Calling all shift workers

[Flowerpot]

Ahhh 18 years of shift work is messing with me.
I feel tired when I should be full of energy and I'm full of beans when I should be sleepy.
Some say I might drink too much booze, I beg to differ, I just have a drink at different times.
Meal times are messed up too, shift work does change the way I live day to day.
If you're a shift worker, how have you adapted?

 

[diggit]

I only work nights, I actually like it now.....but the short time I had shift work it really made day to day life really hard.
Have you tried google/Youtube?

 

[Eldorado]

I do 2 lots of 5 night shifts with 3 days off in between.These are from 4.30 or 5.30pm to 1.30am or 3.30 am.Then 8 days straight from 9.30am -6.30 pm with 4 days off.Really finding myself struggling to get motivated to do anything on my days off lately.Tend to just want to sleep a lot on days off.I don't usually go to bed until 1 am when on day shift,which makes it hard to get up next morning.Putting on a bit of weight around the gut area,due to eating late at night and going to bed.Night shift this week,and still probably an hour off going to bed.Work again tonight until 3.30am and then the 3 days off and back to nights again.Been doing this for 21 years now and you never really get used to it.The change from nights to days is the hardest because I have 3 days off to go from going to bed at 5am to getting up at 8.30 am.

 

[diggit]

The only thing I can suggest is maybe see if you can 'pair up' with another employee and agree between yourselves and management that one of you usually only does nights and the other usually only does days and if either of you need to swap things around for a bit you can agree it between yourselves. Maybe see if management will give you the green light to trial it for a month to two. You can always use the old OH&S employee safety & well being coupled with fatigue management as a starting point to justify your proposal.

 

[mbasko]

Coming up to 20 years of it now working various types of rosters. Have found the rotating rosters the worst & going from nightshift to dayshift hard - never got used to that.
Currently work rotating 12hr shifts 5am to 5pm/5pm to 5am. Get up for dayshift at 3:20am & leave home at 4am - probably average less sleep on days than nights now. It's a 13.5-14hr day with travel time.
Worst part of the roster is doing 5 nights to finish on Monday morning then turning around to start Friday morning. Just seem to be coming good from nightshift then have to get up for dayshift. Do get good days off though mostly 3 to 5 days. Best part is once in 6 week cycle get a 6 day break going from days to nights.
I don't drink a lot these days. Have found it makes it worse for me on my days off & not enough time between shifts when rostered on. Zero limit at work.
Best thing I've found to do is cut down on the booze & concentrate on trying to get quality sleep on days off. I try not to have too many late nights now - used to sit up until all hours after being on nightshift but now try to get to bed by 10-11pm. Still have days (like this morning) where I'm wide awake at a stupid time of the morning - between 2am to 6am is when I can find it hard on days off to sleep through. Even when I'm on leave I find myself waking up at stupid times. If I drink too much grog I find I might sleep through but tend to wake up still feeling tired. Alcohol induced sleep is only a short term solution & in my experience leads to a higher level of ongoing fatigue as I just don't get good enough quality in the sleep from it.
Try to keep busy on days off (can be hard when you already feel drained) & stick to a "normal" sleeping pattern when off work is my advice. Try not to get into the trap of staying up late.

 

[mbasko]

The only thing I can suggest is maybe see if you can 'pair up' with another employee and agree between yourselves and management that one of you usually only does nights and the other usually only does days and if either of you need to swap things around for a bit you can agree it between yourselves. Maybe see if management will give you the green light to trial it for a month to two. You can always use the old OH&S employee safety & well being coupled with fatigue management as a starting point to justify your proposal.

We tried that & they pulled a shift work study out that recommended rotating shifts over working fixed nightshifts to reduce fatigue.
Study was probably done by people who have never actually worked shift work at all let alone rotating shifts? :N:

 

[Smoky bandit]

All I can say is I love it...17 years now and couldn't go back to the same thing every day.Though more days off would be nice :Y:

 

[Rockhunter62]

Well I work 7 days on 7 days off 7 nights on 7 days off rotating roster. shifts are 12.5 hrs long. Get on the bus from camp at 4:45 for a 5:30 start am/pm depending on day or night shift. Been doing shift work like this for the last 10 years and the only complaint is Carol doesn't see me as much as she would like. We are planning to give this lifestyle a miss come the new financial year and starting a 365 day off rotation to enjoy life for a while. :Y: :Y: :Y:

Cheers

Doug

 

[Goldchaser1]

Just home from NS,feel like a zombie but id never go back to mon-fri,got the same swings as rockhunter,7-7,i call it the prospectors roster,love it,NS a struggle on occasion,especially summer-sleepwise,even with the air con going,have a split system in open lounge area but bedroom a unit threw the wall,works well but like sleeping next to a jumbo jet.
Find comin off nights if we get out bush etc im straight to normal mode,if bumming around home on break(after nights) i can find myself up at strange hrs like mbasko.
7-7 roster if we took all our annual leave each yr we work around 5 months for some pretty good coin and they say oz is not the lucky country anymore,well bullshite

 

[PJG]

I worked various shifts for years. Eight hour rotating shifts suck! I found 12 hour shifts far better and after putting a aluminium shutter on the outside of the bedroom window, which blacked out the room completely, I slept a lot better during the day. The money is good as well.

 

[OzzieAu]

Ive been retired now for nearly 5 years... retired at 65. Did rotating day/night shifts for 35 yrs. Starting and finishing times of the 8 hr. shifts were all over the place from week to week. Couldnt get into a consistent mealtime/sleep time pattern and this played havoc with my overall health, physical and emotional.
Since retiring I am a new person, (not because Im not working for the Co.), but because I feel alive from having a normal, predictable daily routine. You just dont know how valuable that is till its not there.
No wonder they say that shift work can take years off your life.
My only advice is, if you have to work shifts, make sure you screw the Company for every cent youre worth and save for an early retirement so you can get a real life back to enjoy as Im doing now.
Also, if youre not in a good Union, you should be ! :Y:

 

[aussiefarmer]

Ahhh 18 years of shift work is messing with me.
I feel tired when I should be full of energy and I'm full of beans when I should be sleepy.
Some say I might drink too much booze, I beg to differ, I just have a drink at different times.
Meal times are messed up too, shift work does change the way I live day to day.
If you're a shift worker, how have you adapted?

Almost poetry a small tinkering and walha :Y:

 

[davent]

11 years of shift work, and it screws me big time.
How do I adapt.....I havnt yet.

 

[Bobh]

My father did decades of rotating shiftwork, not good for his health and it played havoc with him spending time with family and friends. Very rare was he able to watch us playing sport, spend weekends together and attend festivities.
He grew up and survived the depression and building security for his family was very important hence electing shift work for the extra pay. I'm now a grandfather and often look back on how much he sacrificed to raise us and educate us.

 

[Ramjet]

38 years on the railway for me. as I get older it is a real struggle but I need to get a few more years in before I will be able to retire. We used to work the most horrid shifts. Maybe 4am today, 1.15 am next day, the 3 am etc etc. All over the place so no chance to get into a pattern. The last ten years or so I have worked in the terminal purely for a more stable roster.... 7am, 3pm, 11pm only.
In the early days we would work up to 12 shifts straight and did not even have rostered days off. You might finish work at 5 am, look at the roster and you have that day off. Yes! finish work after night shift and they call that a day off because we did not sign on that day.

Now when I am on night shift I find it very hard to get anything done at home. Mostly just sit and feel like crap.

 

[OzzieAu]

Flowerpot, this topic may turn out to be a whinge fest on the hassles of shift work, so dont let it depress you too much, just hope there is some positive feedback forthcoming that you can take on board. Us older shifties never had any oh&s support to help us thru, so I hope you can find the wherewithal to make your day to day work life more bearable.

 

[madtuna]

I just googled "work"
Holy crap! My gastor has just been well and truly flabbered! Do people actually do that still?

 

[PabloP]

In my early years I worked either a day shift or an afternoon shift with an occasional 12 hour 4pm to 8am shift which was a bugger. But having said that the shift work allowed me more daytime hours to use the develop experience in building houses and then to build my own house which gave me a good financial kick start in life.

Later in a different industry it was harder to be on call for system emergencies 24 hours a day, and it was amazing how many of these happened during long weekends, Easter, Christmas, etc, but I survived and learnt a lot from the experiences.

Rob P.

 

[Dolphin]

Well in my case i have done shift work for 39 years and atm do 4x12hr days have 4 off then it alternates to 4x12hr nights and so on, i find it suits my lifestyle as you can do a lot more on your days off than only having the weekend off. Some get used to it others never do, you just have to adjust your lifestyle around your shifts, i find thinking about my plans for my days off is what keeps me going, especially Prospecting in new areas. If work gets a bit hectic or stressfull i always find wandering around a quiet scenic wilderness area looking for gold recharges my batteries again. You accumilate annual leave pretty quick doing shift work also so as the company caps it at 8 weeks i get asked to have fully paid time off while a casual worker takes my place and makes good coin for a while until i return,
I only drink socially, don't smoke and try to look after myself by eating well and light exercises like walking and swimming mixed into days off because when working nights i do eat to much and drink to much Coffee to keep alert all night so easy to put weight on if you stop being active, Having a Dog that needs walking after work everyday or night can be beneficial to force you to burn the cals off. My intention is to keep working shifts until i retire oneday down the track as i do enjoy it and have never been out of work since i was 15. Hopefully there's still some gold around when that time comes.
Regards Dolphin.

 

[Flowerpot]

I've just found this thread.
Forgot I'd even started it last night. Too many reds maybe? :8
All the comments are really interesting and encouraging.
There really is no 'normal' reaction to shift work, people deal with it differently depending on age,
fitness, overall health, general attitude, necessity and myriad other reasons.
All good to read about.

Madtuna!! stop rubbing it in grrrrrr.