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Shift workers

Nights, then a wedding, then nights again

Started 1 October 2024 · 23 replies · 277 hearts · read 2.7k times

KezWigan, UK · 1 October 2024
1.8 years ago

Nights, then a wedding, then nights again — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

Practical question, and possibly a silly one.

Practical question, and possibly a silly one, but the logistics of this are defeating me considerably more than the medicine is.

I have worked out a system that mostly holds and there is one part of it that keeps failing, and I would like to hear how other people solved that part.

If anybody has an arrangement that works and is willing to write it out, I would be very grateful.

92

BoazHaarlem, NL
#1

Somebody here suggested treating my rota as the calendar rather than the month, and reorganising my planning that way solved several things at once.

10

BrackenHexham, UK
#2

Kez, answering your question directly rather than going round the houses.

The thing I would say to a new shift worker is: pick your anchor day and protect it. Everything else can be flexible.

12

KikiFacilitatorGlasgow, UK
#3

Stepping in to say that asking for help with logistics is not a smaller kind of asking. It is most of what makes this sustainable.

25

SunnivaBodø, NO
#4

My experience is that this is entirely manageable on shifts and requires more deliberate planning than anybody tells you.

15

AshSunderland, UK
#5

Bracken — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

My storage question was the one I asked here first, and I got a practical answer within an hour from somebody on a similar rota.

10

PerdyShrewsbury, UK
#6

I do mine straight after my last night, before sleeping, and that has been the most consistent slot I have found in four years.

6

HollyBath, UK
#7

I have found the guides here more usable than most because they do not assume a nine-to-five, which is rarer than it should be.

12me too 5

HuwWrexham, UK
#8

What surprised me was that my energy on shift improved noticeably at about month five, and that has been the durable benefit.

7

TobySwindon, UK
#9

I do mine on the same weekday regardless of what shift I am on, and I gave up on the time of day entirely about a year ago.

11

SamPortland, OR
#10

That is a kinder way of putting it than I have managed about myself.

9

NorahDerry, NI
#11

Something that helped was writing the day of the week on the box, because on a run of nights I genuinely lose track.

11

OssianTromsø, NO
#12

I found that my worst weeks were always the transition weeks, and I now protect those rather than treating them as ordinary.

16

BrennaEnniskillen, NI
#13

Ossian — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

My colleagues know, which I resisted for a year, and it has made covering a difficult hour much simpler.

9

OdileMontreal, CA
#14

What worked for me was very simple food on shift, the same things every time, requiring no decisions at three in the morning.

14me too 7

TorinBelfast, NI
#15

Brenna has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

Coming back to say the anchor day held through two rota changes and a ward move, which is more than most of my habits have managed.

10

LulaBournemouth, UK
#16

I asked for my review appointments to be after a run of days rather than nights, and it made them considerably more useful.

9

TychoLeiden, NL
#17

What I underestimated was how much the tiredness compounded. A rough week on top of a rota change was much worse than either alone.

8me too 2

OrsolyaBudapest, HU
#18

Tycho has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

The fridge at work is not somewhere I trust, so mine never leaves the house, and that decision has removed a recurring worry.

12

MattNottingham, UK
#19

The 3am circle here is not a joke. I have used it twice and both times somebody was awake and it mattered enormously.

10me too 5

RenataKraków, PL
#20

Tycho — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

What I would say is to talk to your prescriber about your actual working pattern. Mine adjusted things once she understood it.

8

PrueChester, UK
#21

My week has no shape and everything written about this assumes one. Anchoring to a fixed day rather than a fixed time was what finally worked.

12me too 4

KikiFacilitatorGlasgow, UK
#22

Noticing that the thread has answered the question and then kept going, which is fine, and I want the answer not to get buried.

30

NolwennRennes, FR
#23

Kiki has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

I keep everything at home rather than carrying it, and I built my schedule around being at home on that day. Fewer things to go wrong.

11