What's the worst shift you've ever worked?

[Glendamax]

Oh and having that shift be in Home Theatre even though I"m only trained in Appliances, Customer Service and Wireless. (I only work Appliances though)

Hope the customers don't eat you alive!!! Be encouraged though, my Mother's alarm clock should be going off shortly. She's working 5am to 3pm today.

 

[DISUNC]

9am to 5pm! HATE IT, HATE IT, HATE IT!

"what a way to make a livin!"

Hate the traffic, hate the office politics, hate the phones ringing, hate the endless drivel meetings...etc.

Give me 'off' shifts ANYTIME!

 

[Disney Doll]

I have done a couple of 7am-11pm doubles in the bad weather and such when colleagues couldn't make it in. Long day, feeding people all 3 meals, washing everyone in the morning and again in the evening and such, but some of the folks here have defintiely worked worse!

 

[shortbun]

I currently work 5am to 9:30am then have a break til 2pm and work til 5:30pm. I get home around 10am and have to leave at 1:15pm so I have 3 hours to get anything done. By the time I get home at 6pm, I'm spent-wasted-don't mess with me!

 

[PrincessKitty1]

I currently work 5am to 9:30am then have a break til 2pm and work til 5:30pm. I get home around 10am and have to leave at 1:15pm so I have 3 hours to get anything done. By the time I get home at 6pm, I'm spent-wasted-don't mess with me!

Ugh, what kind of job do you have that requires a split shift?? I worked 3 days once in a 7-day-a-week split-shift job (of course, they didn't tell me what the schedule would be like when I interviewed--told me it was Mon-Fri with a "flexible schedule--you make your own schedule" ). The split shift was 6-8:30 AM and 4-8:30 PM and I said "fat chance!" (to my freinds and family--to the supervisor, I said, "You were not honest about the work hours and I will not be working here.").

 

[tinkerrn]

I think the worst was from 3 pm till 1130 am the next day. I was pulling a double as supervisor at another hospital, well, I had a no call no show at 700 am!!! After being there for 16 hours, I was ready to go home. The supervisor who was following me was pretty new and had a ton of other things to follow up with. I agreed to stay until someone from 2nd shift could come in early. It was soooo rough. I will never do that again, it was very unsafe. I could feel myself falling asleep driving.

 

[FroggyinArk]

when i worked factory production,, days hift. 7-3, way too many management conflicts to ever get production out, prefered graveyard shift,, 11 p - 7 a

the worst shift ever was while i was doing service and repair plumbing, recieved a call thursday pm about a stopped up drain line in the er exray dept of an area hospital.

line was collapsed underneath concrete floor.

7 ft below concrete floor.

we left there at 8 pm,, unable to open the line yet.
returned at 8 am friday, and started removing floor and digging out the bad section,

we ended up shoveling for 8 hours, threee crews,, me my help and two other plumbers and thier helpers,

at the end of the first 12 hours one crew left.

i stayed, second crew stayed,, company owner came out to see what was up

it was 5 pm sunday when i floated the last of the concrete back into the holes. i worked st raight through, with two 1 hour naps in my truck, i took a week off afterwardds, because during that pay period i had worked 90+ hours

50+ straight through with out coming home...

 

[My2Cinderellas]

I'm a night owl and have worked several weird combos. waitressing 5p - 3a was a good gig, I could handle the drunks most of the time and that was a profitable shift. I've done midnight - 8am, and 11p - 7a and will take the 11-7 hands down. it was amazing how much difference that extra hour made. when working 11-7 (hospital admissions) I'd pick up extra hours and work 4p - 7a or 11p - noon, the 4p-7a was much easier. I can stay up all night no problem, but continuing on into the next day was rough.

the 3a - 3p shifts sound like my worst nightmare.

all this was pre kids though, so kudos to those of you doing weird shifts and raising a family!!

 

[Glendamax]

Again, wonderful thread! Great to know I'm not the only one not working a regular 9 to 5!

 

[kellyg403]

I work a varying schedule too. Some days, 3-11 pm get up and be at work again by 7 a.m. to 3 etc. Back when I was younger I worked the 11pm to 7 am shift at a hotel. Out of the 2 I would say the varying schedule is the worst. You are never on track, always tired and some days just plain MEAN. By the time you wind down from work its 1 in the morning, and getting back up by 5 to get everyone ready for the day is miserable. I NEED my sleep. Doing this twice a week gets old real quick. But, on the whole I like my job and really they pay me well to do as they ask!

Kelly

 

[DVC-Don]

The worst shift for me was back on one of police depts I worked. We changed shifts every 3 months, but the one I hated was the "Days off shift". I worked other officers days off for 3 months at a time. I'd work Sat & Sun 8-4, then during the week I'd work either 4-12 or Mid-8. The weekdays I'd work would vary but the worst was getting off at 4 PM on Sun and then going back in at midnight to work another 8 hours. And then sometimes I'd have to go to court at 9 AM after getting off duty at 8 AM.

By the end of a 3 month tour my body clock would be all messed up.

 

[snowwite]

I worked the graveyard shift in the Navy for a while,11 p/m till 7a/m, the work was good, no one was around, but I hated trying to go to sleep ealry in the a/m, I felt like a vampire

I did 11-7 for a while too. The worst was 11p-7a alternating with 7-3p because your poor body never knew whether to be awake or asleep.I did it in college when I was an LPN and thought I would go to class early am,sleep and go to work late at night. Not!
I did like 3-11pm when the kids were little and also 7-7 on weekends because I got paid for full time and got the week off.
Now that I need to be home for homework and supper its 8-4:30.

 

[JunieJay]

I was a bartender my junior and senior year of college, and all through grad school. I worked 9pm to 4am and then had to get up at 7am for class. Crazy days! No way could I do that now, but youth was on my side then.

 

[Blondie]

11a-11p. You're whole day is shot.

 

[mla2177]

My hubby is a state trooper, and he works shift work. He works twelve hour shifts that are 2 weeks of nighs then two weeks of days! Yuck! I feel so bad for him sometimes. He will finally get used to the night shift with a sleep pattern, then it will switch to days!

The good thing about the twelve hour shifts though, is he only works 14 days a month, unless he has court on his day off or takes a shift for overtime!

 

[grlzmom]

My worst job was 3pm-3am as a labor/delivery nurse. Loved the patients, hated the unit.

Whenever someone from day shift (3a.m.-3p.m.) called out, which was extremely frequently, we would get mandated to stay until 7 a.m., ugh.

3pm-7am was AWFUL. They on occasion, would even attempt to get us to stay until 11 a.m.. It is very hard to give good care when you have been on the clock over 12 hours, regardless of how much they are paying you in overtime.

No wonder everyone quit. I think the average nurse had been there less than a year which is pretty uncommon for labor and delivery.

I was so glad when we moved.

 

[lovethattink]

When I was in high school I worked in a nursing home. One of the shifts I had to work was a split shift 8am-1pm then 4pm - 6:30pm. It wasted away most of the day.

 

[BeNJeNWaFFLe]

When I was working inventory I used to work 4am-12pm. I didn't mind it because I didn't have to deal with customers and I didn't have to come in uniform. But it messed up my internal clock. Inventory didn't allow for much down time and I usually stayed late to finish things up. I would get home and sleep for about 2 hours then run around trying to get some things done. I am not a morning person so I'd go to bed by 10pm to get up at 3am the next morning.

Once, I was supposed to work 7am-10am to help finish a project that corporate was coming to inspect that evening. It was my day off but I did it for a friend. The project was half started but was completely wrong. So I stayed until about 4pm, with no break, finishing things. It wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have to use a razor to scrape stickey goo off glass shelves. (Which resulted in my cutting my fingers open.) Then I had to put up new price tag holders. You had to squeeze your fingers between two hard & sharp pieces of plastic to put in the price tags and then give yourself plastic burn sliding them into place. I did that about 200 times. Ouch! My friend (the manager) helped out so she understood, but she was the only one that thanked me. Yet the store manager received many remarks on how wonderful that aisle looked.

 

[DeterminedOne]

I'm so happy to see a thread about this. I just started a new job working second shift. My hours are 3-11, but I've been working 1-9 for training. I have always worked a day shift, so this is all very new to me.
It's hard to be away from DH, not being able to eat dinner w/ him and be with him in the evenings. It's taking some getting used to. I have to figure out a way to make dinner ahead of time so that he will have something when he gets home. Any suggestions?

I prefer to work first shift but I really wanted the job. One good thing is that we work a straight 8 hour shift. Instead of clocking out for lunch for 30 mins to an hour we take three 15 min. breaks. I love it because in past jobs I've had to clock out for lunch, which meant staying on the job that much later.

Suggestions from other 2nd shifters are welcome!

 

[cristit14]

My worst shift was 4am -2:30 pm. You had to go in to the hospital through the ER and many times you were following a trail of blood to get in.