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Rhymenoserous posted:Goddammit, 10 years since I've worked graveyard and the bare mention of this still pisses me off. I was miserable on that shift just because people couldn't leave me the gently caress alone during "Sleep" hours. A guy I work with had this problem with his now ex-wife calling at noon asking him for dumb poo poo like where a certain pair of shoes is or something. He started calling her at 3am asking her dumb poo poo and after a week she finally got the point.
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Sep 13, 2014 13:02
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two_beer_bishes posted:A guy I work with had this problem with his now ex-wife calling at noon asking him for dumb poo poo like where a certain pair of shoes is or something. He started calling her at 3am asking her dumb poo poo and after a week she finally got the point. I've never had much of a problem with people calling me while I sleep during the day, but this is what I'd do if I did. Anyways, get a sleep mask and try to keep your schedule consistent.
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Sep 13, 2014 13:08
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Last night was my last overnight shift for the year. Now I get to switch back to daylight, yay! We had a fuckload of fun tonight. And the manager bought pizza. I'd say I'm going to miss it, but being up all drat night is tiring. The freedom was nice, though. I swore and threw things and laughed more in the last three weeks at work than I have in the last six months, and man did it feel good.
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Sep 13, 2014 14:09
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mary brooke posted:I'm a nurse and I work night shift (7pm-7:30am). I am naturally a night owl and I adjusted really quickly. I actually sleep better during the day now. The only issue is that sometimes I sleep TOO much, leaving me kind of zombie-like a good portion of the time. Yeah I did this too, it worked pretty well. My first shift of the week I would basically sleep all day and then head in to reset my schedule to nights, then when I was done for the week I'd sleep til noon or one, then stay up until like 10 or 11pm. It fucks with you but its doable on a 3/4 schedule, and it is better in my mind if your schedule allows it because then you get one or two days per week to actually hang out with your friends. It does turn a 4 day weekend into a two day weekend, though. Now I'm on 12 hour days with 3/4 days off a week and it loving rules. I wouldn't have done the nights if I hadn't known I would eventually get moved to days. Also you people are lucky you work with other people at night. I had 12 hour shifts completely alone at my desk. wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 16:21
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My shift patterns pretty rad it's 2 days, 2 nights then 4 days off the 2 nights aren't really intrusive enough that they gently caress you up to bad, and resetting to a normal routine for rest days is easy, all I do is cut my sleep short after my last night shift (sometimes I don't sleep at all)
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Sep 13, 2014 19:31
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I've been on rotating shifts between Midnights and Afternoons for 4 years now The biggest hurdle in my opinion is the time off issue, because you want to do NORMAL things like normal people and go out during the day, sleep at night, especially with significant others etc. That and if I have 3 days off I tend to sleep most/all of the 1st day off, do nothing because I'm so lethargic the next day, and then scramble to do all the poo poo on the last day. On the plus side of things you avoid most traffic, and get to do grocery shopping when the store is nearly empty. Also make sure everyone who would call you regularly in your life understands your new sleep schedule.
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Sep 13, 2014 21:20
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Lots of great advice here. One thing to mention is that your body needs vitamin D and gets it from the sun. You might consider a supplement if this position holds long-term.
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Sep 13, 2014 21:38
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:Lots of great advice here. One thing to mention is that your body needs vitamin D and gets it from the sun. You might consider a supplement if this position holds long-term. If you go to bed when you get home, you're usually up by 2-3 in the afternoon. Oh and aluminum foil is cheaper and the best at blocking light.
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Sep 13, 2014 23:00
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TLG James posted:If you go to bed when you get home, you're usually up by 2-3 in the afternoon. PYF drug-lab ideas
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Sep 13, 2014 23:01
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I worked 7pm - 7am in a plastic bottle factory in central PA for a while. Dunno what your job is, but be aware of the "git er done" mentality that night shift is known for.
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Sep 14, 2014 00:41
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Best shift ever. I miss it. Used to work 11p-8a. Went out and did errands after work then slept from 1p-9p. Best part about errands are that no one is around and kids are in school!
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Sep 14, 2014 01:15
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uncloudy day posted:Dunno what your job is, but be aware of the "git er done" mentality that night shift is known for. Is this referring to the fact that night shifts tend to relax heavily on rules, regs, and all that serious workplace bullshit? Because that's a fact. Working in hospitals, and even other places, the rules often go from "remain professional at all times" to "get the job done in such a way that nobody gets hurt, and to the best of anyone's ability, but don't worry about dressing it up nicely." Like, running 911 response, overnight you'll get patient care same as ever, but I might be wearing sweat pants and tennis shoes and my poo poo might not be polished.
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Sep 14, 2014 02:17
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I worked nights at an airport for over a year, and let me tell you that even after a few months of doing it, it was still very easy to fall back into a normal sleep schedule. It also seemed like everyone adjusted differently, some were able to handle it more than others. I don't know if it was a combination of genetics/lifestyle choices and/or other things. You should also wiki "Circadian rhythm" it talks about how daylight/night can impact how your body functions.
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Sep 14, 2014 03:04
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Paramemetic posted:Is this referring to the fact that night shifts tend to relax heavily on rules, regs, and all that serious workplace bullshit? Because that's a fact. Working in hospitals, and even other places, the rules often go from "remain professional at all times" to "get the job done in such a way that nobody gets hurt, and to the best of anyone's ability, but don't worry about dressing it up nicely." I find it funny, because in the technical role I work in now, the night shift are very definitely the 'get it loving done' crew. We have 1/3 the number of techs as the day shift, and output roughly the same amount of work because we don't gently caress around and don't have management and corporate hanging over our shoulders and wasting time like the day shifts. We also ditch the IT-standard khakis and polo look for jeans/cargos and t-shirts as soon as swing shift leaves, with management blessing, because we're too busy doing actual physical work to bother with business casual.
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Sep 14, 2014 03:22
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Liquid Communism posted:I find it funny, because in the technical role I work in now, the night shift are very definitely the 'get it loving done' crew. We have 1/3 the number of techs as the day shift, and output roughly the same amount of work because we don't gently caress around and don't have management and corporate hanging over our shoulders and wasting time like the day shifts. We also ditch the IT-standard khakis and polo look for jeans/cargos and t-shirts as soon as swing shift leaves, with management blessing, because we're too busy doing actual physical work to bother with business casual. Hell yeah. I got upgraded from nights to thurs/fri-sun, so I still get to wear whatever the gently caress I want on the weekends. gently caress dressing up, cargo shorts + getting poo poo done for life.
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Sep 14, 2014 13:53
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Chiming in to represent my fellow vampires.  I work 7 days on 7 days off as a staff pharmacist in a hospital and I love it.A sleep mask does fine for me without having to ghetto-ize my Windows. Take your lunch to work and don't do fast food. Learn to love coffee. Take your own if your standard issue work coffee tastes like butt. Let people know not to bother you while you're sleeping. Meditation apps like Relax Now can help you fall asleep, if all else fails, there's always benadryl. If you are going to shift to a day schedule during your off days, give yourself at least two days to prepare yourself for overnights again. Good luck, op! If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.
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Sep 14, 2014 15:33
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Also if you live in CO or WA or a medical state, look into cannabis tinctures as a sleep aid. They are non-narcotic and seem to work better with less morning drowsiness than benadryl or z-drugs. Of course if your employer makes you pee in a cup then this might not be the best idea.
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Sep 14, 2014 16:12
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Quornes posted:Right so basically Blackout curtains were not enough for me when I worked graveyards at Sony. What I ended up doing was first pinning a huge blanket over the window frames. Later I cut plywood to the exact dimensions of my window, and painted one side black. Then I affixed two handles to the backside so I could pull it out of the window frame. This is kind of extreme for most people probably, but just the little light peeking around the corner of the blackout curtains was enough to seriously aggravate my insomnia.
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Sep 14, 2014 16:41
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ZombieLenin posted:Blackout curtains were not enough for me when I worked graveyards at Sony. I'm with ya there. I occasionally work as an observational astrophysicist and that's what we've done with the windows in our dormitory. Even a pinhole lets enough light in to piss us off.
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Sep 14, 2014 16:53
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:Hell yeah. I got upgraded from nights to thurs/fri-sun, so I still get to wear whatever the gently caress I want on the weekends. gently caress dressing up, cargo shorts + getting poo poo done for life. I would murder a man to be able to wear shorts. Racking a dozen pallets of 100lb servers in the hot aisle still sucks in jeans.
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Sep 14, 2014 18:08
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drat that sucks. Any time I have to go onto the server floor, the moment I get back to my office afterwards I just get sweaty and sticky and nasty due to the increase in humidity relative to the server floor. Ironically I usually only have to go onto the floor during the week, so of course I'm wearing jeans. I can't believe some people actually have to wear legit business clothes while doing that kind of stuff. That's cruel and unusual punishment.
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Sep 14, 2014 19:23
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That is one big benefit to being a nurse; scrubs are basically pajamas with pockets. So comfy. My schedule is a mess because I keep having things to do during the day. So I'm flipping my schedule back and forth constantly. I can't really sleep at night anymore without something to help me though. So 5mg of melatonin about 20 minutes before I want to go to sleep, either morning or night. And get at least 7 hours of sleep.
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Sep 14, 2014 19:29
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LoveMeDead posted:That is one big benefit to being a nurse; scrubs are basically pajamas with pockets. So comfy. Are you on a 4 day rotation (my long ago ex was a nurse)? If so do you think that extra day off helps or hurts as far as adjusting to working nights?
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Sep 14, 2014 20:52
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ZombieLenin posted:Are you on a 4 day rotation (my long ago ex was a nurse)? If so do you think that extra day off helps or hurts as far as adjusting to working nights? I am not. My schedule is 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off, 2 on, 2 off, rinse, repeat. I keep having meetings for work scheduled on my second day off and have to be up all day. I would be happy to have my days together, but there are only 2 of us working night shift in our department with an occasional prn person filling in. When I first started on nights and I worked 3 in a row most weeks, it was easier to adjust. Now I'm pretty adjusted, and my body wants to sleep during the day no matter how much sleep I got at night. And wants to stay up all night no matter what time I got up in the morning. Last week I had an inservice from 8am to 3pm, so I was up at 6:30am. I couldn't fall asleep until 4am the next morning.
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Sep 14, 2014 21:23
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LoveMeDead posted:Now I'm pretty adjusted, and my body wants to sleep during the day no matter how much sleep I got at night. And wants to stay up all night no matter what time I got up in the morning. That's interesting. The reason I ask is my ex--who is a nicu nurse--seemed to have a really hard time adjusting to a graveyard schedule, but I did not. I attributed this to the fact that during her days off it was too tempting to revert a normal schedule. Whereas most of the time I was working graveyards I was crunching and literally had a single day off in 6 months (I no longer work in that industry for this reason). It's really easy to work graveyards when working is literally all you do. Then again, people are different. I'm a "night" person and, left to my own devices, I gravitate towards a 2am sleep 10am get up schedule. For my wife, on the other hand, I don't think staying up past 10pm or getting up later than 7 is physically possible. quote:Last week I had an inservice from 8am to 3pm, so I was up at 6:30am. I couldn't fall asleep until 4am the next morning. That really sucks. On occasion I have really bad insomnia and end up awake for 30 hours or so. Hour 20 is when I start getting mild sleep deprivation hallucinations, and start to wonder why everyone is talking about me.
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Sep 14, 2014 23:13
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I've been on 3rds now for over 6 years now. Most people I know on 3rds either goto bed almost immediately after they get home or they stay up till around 2 pm and get up by 9 or 10. Generally people I know with a family goto bed right after work. I found that the light blocking curtains help a lot. It takes about 3 weeks to adjust. But try to stick to a schedule, especially during your work week.
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Sep 15, 2014 04:52
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I'm sure others handle the sleep/wake pattern better, but I struggle with it. When working midnights I find I'll come home (assuming it's during the week, finish at 7), MAYBE do something for an hour or two, then crash until 7-8-9 at night. Sometimes I'll sleep right up until its time to get ready for work. I'm probably one of those people better suited for normal sleeping hours, but I've always been kind of a night owl. Just sucks to have to sleep for 10-12 hours and still feel kind of tired!
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Sep 15, 2014 05:31
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I'm very nocturnal by nature and I worked crazy-rear end nightshifts in a children's home for mentally ill kids (14 hours fourn nights straight) and I was close to death soon after. I excercise a lot and I usually woke up right before the practice would start at 7 pm. and it's bearable for a while but soon I lose a lot of my stamina, speed, strength and concentration. Four months of this rhythm and I was finished. How the gently caress are you supposed to live like this for years? I guess if you're livestyle isn't too active it's alright, but gently caress night shifts.
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Sep 15, 2014 06:10
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ManOfTheYear posted:How the gently caress are you supposed to live like this for years? I guess if you're livestyle isn't too active it's alright, but gently caress night shifts. The honest answer to this question isn't a very good one for people who make a career out of graveyard shift jobs. For a long time we have known about the health risks associated with long term shift/night work. For instance people who work nights regularly for prolonged periods have a substantially increases risk of heart disease, cardiovascular disease, sudden heart attack, type two diabetes, obesity and chronic depressive disorder. This leads to a significant (I can't remember the number so I won't be specific) reduction in life expectancy for career graveyard workers. Now having said that, it's fair to point out that statistics merely measures probability in aggregate--especially here. Some people take to working nights really well. I was one of them (at least mentally) when I did it for 7 or 8 months in 2005-2006. In fact, after the game I was working on finished and I was transferred to an MMO team, I had the best professional work schedule I've ever had. And I base that on both my productivity at work and my physical/mental health. That shift pre-expansion crunch was m-f 2pm to 11pm. I'm pretty sure that this would be counted as "shift" work for most of the statistical studies I mentioned.
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Sep 15, 2014 15:19
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How long would you have to work graveyard shifts for the negative long term effects to show? 10, 15, 20 years?
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Sep 15, 2014 15:29
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ManOfTheYear posted:How long would you have to work graveyard shifts for the negative long term effects to show? 10, 15, 20 years? Graveyard work isn't a chemical you take and wait for it to produce side effects, it's just a hosed up sleep schedule. It's different for everybody. Some people give it up in weeks, and some people can do it for years or decades.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:29
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Liquid Communism posted:I find it funny, because in the technical role I work in now, the night shift are very definitely the 'get it loving done' crew. We have 1/3 the number of techs as the day shift, and output roughly the same amount of work because we don't gently caress around and don't have management and corporate hanging over our shoulders and wasting time like the day shifts. We also ditch the IT-standard khakis and polo look for jeans/cargos and t-shirts as soon as swing shift leaves, with management blessing, because we're too busy doing actual physical work to bother with business casual. I always put out the same ticket/workload as days (Or more) while spending half of the night goofing the gently caress off. Not having management there to hobble everything you do with stupid loving questions is a godsend.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:33
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ManOfTheYear posted:How the gently caress are you supposed to live like this for years? I guess if you're livestyle isn't too active it's alright, but gently caress night shifts. Ironically, I'm actually more active working nights than I ever was on days. 24 hour gyms are your own personal playground at 3AM, it's awesome to have the whole place to yourself for the entire duration of your workout. I honestly believe that the health problems commonly associated with night-shift work stem from the rest of the world forcing vampires to have hosed up schedules. Night workers are routinely expected to go without sleep for family functions, meetings, appointments, all kinds of poo poo. I'd love to see the reaction from a daytime employee being told 'Hey, next week, I need you to come in at 9PM and stay until 6AM every day, you have two days off to adjust'. It'd be bedlam, but poo poo like that is passed down by management to night workers without a second thought.
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Sep 17, 2014 01:24
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Yeah, they do that poo poo to me all the time. Our weekly meeting is at 9am, on a shift that usually runs 9pm-8am. Rather than have the single manager who runs it come in a couple hours early one day a week, they make a dozen grave shifters swing their whole schedule two hours forward to accommodate him. Not to mention the tendency to try to call us in for day-side overtime on our days off.
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Sep 17, 2014 02:27
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My MO is to have my phone on silent while I'm sleeping and people just text me. When I wake up at night I respond to my texts while I smoke. Scheduling social and family activities are tricky but manageable. I'm able to to switch schedules on my 3 days off a week so it isn't too hard to make it to social events on my days off. If switching sleep schedules on your days off isn't an option then your just out of luck. You will have to sleep through the baseball game or whatever, you really don't have a choice. Inevitably you will miss out of some events by working late nights.
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Sep 17, 2014 13:58
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TheHistoryChannel posted:My MO is to have my phone on silent while I'm sleeping and people just text me. When I wake up at night I respond to my texts while I smoke. Depends on how you manage your sleep really. If you go to sleep right when you get home, you can usually still do social functions when you wake up as they tend towards the late afternoon hours. So if I hit the house at 8ish I can zonk out till 4, get up and go to dinner/game/whatever and I shouldn't miss much because most people are getting out of work around the same time. Weekday drinking of course is out.
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Sep 17, 2014 16:28
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I suppose I'm pretty much naturally nocturnal and have been doing the 11 PM to 7 AM thing for over a decade. I like having some light when I sleep so I have shutters that are slightly open during the day. When I get home, I go with the flow. If my body wants to stay up for a little while, I do it. I'm usually in bed by 10 AM and up at 5:30 PM or so. If I have shopping or whatever to take care of, I do it before going to bed in the morning, so the feeling of everything being taken care of will help me sleep. Usually stores are deserted, so it gets done quickly. Road traffic is minimal as well and that's a definite plus. As many have said, fast food gets old so I bring in a couple of Steamfresh vegetable/rice microwave packs. Thankfully, we do have a freezer here. I can walk around quite a bit, so I take advantage of that to keep the blood flowing. I have a girlfriend and no kids, so my day structure keeps a tender (and I think healthy) distance between her and I with evenings together and mornings where we can do our own individual thing. We're both very independent so we make it work out well enough. On my days off I get up a little sooner as go to bed a little sooner. Usually head to bed at about 4 AM and get up at noon. I love that no one's there to tell me what to do. I go at my own pace, and knock out the work I need to do. And when management arrives, I'm out the door. I couldn't ask for a better routine.
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Sep 22, 2014 14:12
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Rhymenoserous posted:I always put out the same ticket/workload as days (Or more) while spending half of the night goofing the gently caress off. Not having management there to hobble everything you do with stupid loving questions is a godsend. Very true. The graveyard shift got me though college and it was nice knowing management would see me for ten minutes in the morning as I was leaving for the day. They had no idea the amount or types of hijinks we pulled, but damned if the work, all of it, was completed, correctly (a hell of a lot more than we could say for the day shift) and we were going home to drink beer at 8:30 in the morning. Re: phone calls during the afternoon - tell people you'll call them back on your lunch hour (at 2:30am). They'll eventually get the hint.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:37
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ManOfTheYear posted:I'm very nocturnal by nature and I worked crazy-rear end nightshifts in a children's home for mentally ill kids (14 hours fourn nights straight) and I was close to death soon after. I excercise a lot and I usually woke up right before the practice would start at 7 pm. and it's bearable for a while but soon I lose a lot of my stamina, speed, strength and concentration. Four months of this rhythm and I was finished. Some people handle different shifts differently. If it's not for you, then it's not for you, there's probably no talking you out of it. If you like working graveyard, it's actually a pretty sweet gig, since there is usually a pay deferential for working third shift, which means that you're getting paid more than the people who get up at the asscrack of dawn. And since management tries to go to bed at a reasonable hour, you can just do your job without management giving you poo poo.
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Oct 10, 2014 11:28
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thrakkorzog posted:Some people handle different shifts differently. If it's not for you, then it's not for you, there's probably no talking you out of it. Literally the best thing about nightshifts is being able to sleep as long as necessary. I work a shift pattern of 2 days/2 nights/4 off and with the day shifts starting at 6:45am if I don't fall asleep before 11pm-12ish I'm up for the night if I'm lucky I might get a few hours, with nights I jump into bed at about 7am and stay in bed as long as I need to (usually 1pm-3pm) I guess I'm lucky I'm a pretty light sleeper. Does anyone else have a lot of downtime on nights? I work in police custody and quite often nights will basically be babysitting drunks etc which can leave me with a lot of free time I usually entertain myself by reading, watching stuff on YouTube etc playing old sega mega drive games.
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Oct 10, 2014 11:59
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