the negative affects of working the nighshift.
 

i have enough seniority..plus i do a lot of project stuff and rub elbows with big-wigs. that has to happen regular day-shift.

i dont mind short stints of night work. it can be fun. it can be refreshing..and my phone NEVER rings. i tried to volunteer to work the next three nights, but management denied it, since they need me in the daytime to figure things out.

but we have this young kid. no seniority. plus, he spoke up to the wrong person.. they buried him at night. i havent seen him for months. today, i hear some country music outside my office window. i look out, and i see a guy i didnt recognize. it was HIM!! he must have put on 30-40lbs. his eye and skin..whoa. i believe the word is "pallor?"

i tried to pull him into my project. man, he must have pissed someone off bigtime. the answer was NO. damn..i'll keep trying. i think a day shift along the california coast for the next several months will do him good.

One of the reasons I changed jobs is that I frequently got to work the day shift AND sometimes the night shift. And for someone who already has insomnia, it's just not a good combination.

I'm exempt. There was a week almost a year ago where I worked and implementation (Sunday midnight - 2:30 AM), checked in again later Sunday morning and found a problem, so put in a few more hours, worked some (non-paid) overtime each day and worked (non-paid) overtime for another implementation Wednesday night. I'd hit 50 hours by Thursday morning (which was going to put me at around 70 for the week). I asked my boss if I could come in late Thursday morning (I wasn't going to get to bed until 2:00 with the overnight work and I come in at 6:30) and she graciously allowed me to use a few hours of vacation to sleep even though I was already over 40 for the week. I thought that was BS.

I worked night shift 11pm to 7 am through most of undergrad school. To say it was awful is over simplification to the max.

Pallor is right... When I was flying at the regionals, there were guys who loved to bid what we called "stand ups." You would leave at night later to a destination, spend 3 or 4 hours at a hotel, then first flight out back to base. They liked it because they could be home all day and not gone on a multi day trip. I would see these guys coming back sometimes as I would start an early morning departure. Pale walking dead. Blech.

Now, at a major we have redeyes. I avoid them like the plague.

I did this too, but only made it a year. Rolling off work and into a class within a couple hours was brutal. Pay was far better than just about any other job you could get in a college town.

My first job as a real machinist at a major aerospace firm was on nights.
There was an old guy that lived in the apt complex that would hang out in the garage area during the day, which, as chance would have it, was right below my bedroom window. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of sleep because of this. When an opportunity opened up to go to another shop on campus on day shift, I jumped at the chance. Guess I pissed my then supervisor off when I did that. Years later, my new supervisor could never understand why the, by then, big boss always saw red whenever my name came up. Needless to say I didn't see very many promotions no matter how good my machining skills became. Corporate politics, gotta love 'em.

I worked a rotating shift in a factory the summer before college. 18 years old. Hard physical labor.

I felt hung over every day. Awful.

The large commercial complex I used to work at had facilities guys who had 3 shifts (day, swing, and night). Most of the older guys with seniority choose day, but there were two or three guys who wanted the night shift. I don't remember their specific situations, but they loved it, hated the day shift and would tolerate swing.

at that time in my life (newly out of college) swing sounded pretty good...didnt have to get up early and I already stayed up late. Most of the guys said you had to have the discipline to go to bed when swing was over and not stay up goofing off.

I miss the days I worked the graveyard shift at Carl's Jr. Hell, I miss working a simple fast food job. That was about 35 years ago.

Hospitals never sleep.

I never could work the midnight to eight shift. I couldn’t stay awake. On the other hand I had a job for a while where I worked from three in the afternoon until 11 at night. Turned out I loved it. Still get off in time to hit the bars if I wanted to and when I got off Friday at 11 PM I didn’t have to be at work until Monday at 3 PM!

The scourge of circadian rhythms.

Hard stuff, and real.

Over 25yrs ago while working on a road car project we got a little behind on the build schedule so the whole factory worked two 7 day weeks with 12 hr shifts, one on days and one on nights

My 2nd week was nights so after the last shift I thought to keep myself awake until normal bedtime I'd have a look around the shops

Negative affect was I spent all the extra money I'd earned before mid-morning buying a pair of big hi-fi speakers I had no need for. Still have the speakers and I still don't need them

Night shifts weren't bad. Rotating shifts could be an azz kicker without the long break each month. Did it for 5 years.

7am to 3 pm Thursday, Friday, Sat, Sunday off, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday

Then to
7 straight 11 pm to 7 am Friday through Thursday night.

Break from 7 am Friday until Wednesday 3 pm where you would th3n work 7 straight 3 to 11 pm. Then Wednesdsy off and back to day shift on Thursday and repeat.

You could use two days vacation around the long break and have a full 7 days. Bring single at the time I was a party animal for those 5 years.

My gf used to be a night bartender, 8-4am closing. Then close the books and make sure everything was set for the next day On weekends if it was really busy with lots of credit card charges, she wouldn't leave until 6:30 am.

When I was a field engineer...

I was the startup/controls guy for large gas turbines. When I arrived, a "mechanical" guy had been around for months working the install. My job was to check everything he had done, get everything powered up and checked.

On the lead up, swing or night shift could be great doing the electrical/control/instrumentation system checks, since no one was around to get in the way. But that could only last a couple of weeks.

Once actual startup occurred...nothing ever seemed to occur on day-shift. You planned some major test and it would never start until 7pm. After working all day...And since we were the prime mover, even after we were started up, we had to be around for the boilers and steam turbine.

You might get a 4 week stint of 100 hour weeks. At least we were paid OT. After the unit was turned over to the customer, you went back to 40 hours per week and it seem like so little work.

My first job out of college I was working for Motorola Govt Electronics Group in Scottsdale AZ. I got assigned to a space communications program that had an around the clock testing phase underway. Engineers were assigned different shifts throughout the 15-20 day cycle. The lead engineer made out the schedule. I was okay with being assigned and working 2nd shift pretty consistently. The issue was when someone was on vacation etc and the slots had to be changed. More than once - he filled out the next week's schedule without looking at the current week's schedule. Each time, I got assigned double shifts - 2nd shift on Sat (4PM - Midnight) and then on Sunday (Midnight to 8AM). I pointed it out to him and he revised the schedule.

I did 'naps' at the regionals for a few years.. because when i landed in the morning i went to my second job. I was a zombie....

Now at the majors, I avoid the early morning stuff like the plague. (11pm-6am stuff.. ) I'm sitting on a lower paying airplane to avoid lower seniority and AM flights on a higher paying fleet.

I work nights every day. I get about 3.5 to 4 hours of sleep a day. I feel constantly jetlagged. If I'm not at work, I'm working on my house. I am legitimately active 20 hours a day. I come home from work,and I'm sleeping within 10 minutes of walking in the door.

...and this is better than my old schedule of working: 1500, 1500, 1330, 0630, 0600., 0600 (or some times I'd finish with a 0600-1400....then go back at 2300 that night and work the mid). THIS was hell.

I just completed three years where we would work 0530-1730 for 3-days
3-days off
1730-0530 for 3-nights
3-days off
Repeat
I’ve become very homicidal....
It’s over now, I’m retiring.
FIRE at age 52.
Goodbye

And the really bad downside. She would leave with her partner and the dj when it was dark. The area across Ala Moana Center was very busy until investors bought a lot of the buildings and it became a haven for the homeless and reprobates. One morning, my gf was coming out the back door and got mugged by one of those reprobates. She ended up at the ER with a separated AC joint. Surgery was scheduled and 3 years later, she is still suffering.

I worked mid nights at a self serve station in high school. Only did it for 1 summer.
I worked 11-7 for 6 months straight for the local natural gas utility in the winter. I was busy all night, made the night go quicker. No traffic was a bonus, in the mid-80's hardly any one was out. By the last day of the week I was a zombie. I transferred to days in the spring. hardly did any shift work after that.

I had a job as a security guard between my freshman and sophomore years in college for Burns security patrolling the Mervyns warehouse off of A street in Hayward between 11pm to 7am. This was in the late 70s. Can't imagine what that area is like today....

I worked graveyard in a window & door factory in the early '60s. Never liked it. After the Army I worked grave yard at a steel fabrication yard during the grave yard shift & Fuller Brush salesman selling door to door during the day for six months before starting school. After starting school, I kept the steel yard job (gantry crane operator) on a swing shift. I always hated grave yard but loved swing shift.

I worked the ideal shift for 9 years when I was a printing press operator for our local newspaper (25 years ago). I went in at 8 pm, and got paid until 4:30 am, but most days was walking out much earlier (whenever the press run was complete, and we all cleaned up.)

I liked it because I could be awake by noon, and have the entire day at home to get stuff done, and still eat dinner with the family.

We would take our "lunch around 11 pm, and play euchre for an hour...no real supervision, and no big wheels walking through. I loved the job, and the guys I worked with, but the pay/benefits were really subpar for raising a family.

When my dad was in the Navy, some of his jobs involved shift work. He would rotate through the 3 shifts, 7a-3p, 3p-11p and 11p-7a.

I've never worked anything like the 11-7 myself. As a bartender, I spent several years working something more like 5p-2a which would then include 1-2 hours of extra work at the end of the night to ensure that everything was restocked and clean for the next day. That never bothered me. I've always been a bit of a night owl anyway.

During college, I worked at a grocery store. I'd often work 5-12. A bunch of us would then wait around and when the stockers got off at 2, we'd all go to a bar for a bit and then find something else to do often until the sun came up. After a while of sleeping until 3-4pm, and then driving home when other people were going to work got old, but mostly because it was impossible to get anything done. You were never awake when you could run errands.

I have never worked a night shift - but I'm salaried exempt and I have worked whenever the need arises. I have worked days/nights/weekends and holidays, 9,10, 11, 12 hours days and around the world. I can handle shots like this - I realize it is not the norm and it take a toll on your body clock.

I am dating a woman who works a 3rd shift. She prefers it. She is off at 6 am and I tyypically see her in the morning prior to my work day starting. She works Sunday night thru Thrusday night. Saturday is probably the only day we can spend time together. We have done Sunday dinners before she goes off to work. I don't know how she does it sometimes because she can be up for many hours - I find it exhausting. Sometimes I have a hard time knowing when she is up or sleeping: I will text her rather than call her.

We have been doing this for 18 months - it's an adjustment.

Humans are not nocturnal critters. Trying to make them nocturnal can have significant adverse consequences.

I had some night shift gigs in the Navy when in dry dock in Long Beach. They would give us a certain amount of stuff to get accomplished. I was a fast worker, got my tasks completed in 4, rather than 8 hours and was well rested for my shift at the beach surfing. My tan was glorious when I attended my sister's wedding.

Vash would appreciate this. I worked night shift on the Crystal Springs lake tap tunnel project in San Mateo County. We had to inject chemical grout into the gravel to keep it from caving in as we got under the lake. I would put a bit of grout in a dixie cup and time it until it set. Then we could resume digging. I had a log sheet where I entered times. The most surreal part about this was entering times on the log sheet like 3 AM. WTH am I doing here?, I often though , deep underground, water dripping on me, with 12 feet of gravel between me and the bottom of a lake.

Don't get me started on the Navy and their nocturnal "emissions": The Navy has f-upped that wet dream.

In routine steaming, not at war, the average Navy ship is a dysfunctional mess of a tired and sleep challenge crew; officer and enlisted. Just look up "dog the watch".

I could type for a week but one example will do:

When I was the Air Boss Department Head on an amphib the XO and I became friends. Naval tradition says that all Department Heads meets in the XO stateroom at 1700 to give Department reports.

That would mean, often since I was also an officer of the deck and stood bridge watches, that I had to get up from a deep sleep (let's say I had the midnight to 4am watch on the bridge) to stand around for 10 minutes.

I asked the XO why. Blank stare.

"How about I sent the Mini-Boss (another officer and we worked opposite watches and shifts in the tower on purpose) when necessary? He can wake me up if something is important..."

"Uh, ok."

Key point here is the the Mini-boss was an F-14 RIO and a really good guy...Notre Dame graduate, etc. I completely trusted his judgement. We still exchange emails and barbs.

However, you would have thought, after the first meeting Mini attended in my stead, that I had shot Admiral Spruance.

The other Department Heads, each of whom had other officers in their Departments, thought I was "cheating". Amazing: Not being a sleep deprived zombie is somehow cheating.

The XO, as relayed to me by Mini, looks at them and says, "You idiots can do the same thing."

And they did, bless their black shoe hearts.

^^^. Thus the two CRUDES losses we’ve had here during my tour. Sad. Hope the Navy changes to get it right.

Worked graveyard shift for 3-4 years while in college; 1030p - 7a. Would go from work to school for a few hours, get a nap in the afternoon, take care of life stuff (laundry, shopping, etc.) then another short nap before work again at 1030p. Worked great for my schedule. During the summer, I'd get off at 7a, take a short nap, hang out at the beach most of the day, take another nap before work, lather rinse repeat.

Biggest downside for me was when I moved to a more regular work schedule. For nearly 10 years after, I didn't get a full night's sleep. Like clockwork, I'd wake up every 2 hours for about 5 minutes then go back to sleep. 2 hours later, same cycle. Sucked.

I've worked nights since... you know, it's easier this way: I'm almost 60 and the only period I've worked days was 1991-1993. What I learned then was that working days is a parade of useless meetings, whereas nights people spend about 4 hours figuring out what will still be open for lunch.

While in college I worked at a large NYC Metro area grocer warehouse from 8pm - 4:30am and then went to class for 11:00am until 5pm picking orders of fruits and veggies . Did school work whenever I could. Took another job for Chemical Bank in Manhattan. Worked from 12am - 8:00am. I did this for 3 years. Lost all my fat and gained muscle.

I had a real tough time eating, always felt nauseous. After that I hated working nights for the company I now work. We do a lot of bridge and tunnel projects, hence a lot of night jobs.

Night shift sucks over the long term.

I think most people like the night shift because it’s quieter without all the supervisors and other people up their butts. Not as stressful.

It was stressful for me. I came home and tried to get a few hours of sleep but the kids playing and outside noise never let me sleep long or well.

We just finished 2 night projects Grand Central Terminal and the RFK bridge,and the crews do not want to go back to night shift on the new Holland Tunnel job. The complained about domestic stress and strain.

I worked shift work in a computer room for about 4 years, got used to it, no issues. The 11-7 shift was quiet, but there was still work to do. Saturday morning I would just not go to sleep, stayed up went out to the bar and normal sleep time Sat night Sun morning.

I used to drink two pots of coffee on the night shift and to this day coffee does not keep me awake.

Worked 6-2 2-10 10-6 for 10 years. Then 6-6 6-6 for the next 23 years. As the years went by most supervision was cut. Worked at a huge chemical plant and on nights I might average 2-3 calls and see nobody. Management didn’t care what you did as long as you didn’t run something over, or spill something. I loved nights but my family hated them because they said by the 4th in a row I was a crank. I was a competitive runner most of those years and nights definitely were harder to train in that no matter how much sleep I got I became sluggish.

Did a 2nd shift thing running screw machines for a while. Remember rushing from work to a bar to meet my buddies just in time for last call, If they were still there and not already courting some young lass.
3rd shift at Chrysler as a college summer gig. Actually a better deal than 2nd shift as I could do some stuff until early afternoon and then crash until 9:00ish. My crew used to go out for a beer now and then after work ended at 7:00 in the morning. Holy sheet, the people one typically sees in bars at this hour is eye opening.

*ahem*. Effects *cough*. 😂