I've worked the evening/night shift for 10+ years now, and I'm wondering if anyone else around here has experience with this sort of thing. It constantly amazes me that people with 9-5 jobs have no understanding of anything about shift work really.
I find it really irritating, for instance, when I get home from work at 7am and get a phone call at noon wondering why I'm still in bed. There's also the way you're cut off from society in general.
Anyone else?
I tend to work graveyard shifts for about half of the year. I get around it by breaking up my sleeping. Get home at 7, sleep till 12 or 1, take care of whatever I need to take care of during the day (errands, returning phone calls, etc.), then sleep for another 3-4 hrs before work. I actually prefer it to the 9-5 in that I don't have to deal with any type of crowds or rush while still being able to knock out what I need to. I'm on-call all the time though, but it's a rarity for me to be called in. I figure as long as I get my 8 hrs of shut eye in I'm fine.
I've worked a lot of late nights in the past five years. There are some things I like about it, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.
As someone who hates traffic and big crowds of people, I love being able to drive across town through a string of green lights, then slip in and out of the grocery store without waiting in a checkout line.
The biggest problem I have is feeling out of sync with other people in my life. It's tough to maintain personal relationships when your SO works 9-6 and you're working 5 to late.
There's been a physical toll for me, too. I'll usually work a typical day schedule during the week, then work a couple late nights on the weekend. That mix/match sleep pattern can leave me pretty wiped out by Sunday, where I feel like I need a day of doing nothing just to recover.
I would prefer to work second shift. There are some downsides, but I like having 100% energy levels for my personal use and less for the Man's use. I'm a morning person, so my concentration and motivation normally dwindles during the day.
I currently compensate for this by an early to bed / early to rise approach, where I read or workout from 5am to 6:30am most weekday mornings.
@rePete - are you talking a 3-11, so you're in bed by midnight? And up by 5? Ick.
I just don't function on anything less than a solid 8 hours. Well, technically, I can, I'm just stupid and extra bitchy because of the sleep deprivation. On a related tangent, it makes AM interviews hell.
I identify most with Ralphy. I find it to be very isolating to do shift work. Especially when most of your co-workers take the job because it doesn't require a piss test. That and the physical burden.
@Beaudacious - If I could figure out how to wake up after 4 or 5 hours without breathing fire that might work. The lack of traffic is a definite perk.
@hickchick: It took some time to adjust. Initially I was going through bouts of sleep apnea. I'd get frustrated (not a morning person) and resort to coffee to keep me up through shift. But once I accepted that I was restless and stopped getting worked up about it, I ended up sleeping easier. Weird how that works. Now I just make sure to rest when I feel tired, which has become the split up that I work with now.
I've worked a lot of odd hours in IT. Sometimes the flexibility is nice, but the adjusting back and forth it really tough. Probably not good for one's health, I try to avoid night work when possible.
I worked nights 00-08 at one time in my life. I slept during the day and was generally in sync with free time with people working normal hours. Weekends were a little off - but I'd shift my windows maybe 4 hours to have afternoons. I was younger, but even then, it always did seem unnatural and I have to think there was some underlying stress adapting to that daytime sleeping schedule.
I'd actually like to try working evenings and sleeping at night. I just think it would be nice to have the daytime free, as I prefer more outdoors things than really going out at night. Now I come home during the week and don't tend to do much... although summer isn't as bad. Winter though, it seems a given that I'd rather have the sunlit part of the day to myself, then be stuck in an office when it's dark.
hickchick,
I'm trying to say that I would prefer a schedule which is:
Free Time
Work
Sleep
as opposed to the more common
Work
Free Time
Sleep
so I have a hybrid system where I allocate some Free Time before Work, and then I have the more common Free Time after work for social reasons.
@hickchick
I work a 24 hour shift every 3 days. Most shifts I am up half the night making medical and fire runs, so the next day I usually have to sleep for 3 or 4 hours when I get home to feel normal. I once worked second shift for a summer while I was in college; I hated it because whatever you are doing is directly opposite of what everyone else is doing. It's gets to be pretty lonely after a while.
I've done my time in the shiftworking trenches. I love being off when everyone else is at work.
Some tips for sleeping...
-Make sure your bedroom is completely dark. I mean "I can't see my hand in front of my face at noon on a sunny day" dark. This is the most important thing you can do to ensure decent sleep. It can be done on the cheap by pinning up some thick towels.
-Make sure that you cannot hear the phone or tv or anything else. A loud fan or a sound machine will do the trick. If a phone call wakes you up it's your fault.
-Try not to go over the top with the coffee. A little at the start of shift is fine, but you don't want to be guzzling it right before bed.
Good luck all.
rePete - I think I'm really cut out to be a morning person, if I apply your logic. It takes me a realy long time to wake up. I'm talking a least a couple hours after I get out of bed. Better to spend that time at the ol' job instead of wasting my precious productive time.
@Beaudacious - sleep apnea is a real SOB. And sooo many people suffer from it.
As for the coffee question, coffee here is a way of life. You drink it round the clock. Fortunately we brew it so weak that it really doesn't mess with your ability to sleep.
I did 7pm-7am, 5 or 6 days a week at a book bindery during summer and winter breaks during college. I took the night shift because I got a differential. It was hard work but it paid for my college expenses. I don't know how you can do it for 10+ years, kudos.
When I was in grad school, I woke up at 10am and came in around 11am. This avoided about half of the stupid user requests for installing new software that some noob professor had heard about and thought would be fun to play around with (I was also the department system admin). I generally left work around 11-12pm, cooked dinner and did laundry around 1-2am at the dorm when nobody else was around and went to bed around 3am.
Having so much of the world to myself was generally very pleasing.
I've run some 24/7 offices and I love being in management of those places - you can effectively make your own hours to make sure you keep touch with all of your shifts. It is really good when you take classes or something else that happens during the "standard" workday.
My favorite shift is second shift. The only difficulty there is finding a good time to go to the grocery store. It's great for staying up late on the weekends and not throwing off your schedule. Currently my husband works graveyards. We love it. I stay at home with our new baby. He comes home at about 9am. He can do any errands on his way home. He enjoys time with his family until he goes to bed in the early afternoon. We have a lot of family time when everyone is awake and bright eyed. However, our social life suffers greatly. We've lost touch with a lot of our friends because we can't go out in the evenings anymore.
@FirefighterJeff: I knew a guy that worked as a Lt. Firefighter for the City I live in. He worked one 24-hour shift, then off for 72 hours, then started the cycle again. However, this guy also had a job as a firefighter for the county, about 50 miles away. Same kind of schedule. He was just able to merge the two schedules so work days didn't conflict. Job one paid about $55K per year. Job two paid about $50K per year. Seems kind of rough to me. And to him too, apparently. He had a heart attack and died in his bunk during one 24-hour shift at about age 55.
You must log in to post.
