Adjusting to shift working.
- Thread starter TopCat
- Start date
TopCat
Putin fanboy
Two grams of indian charas will sedate anyone.
It would be a tad hard if you weren't used to it.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
TopCat makes his own luck
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
I’m too old for split and night shifts. Working in catering in my 20s I used to do 9-2, then 5-11 - grabbing an hour’s kip in between. At weekends it would be midnight/1am finishes and once a month, there was an overnight deep clean (for double time). Played hell with relationships as Mrs SFM did early shifts (7.30-15:30) and we communicated through a series of notes and grunts as one got to bed as the other was fast asleep. Did strange things to your mind.
kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
Brutal!
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Manageable in my 20s but definitely not in my mid-50s. I look back and wonder how I summoned so much energy but it was more of a “this is what you have to do to keep a roof over your head” - desperation is a powerful motivator.
kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
Yes it's amazing what we step up to, but I think split shifts are particularly brutal. The fact that you can't really ever relax before having to begin again.
I'd never do nightshifts again.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
The dreaded 2 - 5. In from 07:30 to 13:00, then 17:00 - 20:00.
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Some of my workmates would go to the pub in the middle of split shifts but I knew that was just madness as they turned up pissed and unreasonable. There was quite enough booze and speed in that industry already without making it worse. I just needed a kip - away from the madness.
mojo pixy
...שלא נמצא בשמאל
I don't do nights just now but I used to do a lot of them, and swap from nights to days regularly. I'm more careful with what I eat and drink on nights. For food I have a decent breakfast with eggs and stuff when I wake up at 5 or 6pm, take crisps plus fruit / dried fruit / nuts to browse all night. Also a proper meal to stick in a microwave around 2am, cereal or toast in the morning before bed. Try not to cane coffee all night but take a cigarette to have with coffee around 5am (night shift is the only place I still smoke a fag). It's not the night shifts that kill, especially for an ex all-night-party head, it's the changeovers from nights to days and back that really fuck you up isn't it...
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
In Berlin I did a lot of nights, you did seven 12 hour shifts, but had the next week off.
I was the ICU person, did 17 nights in a row with a patient who should have died, and nearly did several times. He was amazing, on one occasion he asked me to speed up his blood transfusion as his vision was dimming.
He came in with hepatitis, then developed an abscess over his right kidney, then a stress ulcer which perforated, then a DVT. At one point he had blood going in from four sites, and it was coming out faster than we could put it in. I think we bled every B+ soldier in Berlin.
I was the ICU person, did 17 nights in a row with a patient who should have died, and nearly did several times. He was amazing, on one occasion he asked me to speed up his blood transfusion as his vision was dimming.
He came in with hepatitis, then developed an abscess over his right kidney, then a stress ulcer which perforated, then a DVT. At one point he had blood going in from four sites, and it was coming out faster than we could put it in. I think we bled every B+ soldier in Berlin.
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