Retired now. Worked as a maintenance man in a tire plant on nights for 25 years. Loved third shift and still love nights. I just arranged life for the shift. No children so it worked well for me. Less management and as long as I kept the stuff running no nonsense. I still want to eat around 3 am
I’m still working every day in day shift. No night shift in state lab. Getting concerned because we are running out masks. We don’t get any from the government and we can’t purchase anything for the rest of the year.
An old friend did swing shift work for decades. He disliked it but the money was good. He retired with many health problems. We both attribute his health problems to lack of a steady schedule. Some day shift, some night shift, some afternoon shift, no rhyme or reason, he spent decades in a perpetual state of being sleep deprived. No way to get his body clock stabilized. Swing shift will take a toll. No amount of money is worth sacrificing one's health.
I agree
But we have a bit of a big order for our products and I’m only on one week of night shift this order ! If we get more big orders I’ll be doing maybe 1 night shift a month for a few months , then back to days and evening
I sleep shit anyway , I’ll end up with the same complications , but life is life !
Doing week on / week off, every second week is night shift 1800-0600.
It is easy to change over to nights, but quite difficult for me to change over back to days, regardless am I still at work or at home.
Melatonin helps a bit to get your sleep at night in right hours. Otherwise it is a tragedy …
I’ve worked nights 6pm to 6:15am on a 24/7 shift for the last 8 years, two days on, two off and work two weekends a month-Fri, Sat, Sun. I HATE IT! Your first day off you sleep away, the second day off you try and fit everything you need or want to do in that small amount of time.
I miss those 8 to 10 hour days where I would come home and still have time to mow the grass, work on a project, have a beer, watch tv and spend time with the family every day!!
My working career:
6 months - 7am to 4pm
2 1/2 yrs - 3pm to 11:30pm
4yrs - 3:30pm to 12:00am
2yrs - 11:00pm to 7:30am
3yrs - 12:00am to 7:00am ( worked 7hrs , paid for 8hrs )
2yrs - 6:30am to 3:00pm
1yr - 7:00am to 4:30pm
2yrs - 11:00pm to 7:30am
6yrs - 3:30pm to 12:00am
3yrs - 11:30pm to 8:00am
7yrs - 7:30am to 4:00pm
2yrs - 3:30pm to 12:00am
4yrs - 7:00am to 3:30pm
3yrs - 6am to 2:30pm
.
All night shift time allowed 5 to 6 hrs sleep, and day shift allowed 7 to 8 hrs sleep.
I had to work 2 jobs simultaneously on 3 different occasions totaling 3yrs.
.
Life happens, you do what needs to be done first. If I had the chance to do it again, I would hit the books very hard and play Baseball instead of football in HS.
As a department head, I don’t do nights very often. But every once in a while, the need arises, and I step up. Get to play with my lights and the night flies by! I don’t get not liking the low drama and beautiful opportunities to create our own “sun beams”.
I worked 7 years of 12 hour shifts at a Nokia Mobile phone factory as a product technican. Our shift pattern was this:
Day: 6AM to 6 PM
Night: opposite
And the day pattern: DDD—-DDD—-NNN—NNN—………
After this I worked 3 years in Delphi and runned automated car airba cable making machines and maintenance them.
wi have day, afternoon and night shifts 8 hour a shift from 6AM to 2 PM and from 2 PM to 10 PM and night from 10 PM to 6 AM
Day pattern 6 days of each shift in a row and 2 free days between each 6 workdays.
This was my most hated one. You only had weekend in every 2 month and can’t plan anything with friends wor in normal basis.
Currently I work an elecronic manufacturing company as a test and debug technican and same as in nokia just the day pattern is shorter and also 12 hours a day:
DD—DD—NN—NN—……….
I get used to it after 15 years of shifts. Nights are more relaxing because less bosses around and things go also well when they sleep at home
First night shift is the bad because of tired of being awake but I hate get up at 4 AM more so I like nights more than days.
And currently writing this at almost 5 AM here in my night shift so just 1 hour left and 2 days at home coming.
For about three years, I worked any time between 730-2000, but usually 1000-2000. Somewhat unreliable schedule and days of the week. For the past two years, 8-5 M-F though.
For some 6 years, I worked the 7-to-5 day shift, with 2 hours lunch break. Then, because of mandatory internship at university, I had to change to the 13-22 shift and couldn’t get out of it for two years. I hated every second of it, both because I couldn’t interact with my loved ones in their time and because where I work, it’s always well-lit with others around, so I couldn’t have fun with my lights
On the cusp of 2017 ending, I got changed to the 8-17 shift, thank goodness. Now, since May of ’18, I was tentatively offered by the then-supervisor (a stone-faced but fun-spirited elderly lady that I get along with very well) the 6-15 shift. Tried it and loved it, it’s perfect both for bike commuting and for me to do things in shops, banks and other establishments. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from this shift.
ADDENDUM: Before the total lockdown was mandated, I did an 18-20 emergency shift, alone. So I could shut down ALL the lights and only use my torches. Guess who was one happy camper?
Yeek. If I ever got stuck on one of those crazy day/night/night/day shifts for 12hrs at a time and no set days to work what, youse would be reading about me in the news.
