bumping my hourly pay by over 30% (:eek: … :):)
), so it’s hard to argue with those kind of tactics! Plus I get to work whenever I want on any first shift for the next few weeks to train on their unique procedures while also working a few days on third shift - as much overtime as I want!
Guess it’s time to say goodbye to the nights and the stranger-on-average people who are apt to voluntarily choose that shift over days.
I think I feel more comfortable and at-home with the night people, though.
Just don’t start calling us in the middle of the day :mad:
A 30% hourly increase would be tough to pass up, congratulations on that.
A lot of my co-workers hate night shift with a passion. I’m one of the few who really enjoys it; I’m glad to hear so many of you say you like working them too (ya freaks! :D) Although, I’m on here late tonight on my weekend off 'cause I can’t bloody sleep, oh well.
papaw - good for you!