Shift work, love it or hate it?
 

I recently started working at a precast concrete plant that basically has around the clock shifts. For the last 2 months I have had a pretty good shift from 6am-2:30 with about 4 hours of overtime a week. Starting today my shift has been changed from 2:30pm-10pm, and to expect no lunch.

Ive worked graveyards and started early mornings but Ive never had such a shitty awkward shift. Ive also always eaten on a schedule so not eating dinner every night and having 2 young kids that wake up at 6am every morning is gonna be just the start of the challenges.

Any other Revscene members do shift work? How did you deal the first time you had to work a crappy shift. any tips?

it was hard for me. tried shift work in my younger years and i had no life. i was part of a maintenance crew in office towers downtown doing work that had to be done off-hours so as not to interfere with office day staff. i was constantly rotated in and out of night shift and regular day hours because i thought the money was good but after about a month i couldn't handle it anymore and dropped out...

i can't imagine what you are going through because you have family and i was single then. my dad did graveyard shifts for a long time and i would almost never see him as i was in school during the day while he was trying to sleep and by the time i got home he was already gone :(

Why would you expect no lunch for your shift? That would be illegal.

I always liked afternoon shifts better than graveyard, because they didn't screw with my sleep schedule. The only days afternoons sucked was on Fridays.

Hated them.

I didn't nesacarilly work "shift work" but had a normal 7-330 job Tuesday/wed/thur then used to bartend downtown Friday/Saturday working from 7 to 4am

Feelsbadman
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I think he meant that his whole eating schedule is gonna be messed up due to his lunch break most likely gonna be at around 3 or 4pm.

To the OP, I have a 12pm - 8:30pm schedule at work and that is everyday so i understand how difficult it is to maintain proper eating habits. This is why majority of the people i work with get fat at some point because they eat at odd hours and end up eating late at night to compensate for an early awkward dinner. That and also cuz its an office setting.

You can still eat lunch properly before going to work. Its dinner time that will be challenging as im sure your "lunch break" happens on an awkward time. If your trying to be fit and maintain a certain weight, just eat early and drink water as much as you can. Better to eat early before sleeping than eating late and then sleeping.

If they're all the same, it's not bad. I used to work 12am-8:30am M-F and it wasn't too bad.

I'm not a fan of the 2 days, 2 nights, 4 off schedule ... Aside from the obvious benefit of working less than half the year (when you factor in vacation).

Luckily my kids arent in school yet, so I will still be able to spend the mornings with them. The only reason Im willing to stick it out because like you said, the money is good. Im only 14 working days away from becoming part of the union and getting bluecross benifits.

Well the shift is technically sceduled for 7.5 hours so they only have to give you a 15 minute break or something stupid. The company is kind of greasy and found a loophole. and ya, getting off work at 11 or 12 on a friday is gonna be terrrrrible :alone:
that sounds pretty rough too, at least I have the same shitty shceule everyday, your week was al over the place lol.

Any shift over 5 hours requires a 30-minute unpaid meal break.

There is an exception where if you're required to work or be available for work during the break (i.e. You're the only person working while continuous work is occurring), you are to be paid for it. As an example, if you work the night shift as a power engineer at the Duncan hospital, you would get paid for your lunch because you have no one to cover for you and a qualified engineer has to be available at all times just in case something goes wrong with the boilers.

I don't know the concrete industry, but I have difficulty thinking of a situation that would require you to work/be available to work through the break.

I haven't done shift work but I used to have odd work hours (3pmt o 11pm, 2pm to 10pm, 10pm to 6am etc etc) now I am on 8:30am to 4:30pm.

The worst shift is 2pm to 10pm and 3pm to 11pm because you can't go out after work and you basically sleep in the whole morning. graveyard isn't so bad actually, you go out with friends for dinner and then to straight to work and work for a few hours and the rest I just sleep lol.

I've worked pretty much every shift imaginable, and I got used to all of them except graveyards. No matter how much I slept on that shift I was always tired. Afternoon shifts weren't so bad because if I wanted to sleep in I could, but you have no life working that shift. It's just something you have to do and see if it works for you.
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The only real experience I have with shift work is when I used to work for my dad and we'd do off hours mall work. I'd work my regular 7-4, go home for a few hours and then go back to work when the mall closed until about 2-3 in the morning, get up and do it again.This was one of those times when being on salary sucked monkey dick, thankfully it wasn't that often and would usually be over in a couple of weeks.

If I was just doing shift work without another day job I think I could handle it alright. The biggest drawback would be missing out on my kids Football and Lacrosse games, tucking him in at night and all the things that come with being a parent. I actually applied for a job that's shift work a few weeks back, I'm still not sure I'll take it if it's offered to me but I'll worry about that then.

i did 5pm-1am when i was younger and the only hard part was getting used to a change in sleep schedule. great for errands as during the day. now that i'm older and with a family i would absolutely hate it.

i would not want graveyard work though at any age though. i would not be able to adjust.

I work 1 or 2 til 11/12 3 of my shifts a week. No breaks ever. (I could take one if I really wanted to, but shits gotta get done so I'd rather just get it done) If its the norm, you might just have to suck it up. Its not going to kill you to grab a bite after work. However I certainly feel for you working like that with having kids. Its tough for us when me and my wife both work shift work even just with a dog. Are there any options to discuss with your boss that this shift just doesn't work with your family schedule?

i don't know how else to explain it when i did it. it was like i was in a constant state of jet lag.

yeah i get what you're saying... gotta do the time.

but after these 14 days, will you be given the choice of better hours as you gain seniority? ie. will this be a temporary thing?

I feel bad for you -- i used to work 330pm-midnight, or 4pm-1am at my last job. In both cases, you get home haggered, eat something, watch TV, go to bed, and by the time you wake up it's already 9 or 10am. Go to the gym, come home and eat, and guess what? It's time to go to work again :okay:

The only caveat is you can party/stay up late the day before you got work because you don't have to be awake till noon anyhow lol -- but seeing as you have kids, that benefit doesn't really work towards you

I worked on-call, 24/7, for 7 years.

For someone that doesn't really make many plans, unless it's for vacation, it was fine. I don't like a M-F, 9-5, same people/same bullshit/same commute everyday grind.

Worked at the Coast Guard for 10 years. 2 days 7am-7pm 2 nights 7pm-7am then 4 days off. Worked all holidays when my shift happened to land on it. I left because of Government cuts, now I'm working 8-4 M-F and love it. Regular sleep, regular meals, weekends off with the family. Lost a bit of weight too.

Working blows, I spend like 2 hours a day writing descriptions for pornos and the rest of my time is completely mine to do whatever I want with

..... Jason? Is that you?

:suspicious:

I used to work shifts, and I hated it.

Mainly because of the awkward sleep schedule and having to miss out on whatever events. The Mon-Fri 9-5 schedule gets boring and mundane, yes. But the thing is, everything is always catered around that schedule. You're not really going to miss anything while you're at work during normal office hours.

But it all depends on your lifestyle. I have a very active social life, so shift work was a no-go for me.

Some not all.

Running errands, gym, shopping, golf, going to restaurants, etc. are way better to do while most others are at work.

Night Shifts Linked to Higher Risk of Heart Attack, Stroke | TIME.com


When I was younger and I worked for Dolphin Delivery, the night shifts totally caused me to have waaaaaaay more migraine headaches. Also I developed a brief cardiac arrhythmia when I worked night night day day night night shift patterns. It was really fucking unhealthy!

My diet sucked too, that may have factored into it according to my doctor. I drank like 6 coffees a night to stay up.

I hate shift work. I like set hours monday to friday