Thread: Shift work

I quit my last job because we worked a Southern Swing shift. 7 day rotations on each shift with no shift differential. I maybe would have toughed it out but there was no hope of change. Everyone but the Chief worked it no matter your seniority. It took me a week to adjust to a shift and then it changed. I was grouchy most of the time and my family didn't like it.

My present job took me 7 years to get to the day shift from nights and weekends. On our last contract I voted to give the afternoon and night shifts bigger differentials even though I am mostly day shift now with some vacation relief on nights and weekends. It "lowered" my pay but they are at 10%premium on nights now. Our lead man pay is a 10% premium but I would rather work the night shift if money was the issue. When I was on nights it was 25 cents an hour which to me was an insult.

Working one shift continuously to me isn't hard to adapt to as long as you can establish a pattern. The hardest thing for me especially on the afternoon shift is that I am trying to work at the end of my awake cycle. For example, on day shift I am off at 15:00 and going to bed 22:00 or so. When it gets this time of night for me I don't have to function at a higher capacity. I am winding down. If I get off at 23:00 and try to go to bed at 00:30 or so I am trying to work and drive home at this end of being awake.

When I was younger I worked a 23:00 to 07:00 shift. I would get up about 22:00 on Thursday night and then not get to bed until after the bar closed at 01:00 early Saturday. Sunday I would get up about 07:00 and not get to bed until about 08:00 Monday morning. There would be a line of cloths from the front door to the bed. Twice a weekend awake for over 24 hours. I couldn't do that anymore!

Originally Posted by 32t

I quit my last job because we worked a Southern Swing shift. 7 day rotations on each shift with no shift differential. I maybe would have toughed it out but there was no hope of change. Everyone but the Chief worked it no matter your seniority. It took me a week to adjust to a shift and then it changed. I was grouchy most of the time and my family didn't like it.

My present job took me 7 years to get to the day shift from nights and weekends. On our last contract I voted to give the afternoon and night shifts bigger differentials even though I am mostly day shift now with some vacation relief on nights and weekends. It "lowered" my pay but they are at 10%premium on nights now. Our lead man pay is a 10% premium but I would rather work the night shift if money was the issue. When I was on nights it was 25 cents an hour which to me was an insult.

Working one shift continuously to me isn't hard to adapt to as long as you can establish a pattern. The hardest thing for me especially on the afternoon shift is that I am trying to work at the end of my awake cycle. For example, on day shift I am off at 15:00 and going to bed 22:00 or so. When it gets this time of night for me I don't have to function at a higher capacity. I am winding down. If I get off at 23:00 and try to go to bed at 00:30 or so I am trying to work and drive home at this end of being awake.

When I was younger I worked a 23:00 to 07:00 shift. I would get up about 22:00 on Thursday night and then not get to bed until after the bar closed at 01:00 early Saturday. Sunday I would get up about 07:00 and not get to bed until about 08:00 Monday morning. There would be a line of cloths from the front door to the bed. Twice a weekend awake for over 24 hours. I couldn't do that anymore!

Thankfully the shift premium has always been good in any of the places I've worked. Currently on 20%, slightly less than others I've had because you don't have to work weekends

Originally Posted by Bigirishkev

Thankfully the shift premium has always been good in any of the places I've worked. Currently on 20%, slightly less than others I've had because you don't have to work weekends

If I could get a 20% premium it would be worth it for me to not work days. Plus there aren't as many managers!

Originally Posted by 32t

If I could get a 20% premium it would be worth it for me to not work days. Plus there aren't as many managers!

Exactly! lol
Very few managers and no visitors getting tours and no engineers messing about with your machines. I prefer nightshift in all honesty, mostly because I hate the early starts on days

I could converse about this all night but my alarm clock will ring in about 6 hours 21 minutes! I better bet my @$$ to bed.

We have a shift premium from 6pm to 6am of $2 and $3 if you're working those hours and surpass 40 hours OR work over your schedule hours for that day. Its a very good premium. I worked for another outfit that only paid 10 cents for off shift work. My thoughts on that were they didn't value the capability to operate their facility in the off hours or their employee's.
Seems rare today for a company to want to have happy employee's, and take care of them. I believe the corporate plan anymore is - less people, lower pay, longer hours, more work load but be "safe" because you know that's top priority. I think that's one of the thing's these companies tell them selves, because if you say it enough it must be true....right?

I am on My night shift as i type. I work electric distribution dispatch. we are salaried with overtime and non union. we have are 24/7/365 and have a seriously weird 28 day rotation. 4 nights on, 3 off, 3 days, 1 off, 3 nights, 3 off, 4 days, 7 off.

Originally Posted by Trimmy72

We have a shift premium from 6pm to 6am of $2 and $3 if you're working those hours and surpass 40 hours OR work over your schedule hours for that day. Its a very good premium. I worked for another outfit that only paid 10 cents for off shift work. My thoughts on that were they didn't value the capability to operate their facility in the off hours or their employee's.
Seems rare today for a company to want to have happy employee's, and take care of them. I believe the corporate plan anymore is - less people, lower pay, longer hours, more work load but be "safe" because you know that's top priority. I think that's one of the thing's these companies tell them selves, because if you say it enough it must be true....right?

Very few companies give a stuff about their employees these days and are only too happy to lay off good workers to bring in cheap agency workers, I speak from experience on that one.
Maybe they never gave a stuff in the past but at least the unions were strong enough to stand up to them. The unions here were pretty much neutered in the 80's.
Thankfully the company in with now treat you pretty well, at least for now that is, we're going through a boom at the minute so there's plenty of work with them.
It's easy work too, decent pay and time and half on Friday nights or Saturdays and double time Sunday's, hard to beat. I don't think I'll ever go back on a building site lol

Originally Posted by UAcowboy

I am on My night shift as i type. I work electric distribution dispatch. we are salaried with overtime and non union. we have are 24/7/365 and have a seriously weird 28 day rotation. 4 nights on, 3 off, 3 days, 1 off, 3 nights, 3 off, 4 days, 7 off.

Obviously we're both working hard [emoji6]

Originally Posted by Bigirishkev

Obviously we're both working hard [emoji6]

Yeah nights and weekends we are pretty much here for when TSHTF oh and we do 6 to 6 shifts. last month we had 1 person on leave for a new baby and another called in with strep throat and i had to work 8 nights in a row that almost turned into 14.