Graveyard Shift

Well, after nearly a year in a job where 24-hour rosters are the norm, I've finally ended up on graveyard shift for the next three nights. That's Midnight to 6am! The last time I worked graveyard shift was some 15 years ago, and it was in a similar kitchen stewarding job to what I do now.

After nearly a year of working almost nothing but dinner shifts (around 6pm to around 2-3am), I'm actually finding this prospect refreshing. Unlike the dinner shift, graveyard shift actually overlaps a bit with "normal" sociable times, such as dinner time and evenings-after-work for most people. So it's quite possible to - for example - meet up with someone for dinner and then go to work. On the dinner night shifts on the other hand - you're only really overlapping with people who on the "normal" routine at silly times like early mornings, from ~3am until they wake up and go to work. So even if you're living with someone, you can't really see each other properly on working days!

Given my solo lifestyle, and that I'm not exactly the most sociable person in the world, it actually doesn't matter too much which shift I work. Of course, it's nice to be more available at "normal" sociable times than not - just for the opportunity value of having casual availability in your life routine to catch up with friends and family and such.

Furthermore, and oddly enough - despite seeming more "extreme" than the dinner shift - I actually think the graveyard shift would be better even with a family home life! ie The free time of your day is the late afternoon and evening, when kids and partners and such come home from school and work, so you can spend time with them. Unlike on the dinner shift where you're generally well and truly on the way to work by the time they're coming home. And the only "overlap" you have with them is a rather useless time - the wee hours of the morning when you come home and the household is asleep, and just wakes up and runs out the door in the morning while you're trying to sleep.

Well, one thing I haven't fully experienced yet - since I'm only starting my first shift tonight - is what working graveyard shift will do to my sleep patterns. I've had a lot of late finishes and sleeping in until past midday on the dinner shift, and that has been pretty easy to beat and get back on day schedules for days off. Maybe graveyard will be more difficult, since it is even further from the norm, but I guess the next three days will tell.

One thing seems to be certain though - at least from what everybody who has worked this shift has been telling me - it is very very easy. They all say that there is "nothing to do", that it's boring. And of course, as I wrote nearly two years ago, that's just fine with me.