any night shift workers here? when do you sleep & how much sleep do you get?

[JAmos]

I used to work nights at walmart(10:00p-6:30a). I could sleep anytime, just had to get more than 3hrs or I was dead. Couldnt find anything that really worked to keep me awake on nights of almost no sleep, even though I needed something so bad. I never needed a dark room, didnt even hear half the remodleing across the hall. Biggest problem was not turning the phones off, but I never minded talking to girls.



Jordan

 

[Eric_77]

Don't do much third shift (one night a week as a bartender 10-4am) I had black-out drapes at the old place (wish I had anything in the one window now dog ate the mini blind) but wife got a mood alarm that has a light that gets progressively brighter for 30 minutes it fools your brain into thinking the sun is coming up.

 

[WantaCummins]

Try working for the Railroad as a locomotive engineer on the extra board. Talk about pure Hell :{ !! I'm on call 24/7 get a call from crew dispatchers in Montreal Canada 3 hrs before i'm to report to work which is a 1hr 30 min drive. I have somewhat of an idea on what trains are to be called and what vacancy's there are by the website or the phone but they are usually inaccurate and you have fellow union "brothers" marking off in front of you if a crappy low paying job comes up. I have no set days off besides 2 weeks vacation or to mark off sick or personal with no pay otherwise it's waiting for the phone to ring. For example i had to call off sick for my own WEDDING!!! The ONLY thing that keeps me here is the pay and the benefits I'm not a railfan (train buff) and get a bigger thrill banging gears in my 12 valve than operating a 4000hp locomotive So next time you see a train watch out since 9 times out of 10 the crew is unrested and mad at the company for some reason wheather it be they missed their sons birthday party or the company didn't pay for all work performed or many other reasons.

 

[DKarvwnaris]

I feel for you guys, I can't imagine doing the night shifts anymore. My time in the Navy cured me of ever wanting to give up my sleep time again for a job. (Its why I work for myself now).

I've been out for years and still can't get a decent nights sleep if there are any beeps or artificial noises in the background. I used to stand Damage control watch stations on my ship in a 3 section duty cycle. Essentially every three days, I was up for 24 hours straight, sometimes longer as the next work day would run into my last one. I was straight out of highschool when I joined so I was able to adapt to it pretty easy.

Worst night hours I ever had to stand was West Pac in the Persian Gulf, its bad enough trying to get comfortable in the temps at night, but during the day, you could add another 20 degrees to the berthing area easily. A/C air didn't cool it down much until the sun went down. The morale was okay which helped, I would loose track of days sometimes though.



My wife is still in the military, (USAF captain) ,and stands ready alerts in our missile defense program, talk about a screwed up sleep pattern. Her alert schedule puts her in a missile capsule for 24 (actual onsite hours) out in the middle of nowhere 9 times a month. She reports in to base by 7 am to then drives 2-3 hours in good weather to her facility. The next day she has to drive back to base again after sometimes no sleep at all. All this with training and testing on her days off in between. She's lucky to get 3 complete days off a month.

If I had to give an award to any of us here for "the worst workshift", I would hands down have to put her at the top of list. She gets treated like crap on top of it, which leads me to wonder why she wants to stick with it. She's had a lot of sleepless nights at home just dealing with the sexual harrassment and "guy oriented" work center on top of everything else. Thank god she's transferring in to a new command in March. Whoever tells you the Military, Air Force especially, believes in equal opportunity and 0 tolerance of hostile work environments needs to go into politics.

 

[The patriot]

8 years rotating

That's the shift we are on right now. Circadian Technologies is in the process of developing a new set of shifts to decide on right now. Should be interesting to see how this goes.

These were the people that pushed the company line..... er..... ahhh..... tried to "help us decide" which shift we would get.

They had a lot of good suggestions. My problem was:

1 sleep. I have a sleep disorder to begin with. :{

2 eating habits. I never knew when to eat, and what meal to make it.

We were on a two week rotation, 3 on 2 off 2 on 2 off 2 on 3 off schedule.

I HATED IT!!

This is the first place I ever had to rotate, and I didnt adapt well.

Melatonin didnt help me.

As said by others, unhook or shut off the phone.

Room darkening shades, or heavy drapes. (like seen in Dracula movies)

My wife was the best! She tolerated my attitude during this time.

In fact, most of the time I was awake I looked like

Eric

 

[The patriot]

Oh yea, I used to get to sleep at between 7am and 8 am depending upon if we had to cover for a "safety meeting". :{ On occasion, a long meeting would get me to bed at 10am~ish.

I'd usually sleep to about 1 or 2 pm. If I had a perticularly crappy night, maybe a little later.

Ya dont sleep enough, ya feel like crap.

Ya sleep too much, ya feel like crap.

Oh yea, ya feel like crap anyway from being on nights.

BTW My shifts were 12 hours, 14 hr with commute.

Eric

 

[lschultz]

I worked that night shift 11-7 for 17 or 18 yrs rotating days off. Only reason I went to nights was for the extra pay back then. I probably would still be on it if it was not for that wreck I had in 98 was off work 11+mos and the nurlogist decided nights were not in my best interest. I ususally went to sleep when I got home and woke up around 2-3. Usually about 6 hrs sleep is the most I got. It will take its toll on you after a while. The body is meant to sleep at night. I slept in spells sometimes I would not wake and then sometimes I would wake up after a couple hrs of sleep. Doing the kind of work I do did not help things cause there was times you get a nap when ever you can sleep in the chair,lay on the floor,crawl on top of a table then the alarms you get throughout the night keep waking you up or a piece of equipment starts giving you problems but there was always time to do little goverment projects on the side. :-laf

 

[TSpecht]

I work a 3-2-2 shift (basically 3 on 2 off then the next 2 back on, then the next week you have the days you worked the first week off. )... 12 hours at a pop 730 to 730 except the occasional 16. I switch from days to mids and back every time I go back, so I'm constantly switching back and forth. So far this is about the best shift I've found to be on. I think the only thing I'd prefer to this would be straight midnights. I'm glad I'm not on 5-2 though, I hate having to go there 5 days in a row without getting some overtime out of it. Now that I'm adjusted to this when I trained on a new job and was on 5-2 days I was walkin' around like a zombie. It was just such a departure from what I'm used to.



I only get about 4-6 hours of sleep normally, and the same is the case with me on this setup. I get out at 730am when on mids, home by about 8, where I tend to stay up as long as possible before sleep, so I can hopefully sleep until it's time to go to work. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. On mids sometimes I just need to slow down in order to make sure I'm not making mistakes.

 

[The patriot]

I worked that night shift 11-7 for 17 or 18 yrs rotating days off. Only reason I went to nights was for the extra pay back then. I probably would still be on it if it was not for that wreck I had in 98 was off work 11+mos and the nurlogist decided nights were not in my best interest. I ususally went to sleep when I got home and woke up around 2-3. Usually about 6 hrs sleep is the most I got. It will take its toll on you after a while. The body is meant to sleep at night. I slept in spells sometimes I would not wake and then sometimes I would wake up after a couple hrs of sleep. Doing the kind of work I do did not help things cause there was times you get a nap when ever you can sleep in the chair,lay on the floor,crawl on top of a table then the alarms you get throughout the night keep waking you up or a piece of equipment starts giving you problems but there was always time to do little goverment projects on the side. :-laf

Sounds like my job. Hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

Oh yea, we had time for the govt jobs too.

I think I used the machine shop more than anyone there..... at least on nights.

I've already had people just appear in my office in the middle of the night, and we were in conversation. Strange feeling.

I woke up a few times on the other side of the road. One of my docs was going to give me anote for "no nights" but that wouldnt have helped, so I told her to keep it.

Eric

 

[The patriot]

gitchesum, watch your O.T.

When the company wanted our schedule changed, they took a lot of out perks. Sat-Sun double time, etc.

If theyre pushin for it, ya gotta wonder why?

Eric

 

[nickleinonen]

well, i slept almost 13 hours yesterday [after being up for a little past 24 hours - gotta love working overtime ] and now 4 hours today... only 4 more regular shifts until the "weekend"... :{:{:{

 

[TKingsbury]

I've had my fair share of falling asleep on a creeper under a truck. I've also fallen asleep while moving a truck from the parking lot into the shop on more than a few occasions. Almost ran into the shop twice, almost ran down a stop sign in the yard too. I was testing a truck one night that had a throttle stop for a set rpm, fell asleep for about 10 or 15 mins with foot on the throttle @ 2000rpm. I'm glad I'm off that shift. I don't see my wife nearly as much now (3:30 to midnight), but I feel alot better and my memory is better. I feel like I lost the 5 years I was on nights, it's all just a blur.

Travis. .

 

[The patriot]

When I was on a steady shift afternoons were my favorite... . by far.

Seems like a lifetime ago.

TKingsbury, I know what you mean by saying "it's all just a blur".

Seems like I was in a semi vegitative state for 8 years. :{

Guess some cope better than others.

Eric

 

[Bigsaint]

Hey Eric, wanna buy my SA M1A, never fired only dropped once ? :--)



Nick, I worked my share of overnights and I never found a happy medium. I was always tired and pretty much hated life. From what I remember the best reccomndation was to keep yourself on the same schedule when off, i. e. , sleep during the day and stay up at night. Since I'm not a vampire I really never tried that routine. What worked best for me was to sleep for a few hours as soon as I got home and then catch up on the rest of the sleep before I left for work. Bottom line is that's it's just not natural for you to be awake at 0300 hrs on a regular basis. There was many a day off that I wasted catching up on sleep. Rainy days help. Keep your bedroom as dark as possible and add a noise device such as a fan or AC in the summer to block out the noise.



Scott

 

[The patriot]

Hey Eric, wanna buy my SA M1A, never fired only dropped once ? :--)

Sure, I never say no to guns even though Santa did me good this year.

Oh yea, forgot the noise. Summertime was the worst for me. Kids, lawnmowers, heat, etc.

I got a window A/C for the bedroom. Takes care of all problems in one especially since the wife dont consider 80 degrees in the BR too hot for good sleep. :-laf

I like it more like 60 for quality rest.

Eric

 

[Turbo Tim 1]

I just got home, 10:40 am, got to work at 6:30 pm last night and had to stay for some training this morning, it was a long 62 mile ride home, snowing too! Shift work stinks but it pays the bills and then some for a dummy like me. The white noise and darkness are the keys to sleeping well.

 

[nickleinonen]

8 hours sleep today... man do i ever want to get back to afternoon shift [1600-0000]...

 

[michigandon]

Hey nick, do you work for CN or CP? Just curious.



Don

 

[MMiller]

I worked the graveyard for about 1. 5 years. The longer I was on it the less sleep I would get. Spring time was terrible. Get home at around 9 am, on a nice, sunny, warm morning. There's no way this farm boy was going to let a nice, sunny day go by sleeping! I worked monday nite-to friday night. Try being 22 and leave all your buddies that were ready to go out night wheeling on a friday night, to go to WORK! For some reason a lot of sick time was used on friday nights. The fridays I did go to work was almost always followed by an all day of wrenching on trucks. About noon on Saturday I had to appoint someone to watch me and think for me. As long as I kept moving-everything was cool, but thought process was blurry or nonexistent. Then saturday afternoon-evening we would fire up the trucks and wheel all night until 3-4am sunday. Then I could sleep good Sunday and Monday.



Then I ended up with a girlfriend and her little boy. They would be home at 4-5 pm, and I could not sleep when they were around. Just a little noise and sleep would stop. Then I started getting home from work, pull in the driveway and could not remember any of the trip home. I could remember leaving the shop, and find myself in my driveway. I would walk around the truck just to make sure the sheetmetal was still straight. !



When that started happening, I started looking for a new job. Now I work days=much better.



Get in a groove and stick to it. Work hard-play hard, then you usually sleep well too. Night shift was great because I did not have to work hard, but was still very productive. No interuptions. It however was not worth the extra $. 75/hour.



Good luck, be safe. When you get tired-sleep. Its not worth getting hurt for. While at work, occasionally I would come out of the "fog" and realize I was doing something very stupid, dangerous, life threatening, and scare myself! Wasn't worth it.



Once again- be safe.



Michael