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Wewnaw
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12 Jun 2018, 3:19 am

Hi there,
Does anyone here have experience of just working nights?
I work full time and have a random rota pattern where I work a mix of days and nights. It's not possible to be picky about shift patterns or anything like that. It's also not possible to just work days without an exceptionally good reason. I like the night shift better as it's generally quieter in that there's less social interaction and generally less noise (it's a very busy loud department). At the moment I seem to work an alternate week of days week of nights pattern and I'm completely drained. It's not just flipping my sleep pattern every week but when I'm on day shift the constant noise and talking exhausts me. I can't see myself keeping up with this so I'm considering asking to just work nights. Anyone else done this? Did it help you cope?



SabbraCadabra
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12 Jun 2018, 3:29 pm

I do cope a lot better on nights, but it can be difficult to not ever see the sun, and it's hard to plan around day-time activities. When the big holidays come around, I usually don't get much sleep on those days.

I'm not very good at switching my sleep schedule around, I have to have it constant or I can't sleep right. I know a lot of people I work with switch to days on the weekends. I can't do it.


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Scorpius14
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14 Jun 2018, 6:08 am

I was working 12 hour night shifts with lousy public transport e.g. 6pm-6am (buses run from 7am, are full of dodgy people around 5-6pm), otherwise the walk would have exhausted me before i even started working. I had 5 minutes to get my safety gear on, swipe in and get started right away because it was on a rota thing, 4 on 4 off, nearly all the time I was having to lift in excess of 25kg, half my body weight, and this is me being in poor fitness, at the time I only got around 5 hour sleep, and they only gave me 25 mins lunch break, slave labour really. And family says all jobs are going to be like that one way or another, so suck it up.



nick007
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16 Jun 2018, 8:48 am

I worked nights for over two years when I cleaned floors at WalMart. I stay up all night anyways when not working & not in skewl like I'm doing nowadays unless there's something going on in the day that I have to be up for & then I may take naps at night after. Working nights didn't bother me. My 3rd job had inconsistent schedules. It was only me & another person doing that job & my days off changed & the times I came in got changed around too. Sometimes I would come in the morning & other times I would come in the afternoon & stay till closing but other times I would work in the middle of the day & my schedule was different every week. I was able to handle it but it did kind of frustrate me & made it harder for me to relax & sleep when I was off. I talked to my manager about giving me & the other guy consistent schedules but our manager said it wouldn't work. I really don't see why it wouldn't of worked to have somewhat consistent schedules. I had a consistent schedule at my 1st job & worked in the evening & afternoon so relaxing & my sleep schedule were more consistent which helped.


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Eurythmic
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02 Jul 2018, 6:15 am

I've been through several periods where I worked only nights, I requested it that way. I found it much easier to manage the sleep-wake cycle rather than switching between days and nights all the time. Working in hospitals things were generally quieter, just the way I like it :wink:



Red89
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02 Jul 2018, 7:48 am

I'm currently working full time doing evening and night shifts. I do the odd morning shift very reluctantly (I'm just tired and not very alert). The evenings are so much quieter and I only work with one other person. I tend to get the required amount of rest and sleep if I'm working later on in the day. Its just nice to not feel constantly tired at the moment, working nights suits me :)


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jimmy m
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02 Jul 2018, 10:47 pm

I worked a combination of swing shift and graveyard shift for a year or two. The overtime pay was good but there was no life outside work. I did find that there are special curtains that allow no light to enter the room from the window. So even though it was daytime outside, it was a pitch black cave inside my room. That helped significantly in allowing me proper sleep.


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03 Jul 2018, 3:20 pm

I've worked night shifts for two different jobs in my life and didn't really have a problem with working night rather than day. There were some aspects that I preferred at the time. Less people around, less traffic commuting to name a few.

I was young at the time so it didn't seem to affect me too much as far as sleep was concerned.

I was ridiculously unsuited for the one job which was working at UPS from 12:00am-4:00am loading semi-trailers with packages at what was supposed to be as fast as was humanly possible. Then......there was me. They told us in training that UPS did not make money shipping air and therefore it was important to make sure boxes, like a 3D puzzle, should be packed as tightly together as possible. I took that literally and could not process the best placement of each box in conjunction with the other fast enough as the boxes would pile up on the conveyor belt in a loud environment with a manager yelling at you to work faster but not being able to or willing to help you. I quit that job.

The other was actually not too bad. It was working as a night security guard at various public housing projects. It was generally quiet and uneventful. That all changed when a resident shot at my partner and I and two police officers while we were running down the hall away from him. At least one bullet hit less than two feet from our heads. I quit that job shortly after....



Canary
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04 Jul 2018, 3:26 pm

I worked in a bakery for a while which meant getting up at 3-4am. I think rotating shift work is what really gets to people, since I was doing okay once I got consistent about it.



SabbraCadabra
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04 Jul 2018, 8:05 pm

Canary wrote:
I think rotating shift work is what really gets to people, since I was doing okay once I got consistent about it.

Exactly. On third shift, the supervisor is always having us come in anywhere between 30 minutes to two hours early, and he wonders why, with this unpredictable schedule, I can't ever manage to make it in on time :roll:


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guitarman2010
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28 Jul 2018, 12:06 am

It definetely takes a certain individual to operate at a healthy level doing night shifts


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