[Rant]Night Workers Unite!

[Doc_Klueless]

Ok. I'm a registered nurse. I work nights. 7pm to 7am usually. So I work last night and I see that, as usual, they didn't schedule enough people to cover the entire night shift the next night (that'd be tonight). I'm scheduled to come in and work 1130pm to 0730am. I know that they're gonna call me to see if I'd be willing to come in at 7pm to cover the 4 hours that they "forgot" to schedule someone for.

Oh, sure. It'd be 4 hours of overtime, but I don't need the money that badly. I've planned to spend some quality family time with my daughter and my ex-wife (whom I'm now on pretty friendly terms with).

As such, I tell my ex that I'm not willing to go in to work early and if they call to tell them so.

Around 1030am the phone rings and it's work asking to see if I'd come in. My ex informs them that I've told her that I don't want the overtime, that I'm asleep, but she'll let me know they've call.

Around 3pm they call again and ask: "Is he up yet?"

Now this is the part where I rant. On my schedule, 3pm is akin to most peoples 3am. If I would have called one of them at 3am and asked, "Are you up yet?" they'd think I'd lost my mind.

When I stressed this later in the afternoon (about 5pm) when they called again that I wasn't happy that they called me twice after they were told that I didn't want the over time with one time being in the middle of prime sleep time, there was a pause on the phone and then a weak "but it was the middle of the day."

Not for ME it wasn't, you silly ignorant git! It was the middle of the NIGHT for me!! I can't help it that the sun was up. I'm sleeping. I'd only been home for 7.5 hours come 3pm. Chances are if I got home, took a crap, ate something, showered to get all the nursing germs off of me, I'd have only been in bed a MAXIMUM of 6.5 hours.

Plus, I've got a kid. They KNOW I have to take her to school and pick her up. I sleep while she's at school. (I've gabbed with just about everyone about this). There's no way I could have gotten to sleep before 845am.

That's not even counting the fact that they called at 1030am. Which means that I would have just been in bed for a couple of hours.

Day workers! Aaaaaaaagh!!!!

That's it. I'm calling that charge nurse tonight around 2am to see if she's up yet and to confirm that she's coming to work in the morning. When she gets hostile, I'll be all innocent. "But I'm up. Why aren't you?"





That is all.

 

[Elf Witch]

Ok. I'm a registered nurse. I work nights. 7pm to 7am usually. So I work last night and I see that, as usual, they didn't schedule enough people to cover the entire night shift the next night (that'd be tonight). I'm scheduled to come in and work 1130pm to 0730am. I know that they're gonna call me to see if I'd be willing to come in at 7pm to cover the 4 hours that they "forgot" to schedule someone for.

Oh, sure. It'd be 4 hours of overtime, but I don't need the money that badly. I've planned to spend some quality family time with my daughter and my ex-wife (whom I'm now on pretty friendly terms with).

As such, I tell my ex that I'm not willing to go in to work early and if they call to tell them so.

Around 1030am the phone rings and it's work asking to see if I'd come in. My ex informs them that I've told her that I don't want the overtime, that I'm asleep, but she'll let me know they've call.

Around 3pm they call again and ask: "Is he up yet?"

Now this is the part where I rant. On my schedule, 3pm is akin to most peoples 3am. If I would have called one of them at 3am and asked, "Are you up yet?" they'd think I'd lost my mind.

When I stressed this later in the afternoon (about 5pm) when they called again that I wasn't happy that they called me twice after they were told that I didn't want the over time with one time being in the middle of prime sleep time, there was a pause on the phone and then a weak "but it was the middle of the day."

Not for ME it wasn't, you silly ignorant git! It was the middle of the NIGHT for me!! I can't help it that the sun was up. I'm sleeping. I'd only been home for 7.5 hours come 3pm. Chances are if I got home, took a crap, ate something, showered to get all the nursing germs off of me, I'd have only been in bed a MAXIMUM of 6.5 hours.

Plus, I've got a kid. They KNOW I have to take her to school and pick her up. I sleep while she's at school. (I've gabbed with just about everyone about this). There's no way I could have gotten to sleep before 845am.

That's not even counting the fact that they called at 1030am. Which means that I would have just been in bed for a couple of hours.

Day workers! Aaaaaaaagh!!!!

That's it. I'm calling that charge nurse tonight around 2am to see if she's up yet and to confirm that she's coming to work in the morning. When she gets hostile, I'll be all innocent. "But I'm up. Why aren't you?"





That is all.

I feel your pain I had the same problem when I worked nights. I once got woken up by friends at 11:30 in the morning to celebrate a new job for one of them on a Saturday moening after I had put in a rough Friday night.

When I had a fit at them they were like gee we thought you would be happy. So I explained it to them this way. Next time ask yourself this. Would you call me at 2 am to tell me the news? That helped a lot.

My family who all worked days drove me crazy with since you are home during the day would you mind coming over to my house and wait for 'fill in the blank' man. Excuse me I am home but I need to sleep because I have to work. Oh you can nap on the sofa. Nap! For some reason they never got it through their heads that I did not nap during the day. That waht I was doing was sleeping because I was working all night while they were sleeping.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

Damn day people. I shake my fist at them muchly. If it weren't for earplugs, the phone would wake me up alot during the day.

A fair amount of people get the gaze of doom when they act like they've got no clue why I won't be up at 1pm. The worst is when people want to do something during the day. Like my mother doesn't understand why I'm requesting the night off after a day trip to syracuse for lunch. "You'll sleep in the car." Yeah... 3 hours of 'sleep' each way while music is playing, people are chatting, and the sun is glaring down at me. I'll be REAL rested for a shift of work after that.

So I know where you're coming from klueless.

 

[diaglo]

So I know where you're coming from klueless.

i wanna put that in my sig

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

i wanna put that in my sig

Go right ahead.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I use to work the graveyard and it takes a special person as it sometimes feels that life is passing you by and all you do is work but I miss it and would go back to it in a heart beat becaue it is better than the crap I deal with during the day.

 

[Henry]

My wife has had at least two 3rd shift jobs in her life, and actively avoids any third shift work now. For a while, she loved it because she had half the morning to be up and about, shopping, paying bills, running errands, etc. while everyone else was at work, but in the end not spending time with her family really wore on her, and us rarely sleeping in the same bed got old quickly.

When she went to bed, she'd cut the ringer off of the phone, leaving the answering machine to silently catch calls, she'd pull some blackout curtains, and go to sleep. What you might want to do is the same thing, but have a cell phone whose number only immediate family knows (you could even get a cheap prepaid phone for this purpose) and just seal yourself off otherwise. No will REALLY mean no if they can't reach you.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

When she went to bed, she'd cut the ringer off of the phone, leaving the answering machine to silently catch calls, she'd pull some blackout curtains, and go to sleep. What you might want to do is the same thing, but have a cell phone whose number only immediate family knows (you could even get a cheap prepaid phone for this purpose) and just seal yourself off otherwise. No will REALLY mean no if they can't reach you.

Yup. Only friends, relatives and my kid's school have my cellphone number. I not only turn off the phone, but I don't even have a phone in my room. Luckily, they didn't wake me up last night, just some messages gathered by my roommate/ex-wife (yes, I know. It's complicated by a child and no desire by either of us to find another mate) when work called and she answered the phone.

Whoops. Nurse manager coming (I can hear her laugh)... Gotta look busy. NO. No, maam. I'm not on a messageboard. I'm charting. Computer charting. Yeah, that's it.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

When I spent three years on night shift, I had to deal with the WORST neighbors. I rarely had more than four or five hours of sleep.

Let's see. The kid with the drum set in the garage (which was never closed while he practiced, AND the garage pointed straight at my window). The go-cart that just HAD to be driven in the street outside my window. The skateboard ramp and rail. The basketball hoop. The truck that had to be revved up a dozen times before going anywhere, and which is used a half-dozen times a day. The arguments, the parties, and so on.

Great fun...

I last worked nights in 1999. My sleep schedule STILL hasn't returned to normal. I'm a very light sleeper now, and practically only catnap.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

I've probably worked more night jobs than day jobs in my time- I prefer it for higher pay (even if only slightly more), less traffic and commuting hassles, and less management types breathing down my neck (though not always- and the flipside of that is that most jobs I've had have generally assumed that all of the night crew are slackers).

I'm actually working nights right now, I just got home about an hour ago (another bonus: less EN World traffic this time of day ) Depending on my hours, I generally sleep from about 9 am to 5 pm currently; I like to think of it a "business hours." I can almost never go to sleep right way after getting home; no matter what the time, I need a couple hours to unwind.

After a summer of working night shifts at a gas station (being the only night person is definite job security), I finally got my family trained that, yes, I would actually be sleeping during the day, and all in one chunk, not a few hours here and there. I also had to explain several times why I didn't immediately switch to sleeping at night time on my day off; you know, trying to keep an actual schedule, that sort of thing.

My favorite situation was a few years ago when I had a Sunday afternoon game that I was getting up and going to; I'd get home at 7 am, sleep a couple hours, go to the game at noon, and them MAYBE get back to sleep around 6 pm if I could, then get up for my 11 pm shift. After a few weeks I requested that we possibly hold the game a few hours later in the day. Now, I didn't really expect this to fly, why should the group move on my account? But I threw it out there as a possibility. I'd have accepted just about any reason- family obligations, other conflicting work schedules, whatever. But the answer that I got: "We can't hold it later because we'd miss X-Files" wasn't really what I had in mind. I was thinking, "what, you don't know how to use that VCR that's sitting in the corner?"

Should've seen that as a warning sign and dropped the game then, instead of staying through the to bitter end. Ah well, live and learn...