WWTBAM Bored

If KFC and my environmentally unfriendly hometown don't kill me, maybe this will....

lb13

Time to stop keeping vampire hours, beast!

MarleysGh0st wrote:Time to stop keeping vampire hours, beast!

I have been keeping vampire hours since I was in the 9th grade, so it's a bit of a hard habit to break....

lb13

I had wondered if it was a vitamin D thing.

Late shift work is bad enough but if it is what you do all the time at least you can perhaps acclimate to it.

For years my father worked a rotating shift where he would work 0700-1500 for a few days then 1500-2300 for a few days and about every fourth or fifth shift he would have to work 2300-0700 for a few days.

As a kid I never was really sure when he was at work and when he wasn't. It would sometimes give you extra time at home with the family during the day but I know it had to be tough. And he did it for years. Somehow he managed and is still in relatively good health in his 70's.

I would have hated a schedule like that!

So much for productivity as companies are forced by lawsuits to eliminate 2nd and 3rd shifts, or for profitability when they have to pay significant "hazardous duty" pay (above and beyond the "shift differential") for working those shifts. Another boon for injury lawyers.

WTF doesn't cause illness, if you look at it in the "right" way? With all the foods and food ingredients that studies "show" are bad for us, I contend that all grocery stores must post in prominent letters as you enter: "Caution: eating may be hazardous to your health." Or maybe just "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

I always look askance at those studies that say night shift work is bad for your health. What about all those of us who are by nature anything but morning people??

Right now I work 7:30 to 4, or sometimes 8 to 4:30 -- but if I had my druthers, I'd work an afternoon to 11PM or midnight shift! Unfortunately, my current department is only open in the day. When I worked in general radiology -- open 24/7 -- I worked 2nd shift a lot. In fact, I worked it steady for several years when the kids were little. Keith, OTOH, is a morning person & works 6AM to 2:30. I tried working that for exactly one week. I thought it might be nice to be off so early in the day -- unfortunately I went home every day & crashed! Just not something I could handle.

Years ago when I worked in a photo lab, I worked the overnight shift sometimes but that was a 7PM to 7AM overtime tour -- tiring but the $$ was great. The rest of the time I worked the afternoon shift there too & loved it.

VAdame wrote:I always look askance at those studies that say night shift work is bad for your health. What about all those of us who are by nature anything but morning people??

We don't fit in, so the "normal" people assume there's something wrong with us, or something will go wrong with us.

I love the fact that I get a pay differential for the shift I actually prefer to work....

lb13

Jeff's shifts change constantly. He might work 10p to 7a one day, then 11a to 7p a few days later. Yesterday he worked 6p to 12a, then today he is working 7a to 5p.

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Jeff's shifts change constantly. He might work 10p to 7a one day, then 11a to 7p a few days later. Yesterday he worked 6p to 12a, then today he is working 7a to 5p.

That's what's really hard. Years back, after Reagan fired the air traffic controllers for going out on strike, elwing decided she wanted to be an air traffic controller. She applied, went to the school and passed the classes. Toward the end of the course the instructor told the class that they would be working on shifts very much like the one Jeff works - two days working days, two days working swing, two days working nights, two days off, rinse and repeat. It made no sense to her (or to me) because of the problems with circadian rhythms - it seemed to me that controllers would be chronically fatigued and thus prone to more mistakes. Given that, and the fact that we were raising two children at the time and I was trying to go to school in Louisville while her initial assignment would have been in Memphis, she decided to deliberately tank the final exam.

earendel wrote:

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Jeff's shifts change constantly. He might work 10p to 7a one day, then 11a to 7p a few days later. Yesterday he worked 6p to 12a, then today he is working 7a to 5p.

That's what's really hard. Years back, after Reagan fired the air traffic controllers for going out on strike, elwing decided she wanted to be an air traffic controller. She applied, went to the school and passed the classes. Toward the end of the course the instructor told the class that they would be working on shifts very much like the one Jeff works - two days working days, two days working swing, two days working nights, two days off, rinse and repeat. It made no sense to her (or to me) because of the problems with circadian rhythms - it seemed to me that controllers would be chronically fatigued and thus prone to more mistakes. Given that, and the fact that we were raising two children at the time and I was trying to go to school in Louisville while her initial assignment would have been in Memphis, she decided to deliberately tank the final exam.

I couldn't do Jeff's schedule. Though I don't sleep much, I need to be asleep between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. or else I get cranky.
Jeff can fall asleep easily, it was something he learned to do in Medical School.

earendel wrote:

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Jeff's shifts change constantly. He might work 10p to 7a one day, then 11a to 7p a few days later. Yesterday he worked 6p to 12a, then today he is working 7a to 5p.

That's what's really hard. Years back, after Reagan fired the air traffic controllers for going out on strike, elwing decided she wanted to be an air traffic controller. She applied, went to the school and passed the classes. Toward the end of the course the instructor told the class that they would be working on shifts very much like the one Jeff works - two days working days, two days working swing, two days working nights, two days off, rinse and repeat. It made no sense to her (or to me) because of the problems with circadian rhythms - it seemed to me that controllers would be chronically fatigued and thus prone to more mistakes. Given that, and the fact that we were raising two children at the time and I was trying to go to school in Louisville while her initial assignment would have been in Memphis, she decided to deliberately tank the final exam.

There is this distinction I have given to my m-i-l. When she tries to tell me some 'reason' she can't do something, or some 'reason' she did do something and it just can't stand up to real reason, I tell her my bullshit meter is going off.

My bullshit meter went off on this one.

We bid for shifts three times a year, and they stay locked in for those four months. All of mine since I started at the beginning of the year have been really early....earliest was 04:00-12:30, and the latest (the current one) is 06:30-15:00. But I treated 4:00 AM like a night shift, sleeping in the afternoons after I got home, and being awake all night. And I have done a lot of shift/day trades, so I've been able to sample a lot of other times, including one stint of 22:30-06:30.

I can imagine that living like a vampire probably isn't the most healthy thing in the world. But I do prefer it (i.e. I can't wait to get off this friggin 06:30 shift.)