Working Nights

[Slide]

Just got a new job, and starting next week but the hours are 8pm til 8am. Anyone here worked nights and have any survival tips?

[McCheese]

The only tip I can give you is to not work nights, it sucks hardcore.

It was so depressing heading off to work just when people are going out and having a good time. Then when you get home everyone is either at work or asleep so you have nothing to do.

[Blaezenfury]

Originally Posted by McCheese

The only tip I can give you is to not work nights, it sucks hardcore.

It was so depressing heading off to work just when people are going out and having a good time. Then when you get home everyone is either at work or asleep so you have nothing to do.

heh you need to move to a city that never sleeps or find some friends that work at night shifts too.

[KOBE]

Yeah, learn to play basketball and join the NBA. You will never need to work again.

A friend of mine is an editor. He works the exact same shift as you. You need to stay up on days off, so you don't fall off the schedule. Quit look at it with such a negative eye: You get to avoid all the traffic and the sun. Also, the time to run errands when places are actually open. Suck it up & bite the bullet.

[Faltigoth]

Lots of Monster energy drink at the start. Heavy shades in your bedroom for sleeping during the day.

Its going to take a week or two to adjust to your new nocturnal lifestyle, but definitely follow the advice above and once you get into your sleeping cycle, try not to screw it up -- the body adjusts going from daytime sleeping to nighttime sleeping alot faster than it does to the other way around.

[Slide]

i'm looking forward to it, it's a good job in a good company that pays well - and i get the impression will be doing fuck all, talked about gran turismo and stuff in the interview so thats a pretty positive sign.

going out this weekend to get some blackout blinds, just a little concerned thats its 1 month of nights then 1 month of days so will never adjust to it properly.

but get so much time off its great, 3 days on 3 off which works out like 3-4 day weekends every week.

maybe will join a raiding guild on a us server or something to keep me busy in the nights.

[Ham n Cheese]

Its simple once you fix your sleep schedule. I used to work 10pm-noon, nothing to do for long periods of time but stay awake. We weren't allowed to watch tv, but this old black man used to snuggle one up all the time. We also took turns letting the other one sleep and would watch each others back incase bossman showed up. This one white dude though used to tell on people who slept so it sucked working 14+ hours with him. I bought a GBA:SP one week into the job, I imagine you should get a DS or PSP, but shit if you have a ps2 up there I don't see what you could possibly have to worry about.

If your question is how to work nights and have a social life then there isn't one. You either work nights or you have a social life.

[theawddone]

Originally Posted by Ham n Cheese

but this old black man used to snuggle one up all the time. .

this spelling error made me lol...

[Ham n Cheese]

haha I didn't even notice.

[James]

Originally Posted by Slide

Just got a new job, and starting next week but the hours are 8pm til 8am. Anyone here worked nights and have any survival tips?

I agree with McCheese. If there's another option, take it!

I worked nights in the military and it was pretty brutal. Basically, don't ever try to stay up past when you get home. When it gets light outside it doesn't matter how dark your room is -- you're fucked. I once did 3 days straight because my shop had a bunch of dicks in supervision that liked to hold us for 'morning meetings' until 9:30ish am and I just *could not* get to sleep. Fuckers. You'll become pale (if you aren't already!), will most likely experience loads of sleep deprivation, and generally not have a good time with the people you're working with who are also pale, sleep deprived, and moody. Working nights may sound all fine and dandy for your average computer gamer that stays up till 6 in the morning anyway, but now you're at work, and it's much different.

That said, the work loads can be much lighter at night. Of course, in the military that wasn't the case, as the day shift was more concerned about mopping the floor 8 times in one day than doing actual work, but I can't imagine that military shifts are indicative of the norm. You usually don't have to deal with direct supervisors at night, set your own pace for most projects, and just generally have it much easier.

There's really not much you can do to 'survive' night shifts. They will wear you down, you will get pissed off, and you will long to see the day again. On the weekends you'll revert to a normal sleeping schedule for at least a few months, which is no big deal. Just cherish every moment of sleep you can get and you'll last much longer.

[Kiely]

Fit your bedroom with some heavy curtains or blinds etc, you want your room dark as hell when its midday trying to get some sleep. Good old towel beneath the door crack etc. Helps psycologically

[Hateyou]

I actually prefer night shift, though I haven't worked it in almost 4 years. I *still* have trouble sleeping at night, Daytime snoozing is easy though. Nothing wrong with working nights, you're only problem is you're working 12 hours.

12 hour shifts, no matter what shift you are on, suck. You just have no life, especially if you work more days than you normally would. Once I worked 17 days in a row, 12 hours each day. By the end of that, everything just seems like a blur, and you don't know what life outside work feels like lol.

My advice is, find some all night activities for the weekend, so you keep your regular schedule. Clubs, video games, movies, chatrooms, whatever. Also, get heavy curtains for your bedroom, or have a blanket you can toss up there.

Learn to love the fact that when you grocery shop at 9am, no one is there. Learn to love you never see rush hour traffic. Learn to fuck off at work. Those annoying executives aren't there at night time! If you look at lots of positives of night shift, it won't bother you, you might even end up loving it like I do. The most important part though is...

Get some Vitamin D. Working 8 to 8 in the winter, you will rarely see the sun. You're gona be more likely to get depression in the winter than you would if you were on days. Imagine not seeing daylight for nearly a month. It can make you kinda nuts.

[tanjo]

Go to bed at 11 and sleep till 7. That way you at least get the morning daylight hours. Working nights wouldn't be so bad if it was 8 hours, but working 12 hour nights is going to suck.

[Dildo Faggins]

If I had to work 12 hour shifts more than 3 days a week, I'd get a new job. Seriously, there's always some other job somewhere else. I mean, Otherwise the pay must be so good that you can drive a different sports car to work each day. If I had to do it, I'd listen to music or something. Mp3 players ftw. If people look at you funny while you get to dancing, flip the fuckers off.

[prescient63]

I work nights and have been for a while. My job is super laid back (maybe 1.5hrs of work per 8.5 hr shift), decent pay, I get to sleep while im there and we have 5 plasmas + computers w/ decent graphics cards (unfortunately ever fuckin port is firewalled). My boss doesn't care if I sleep and I never have to see a real manager. If i was on days in the same department I would of quit by now. So i can definately attest to the laid backness of nights. The commute is great because there are no cars (i hate driving in boston). My recommendations would be to get an xbox 360 w/ a computer monitor adapter if you have that option and fire it up, d/l a bunch of movies from torrent spy or whatever (use the vlc media player (portable version) because you dont need admin rights and it has all the codecs), then just chill. Other good things to keep you occupied are things like gimp (similar to photoshop and no need for admin rights), and some blog software if you are feeling bored and self indulgent. There is a portable version of mozilla as well. I spend 90% of my time studying/sleeping unfortunately.

As for surviving during the day, the absolute cheapest way and best way that i have found to block out light is aluminum foil. It blocks 100% of the light if you do it right. Go to home depot right now and get a desk lamp that provides natural light (they have one on sale for $14 right now that is pretty decent) it makes me feel better and more awake while im at work. Go tanning, your body does need some sunlight and you will feel much better if you tan a little bit, or i do at least. I guess the only other thing is that you will find out that you don't need nearly as much sleep as you thought you did. Other than that good luck and have fun. If you have the right boss it can be great because typically you are just a skeleton crew w/ no real responsiblities.