I had to leave my job as a 911 call taker/police dispatcher because I was being switched to nights and I was literally unable to adjust when I had had to work nights previously. You’d think a few weeks of the same schedule would be enough to adjust, but nope. It would get to be 3:00 a.m. and I would be falling asleep in my chair.
I have a sleep disorder which means I can’t adjust to a DAY shift. It’s trippy, I’m basically the opposite of everyone else. I still work days, because that’s how you get promoted. But it’s like working a night shift for everyone else. After a few years you adapt, but it’s never really normal.
DSPD? I’ve got that too. It sucks when the rest of the world operates on a totally different schedule than my body’s clock.
My store has shift work, but does it in a sane way. The people whose schedules could change bid for schedules on a week by week basis, and they’re awarded by seniority. In theory, you could get stuck with a closing shift going into an opening shift, but in practice it never happens because all the opening shifts get snapped up by the senior employees every week.
It’s not just your circadian rhythm being fkd. It’s your regular, overall sleep pattern. Constant interruptions because civilized life goes on during day hours. Need to go to a bank? Have a plumber over to fix a leak? Go to see a doctor, ironically for sleep issues? Gonna lose sleep to make those “sacrifices.”
For those who have never worked shift, it’s like getting up at 3am to go see your kids basketball game, then go to work at 8am.
Source: Worked shift for many many years.
Yup, working shifts since almost 20 years, my only motivation for becoming an entrepreneur is to be able to stop working those hours…
And I am not working for a shit company, we are treated very well and are probably amongst the top 5% luckiest employees in our country. But working shifts sucks, no matter how you sugarcoat it, it still sucks.
