How many of you have to work the insane work hour shifts for your jobs?
Right now I’ve lucked out because I don’t have billable hours the way private firm attorneys do, but I do go through spurts where I will have to spend 50 to 60 hours at the office per week.
My sister goes through shifts where she has to be on call and there is no sleep in sight for what seems to be up to 2 days at a time.
I’ve always wondered…what is the point? Do any of you find that you are actually productive or capable of being productive when you’re constantly tired? Are you constantly tired? When I work anything over about 45 I find myself physically exhausted. Every other word has a typo.
I’m curious because I seem to be the healthiest and least depressed of all my friends-since I only pull my long work weeks once in a while for the most part I’m used to a 40-45 hour relaxed work week (I had to take a huge salary cut for this privilege, though) whereas they work about 70 hours on average. I simply don’t know how one can do it. I already feel like I have no life because when I’m not working I’m either commuting/doing laundry/cleaning my house blahblahblah, at 70 hours I think my entire purpose would be eating, working and sleeping.
Well, there are times when your job isn’t to be productive, it’s just to be there. I teach, and what kills me sometimes are the school related fuctions–one weekend last year I was at school related functions for 38 hours of a 48 hour period (and this is minor league compared to some people, I know). Was I worth anything at the end? Nah. But it meant a lot to the kids that I was there at all, and was part of my job.
At the moment I’m working an 84 hour week (7, 12 hour nights shifts, I’ve just done night 5). It’s not the long shifts that’s exhausting, it’s the fact that it’s NIGHT, and I worked a 9am-9pm shift the day before starting the first night.
When I finish on Saturday morning I’ll have worked 96 hours and 12 days straight-a large part of which has been caffeinated to the eyeballs and on autopilot.
No, it’s not ideal, the only way I can function is to write a to-do list and to keep double and triple checking everything I do with colleagues to make sure I don’t do something disastrous. Asking a nurse “Was that 5mg?” six times and getting :rolleyes: is still better than accidentally giving someone an overdose.
Actually my shifts are ok, they average about 56 hours a week, but that’s because I get 5 days off in a row next week (Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun) to make my rota European Working Time Directive (something which says junior doctors may not work more than 56 hours a week) compliant.
Sorry this goes to show how tired I am…
(4 x 8) + (8x12) = 128 hours in 12 days, not 96.