Nightshifts; anyone else hate them as much as I do?!

Shanotheslayer · 18-11-2015 05:29PM

The Honey Monster wrote: »

Aha hahahahahahah try 5 night shifts a week, Monday to Friday and come back to me about no social life, terrible health, sleep patterns, diet etc. No week days as you spend most of the day in bed and you're waiting to go into work and your weekend is shorter than anyone else's due to being asleep most of Saturday.

My job is horrendous.

I've been there, it's a nightmare. Did it for a month basically, and then thankfully found a new job!

Penn · 18-11-2015 06:05PM

Great in the winter, hateful in the summer.

Depends a lot on the job too. Used to work in a factory but for the most part you were just there in case sh*t went wrong, with the occasional quality testing etc. Spent most night shifts (because no one was around) reading, listening to music, internetting and occasionally watching dvds on a portable dvd player.

Sleeping during the day in the summer was the worst though. It was bright, even with blind + curtain. It was warm, so you had to have a window open. But more tractors etc on the road, so window open meant more noise. More noise meant earplugs, which aren't that comfortable to sleep in. And it was just always a horrible feeling.

Sleeping during the day in winter never bothered me.

Penn · 18-11-2015 06:14PM

Not so much nightshift but when I worked in a hotel, I used to do mornings, but they needed me to cover a few nights as well. In 3 days I did:

7pm-1am Sunday night
7am-1pm Monday morning
7pm-1am Monday night
7am-1pm Tuesday morning
5.30pm-12am Tuesday night

Then on Wednesday morning I had to go register for college and get my student ID photo taken. I looked like a f*cking zombie on my student card for 5 years.

Probably not legal to do that, but it was about 6 weeks into my first job and I was 17 so didn't question it, just did it.

JigglyMcJabs · 18-11-2015 06:24PM

I used to love working nights. I did a stint as night shift in a hotel, 10 nights on 4 nights off.

For insurance/health and safety, there had to be 2 staff plus the manager on the premises. We'd do maybe an hour of cleaning, then cook up some steaks in the kitchen, kick back in the restaurant and talk ****e for the rest of the shift drinking tea.

An hour before the morning shift manager was due, we'd get back to doing a bit of cleaning, make sure there was a smell of pledge in the air when she turned up.

Then off to the early house until about 11am, drunkenly walk out into the sunshine and home to bed. The night work/ early house combo meant that you'd be drunk after 2 pints, so it was cheap too.

Galwayguy35 · 18-11-2015 06:27PM

Worked all nights for 7 years before changing to a day job, couldn't sleep when I got home and was tired as a horse getting up.

They want me to go back on nights but I'd hate to have to do them again.

ivytwine · 18-11-2015 06:32PM

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUcKeKt8C1k

Always thought this song kinda got it right, they somehow managed to capture the wooziness and mood.

"fluorescent flat caffeine lights", "I see the night through a headache grey" ..

Haha I listened to that song when working nights and burst into tears

I think I decided at that point nights were not for me!

DEFTLEFTHAND · 18-11-2015 06:34PM

When I was 19 I spent a few weeks that summer sitting in a hut with another fella guarding an industrial complex. No training or anything, all the job really entailed was looking at monitors and opening the gate at certain times to let Lorries in and out.

Any hint of trouble we'd just call the guards, the only real issue we had was certain people trying to steal scrap metal.

Hours were long though 7pm to 7am, but pay wasn't bad.

Kiwi in IE · 18-11-2015 07:17PM

I work nights at the moment too. I jobshare a full time nightshift position, so only have to do 7 a month, but it takes me about 2 days to fully get over each block of 2 or 3. There's no way I could do nights full time.

Dr. Bre · 18-11-2015 07:22PM

I like a shift especially at night 😉

outsidein98 · 18-11-2015 07:35PM

Worked every second month days and nights for seven years. 60 hours on alternative weeks including Friday to Monday and 24 the next. It was killing. Never again.

I knew people who worked nights on that shift permanently literally fo 20 years. They adapted to it. But switching back and forth between days and nights is the road to an early grave.

You were always tired and people never understood, waking you for stupid reasons. If you tried to stay awake after finishing a cycle you could end up hallucinating. On guy lay down for a rest for a few minutes woke up seventeen hours later. Another got the bus into town and woke up back where he started. People have died while driving after night shifts. It's like being drunk.
Never again for me.

miezekatze · 18-11-2015 07:40PM

I know several people who prefer working nights or late shifts, but I very much prefer 9-5ish working hours myself. I worked nights and late shifts when I was younger and always found it hard to stay awake/productive. It was handy for getting stuff done during the day though.

smurfjed · 18-11-2015 08:17PM

Try working 20 days a month on 24 hour call, must be at work within an hour and ready to do up to a 16 hour duty.

Just as well that i get 150 days off a year at home to recover

Yakkyda · 18-11-2015 08:50PM

Done night security a few years back, thurs-sun, 7-7. Was fine at first as there was two of us on(lad was friend) and the the construction site was absolutely secure, covered by cameras in the control room and literally 2 mins from the garda station(handy, considering our training was "if you see anything dodgy, radio control, they'll call the guards, there's a radio off ye go")

We just slept and played xboxat first but a it progressed we had to do patrols due to machinery etc overnight on site so no sleep. Really ****'s up your body clock, social life etc. Even on days of its hard to feel right. Night premium was good as was the wages in general but would be even harder to do now(was 20,now 31) but I'd take it if I was offered tbh! Is tough going for the majority of folk.

_Brian · 18-11-2015 09:13PM

Night shift is a balls.

I spent 13 years of nights, 3&4 12 hour shifts on alternative weeks. First few years were ok but it got harder and harder to sleep during days.

Was having a lot of chest infections and general sickness which all cleared up when I stopped the shift work.

I still get the insomnia fairly regularly though. That never went away.

eoins23456 · 18-11-2015 09:32PM

Worked night shifts during the summer in an ice-cream parlor last summer. 3-4 shifts of 10pm - 7am which wasn't too bad. all the free pizza and ice-cream so was a great bonus !

ivytwine · 18-11-2015 10:11PM

_Brian wrote: »

Night shift is a balls.

I spent 13 years of nights, 3&4 12 hour shifts on alternative weeks. First few years were ok but it got harder and harder to sleep during days.

Was having a lot of chest infections and general sickness which all cleared up when I stopped the shift work.

I still get the insomnia fairly regularly though. That never went away.

Yeah I only did night shifts for a very short time and still my sleep is fecked. Used to sleep like a log before, now I find it much harder to fall asleep.

waraf · 18-11-2015 10:17PM

I did shift work for a few years when I was younger. Shift pattern was a month of days / month of nights. It definitely starts to take a toll on your health after 2 years+. Wouldn't go back to it even if they doubled my salary.

18-11-2015 11:21PM

I worked one overnight shift one night a week as a student for a couple of years. It was the kind of job where you had to be there to deal with a situation if it occurred, but it was mostly quiet and you could snooze between alerts etc. I didn't mind it because it was quiet and I could study and usually get a couple of hours sleep, get home at 7.30 am and sleep until 1 and then I'd be sorted again for the week.

There were a few nights that were relentless, and I remember one night when the brown stuff didnt stop hitting the fan and I was working from 7 pm on Friday night right through to 12 noon Saturday. I was walking home that day, and I wound up crossing the road and being missed by a bus by centimetres, it brushed my clothes. My judgement was screwed with tiredness, but there were people in that office getting in their cars to drive home that morning.

Some of the shifts required of hospital doctors are terrifying, I couldn't cross the road but they're expected to deal with peoples lives.

Rym Shanley · 19-11-2015 12:25AM

Did nightshifts for four years.

Tough at first then I adapted.

The trick is to stay up for a few hours when you get home and then go to bed. Get up just before you need to leave to go to work - just have shower, breakfast and then go.

I now work 9am - 5.30pm. I don't go to bed the moment I get in the door so why do it on nights?

The Sidewards Man · 19-11-2015 12:56AM

I love the grave yard shift, everything much quieter and less pace. Make away more time on the road too.

Fran1985 · 19-11-2015 01:12AM

I do nightshifts. 8pm-8am. 3 maybe 4 every week. Did 5 last week what with Christmas coming and all. I dont mind them. I make sure i eat when i get home (eggs or porridge). Bed by 9ish and get up at 4 to go the gym (the importance of getting some exercise cant be underestimated, the difference is amazing). Come home cook dinner and a lunch (for later in the night). Usually chicken based and light on carbs. Then make sure i take lots of vitamens too and 2 litres of water over the 12 hours.

Ya really need to look after yourself for night shifts. Its not natural for our bodies to be deprived of so much daylight. Its especially true for winter. The summer isnt as bad. Life for those days really is sleeping, cooking, working. I dont think id be able for it if i had kids.

Also Pharmaton. Thank me later

jack747 · 19-11-2015 01:29AM

Worked nights as a doorman in New York for a few summers. Was a piece of cake but boring enough, good old podcast's saved me through the night. Impossible to sleep after with the heat during the summer though.

Azalea · 19-11-2015 02:25AM

I am a total night-owl (I even find it easier to fall asleep during the day than at night-time, no matter how tired I am at night) and in that sense it'd probably suit me, but I'm better off just having to get the fup out of bed early - shattered as I may be - in the morning and getting on with it (although if I could choose my hours, they'd be 10.30/11am to 7pm). It's healthier.

With the night-shift, I bet it feels like you're the last person on earth - isolated from friends, family, just day-to-day life. Out and about when it feels like everyone else is asleep and nearly everything is closed. And yeah, all the noise outside during the day - I can sleep during the day but only for naps. And you wouldn't get to sleep straightaway when you finish the night-shift I'm sure - you'd have a lot of winding down to do. It's not like you go straight to bed when you finish a day shift. So I'd imagine lots of arsing around in front of crap morning TV when you get home, after stopping off at the garage for a breakfast roll. It totally makes sense that diet would end up being comprised of a lot of convenience foods.

The closest I ever did to a night-shift was when I had to work until 11pm and that was horrible - the isolation of not seeing people because they're all working during the day, and then those solitary hours between getting home and winding down. Night-shift would be a much worse version of that. My mother used to work nights as a nurse and she said she simply could not sleep during the day - so she would be awake for days on the trot, and it would make her physically sick.

I worked until 10.30pm during my college years but that's different to when it's your full-time job.

Wouldn't mind the very occasional one-off night-shift, but a regular thing, feck that. It's a lonely existence.

19-11-2015 10:34AM

Switching between nights and days regularly is what's causing people most issues rather than actual night shifts imo.

I've never worked nights but I'm a real night person so they would suit me down to the ground unfortunately in my area of work they aren't a thing. Have a number of close family members who only work nights (one works 7-12 hr night shifts in a row and then 7 days off) we are a family of night owls.

Being changed to working days is a massive fear for them and they have fought to stay on nights. As I said, once they weren't over the weekend I'd be all over them even better if you could work 3 or 4 long nights and have 3 days off a week or like my family member work 7 on 7 off.

Don't understand people saying it effects their social life (once you aren't working weekends) as you are primed for late nights in the pub and club as its your time to be up anyway.

Rym Shanley wrote: »

The trick is to stay up for a few hours when you get home and then go to bed. Get up just before you need to leave to go to work - just have shower, breakfast and then go.

This is key imo, treat it like you would a normal day shift.

The people I know working nights will say finish at 8am, might head into town to do a bit of shopping if needed or just look around the shops. Get home for 9:30 or 10 (or later depending). Eat, do some chores and then watch tv etc and bed around 12 or so. Up around 6:30 or 7pm then and get ready and straight off to work again.

lawlolawl · 19-11-2015 10:59AM

Azalea wrote: »

With the night-shift, I bet it feels like you're the last person on earth

Sounds like heaven.

Nightshifts; anyone else hate them as much as I do?!

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