Thread: Night shift work

Originally Posted by captain castle

I'm writing this from my night job. It's the only way to fly. I get off work, hit the gym for an hour or so, and then sleep until early evening and hang out with friends til work. People who say night shifts are hard are pussies who aren't willing to commit. Once you develop a schedule to sleep and to wake, etc etc it's not hard at all.

I used to work late shift (10-7am) and I have to completely agree with Captain Castle.

Let's face it, you'll probably end up with a food service job. I was working at Taco Bell and night shift was the easiest and most laid back shift. It's probably the same for any 24 hour fast food restaurant. What's also great about night shift was that it was a breeze to get overtime because most people won't work those hours.

Also, my social life actually improved once I started working nights.

If you do start working nights, here are some tips:

• As soon as you know you're hired, start gradually changing your sleep schedule. It'll probably take at least a week to adjust. Don't get discouraged.
• Keep your sleep schedule consistent. Go to bed and get up at the same time even on your days off.
• Sleep in a dark room where you won't be disturbed. Tell people that you're sleeping during the day. Hopefully they won't bother you.
• You may discover that you'll need more or less sleep. I needed an extra hour to feel fully rested.

You should honestly get your diploma or GED. The reason why jobs aren't calling back is probably that. If you don't have enough motivation to finish school, why should they think you have enough motivation to work for them? Even if it was other circumstances it still doesn't look good. A high school diploma or equivilent is like the "minimum" acceptable education most places. If you don't have that, they won't consider you. I doubt it's because you only want to work days. More places are open during the day than are open during/have night shifts.

If you're hell bent on it though, I worked the night shift 2 summers at a grocery store.

Pros:

- Generally a more laid back work environment. Less people, no customers (unless it's a 24 hour store, hotel, etc)
- There's usually a pay incentive

Cons:

- You still won't see a lot of people. When stuff is just getting going, you'll have to leave for work
- Night shift is unnatural. Expect to feel like shit quite frequently, on the same amount of sleep you're used to getting
- You'll have problems getting shit done. Businesses that have "normal" hours will be closing 3 or 4 hours after you wake up. It's also next to impossible to get a Dr appointment that works with your schedule, so expect to stay up for a day and a half or first get to bed around noon
- You really only get 1 day off on the weekend. If you get done with work on Sat morning, you'll sleep a good chunk of it and really only have Sunday completely off

It was good money at the time for a high school kid, but it's not something I'd do again if I could help it.

Originally Posted by bobii

I'm 17 and I dropped out of school. Any job I apply for doesn't call back. It's maybe because I wanna work the day shift only. I don't want the evening shift because I won't be able to have any social life at all . The night shift interests me because I'll get paid more and it won't interract with my social life.

I'm really getting depressed right now. I'm doing nothing all day until school is out so I finaly can see some people. I'm tired of having no money and I can't do anything if my friends don't pay for me.

Does any of you have worked the night shift before? What are the pros and cons?

Another thing I want to point out, and you need to realize, is that you're young. Firstly, what kind of jobs are you applying for? Do you have any previous professional (not under-the-table) work experience? If not, thats already going to make it hard to get a job. Also, teenagers can't be picky when it comes to jobs, especially your first. You need to tell them you're pretty much 100% available. Not being in school will actually help in this area, because you really are always available for work. Working the evening shift is something you're going to have to deal with. Thats when teenagers are wanted most. Adults are usually getting out of work, and teenagers typically getting out of school, thus they go from school to their evening job. So the adults that were working that day, are getting replaced by the teens that evening. Besides, its not like you'll be working every single day anyways... Spend your days off with your friends, not trying to fit around them between shifts. Its easier that way.

About the night shifts; they aren't that bad if your company is good about sticking to your hours. I just got off nights, and enjoyed it for the most part. Although, my social life for the time being did suffer greatly. This was only because of the fact that the crew I was working with were a bunch of lazy fucks, and couldn't finish their work on time so we we're typically stuck working 12 to 14 hours shifts. What was going to be a normal 9pm to 5am shift, ALWAYS turned into 9 to 9, or 9 to 10, or even 9 to 11. So after working 14 hours I'd go home and sleep from 11 to 8, giving me just enough time to shower and go back to work... So yeah, the only time I got to see my friends was on the weekends, but I still had a good time regardless. So like I said at the beginning, overnights are alright if whoever you're working with gets their damn job done and you get to go home on time.

What cryptic said about the GED. I think in most places it's free to get and very easy to pass. If nothing else it will open some doors that are currently closed.

I disagree about a GED looking better than a high school diploma. They are more interested in what qualifications you have than what high school or even University. The exceptions would be the Pheonix Online or Yale end.

Just for anyone who is interested, I just got a job as a dishwasher, Friday and Saturday. I work tomorrow (sunday) at 6 am for training and if everything goes well I will be on full-time in the near future.

Anyone got any tips for sleeping? I'm used to going to bed at 4-5 am..I have a very hard time falling asleep before that so I fear that I'll still be awake when my alarm goes off.

Good luck with your plan to finish school next year. Everyone I know who dropped out and then went back only lasted a few weeks. Unfortunately, a GED is not looked upon in the same light as a diploma, but it beats nothing if your plan falls through. That said, the average GED holder is (IMO) usually smarter than his high school grad counterpart.

I dropped out myself and started working full time right away. My first full time job was as a dishwasher during the lunch shift at a restaurant, but hey, I moved up to food prep after a few months. As for the night shift, I used to work those as a second job on weekends. Pretty much, my Friday would start at 6am and find me digging footers until 6 or 7pm. Then, go home, shower, and throw on the security guard uniform for my 10pm to 10am shift. Go to sleep, wake up and work 10pm Saturday night to noon on Sunday. The only night shifts I ever worked were as a security guard, so I have little idea what the perks might be at other jobs. Depending on where I was located, I would usually explore, play Playstation, or find an unlocked workstation to surf the web during the glory days of dial-up. Just watch it, I sold my Chevette for $25 coming off one of those shifts.

Go back to school, you will have an incredibly hard life especially with the shit economy.

My plan was drop out of school to earn money, get a car, live life and then go back to school the next year. I know I can't live without a diploma and I won't.

I get up at 2pm and go to bed at 4-5am, add a few hours and I'm living the night shift, I think I'll handle it pretty well. I always loved to stay awake all night just doing random stuff anyway. As for being disturbed when sleeping, that won't be a problem. All my friends are either working or going to school so they won't call and my mom do little to no noise.

Thanks for all your answers, you guys really helped me getting motivated.

I'm really not trying to flame, but this is exactly where you'll end up without a diploma: washing dishes. If that's what you want out of life, cool, but I'd honestly re-examine my priorities if that's the case, because you seem capable of much more. I just don't understand what exactly you're doing here. Why not just suck it up, stay in school another year (you've already put in about 12 years, what's 1 more), get a decent job, go to college or tech school, and REALLY "live life". It might just be my outlook but your actions don't really seem to make much sense when compared with what you say you want.

Originally Posted by sycld

I can tell you what he's "doing here," Cryptic. He's only thinking about his life in the short-term, what he wants to do tomorrow. He's not even considering a single long-term consequence of any of his actions. That's why people do things which seem absurd and self-destructive.

Sure he could stay in school another year, but he doesn't want to. He wants to get a job and make money now (wow, minimum wage is a lot!!!), even though he'll be making that or just a little more for the rest of his life. School just sucks too much to stick it out for a single year more and try to get a diploma, even though a real high school diploma is better than and ultimately faster for him to obtain than even a GED, which is not completely equivalent no matter what the "E" stands for.

Sycld makes a very, very good point here.

I know you are listening to everyone telling you to go back to school and thinking "Shut up, all of you." Because I ended up doing the same thing myself. I dropped out of school at 16, tried going back a couple times and never quite managed it. Working was great fun, because I earned my own money, more than all my friends at the time (they were in school, I was working full time), and everything was peachy. After about 5 years of bouncing around between factory jobs, I realized that I'd gone through pretty much every bottom level job there is in my town, and none of it could hold my attention for much longer than 3 months. The people at the jobs depressed me, because they made this oversimplified process the central aspect of their life, aside from being completely fucked in the head. Now I am going back to get my high school diploma 5 years after I should have.

Your story could be the same as mine, where you just need to experience a little bit of the world to see what it's like before deciding what you want to do. I made a pretty big mistake, but I'm willing to admit that and move on from in now.

Of course, it could be that you are one of those people who are just looking for work to support themselves and are totally happy with whatever they get. If this is the case, all the power to you, I'll stop lecturing you now

What you need to do is give out resumes to a lot of places. Think about what kind of day job you want - restaurant waiter or kitchen help? retail store stock boy? factory work? Write up your resume with the area you want to work in in mind. If you're looking for factory work, emphasize fine motor skills, strength, attention to detail, quick learning, quick completion of a task and working without supervision. Any combination of 3 of those will get you good results in almost any factory.

As for working on the night shift, you won't entirely sacrifice your social life. You will become the guy at parties who stays up longer than everyone else, who eat breakfast when most people eat dinner and sleeps through the day. I've had friends who pulled it off and were happy with it. You'll never know unless you try it.

As with everyone else in this thread, I would urge you to finish high school while you are in this final stretch. If you are hell-bent on getting work experience, throw your resume everywhere, tailored to each workplace and get that experience you want. Be up front about your lack of experience, but show them that you're willing to learn.

My brother works 2 weeks of the night shift, then 2 weeks of teh day shift. He says its not that bad. But I wouldnt be able to do it. Manily because of the hours. He has to leave at like 4am when he works days.