[djmcmath]

Aside from consulting work, I think the worst schedule I've ever seen has been in the life of a nuclear submariner. I did 6 months of 12hr rotating shift work once, which was pretty miserable. It's 12 hours at work, 12 hours at home, rotating to the next shift (days, swings, mids) once every seven days. A room-mate of mine did 3 straight months of 12 on, 12 off shift work with no days off. Many of us go months on end doing a "1 in 3" duty rotation, where you're stuck on the boat all day on your "on duty" day, then trying to catch up on the rest of your job on the other two days. On the off-chance that you can manage to not have weekend duty, you have to come in anyways to catch up on your normal work. Then you take the boat to sea, and you're standing watch for 6 hours, then doing normal work for 6, and sleeping for 6 (assuming that your sleeping time isn't during the day, when training and drills and what-not are going on) before going back on watch to start the cycle over again. The only good news is that most of the time you're too tired and stressed out to realize how long it's been since you've been home.

Dan