Last Saterday
Here I am, working what will be (hopefully) my last Saturday of the month. Starting Monday II'm going off this 2nd shift/ Saturday crap that I have worked over the last couple years. Don't get my wrong, the job I had was a good job. I did enjoy working it, but I didn't like the hours. Something I have discovered over the last couple of years is that 2nd shift works are royally getting screwed in more ways then one.
1) Most meetings are set up in the morning or early afternoon. my shift was Tuesday - Friday 3:00pm to 12:00 and Saturday 10:00am - 7pm. up until the last 3 or 4 months, all meetings started no later then 1, in allot of cases started as earlier as 8:00am.. This meant, allot of shifts that I worked untilll midnight and have to be in a 8am the next day. granted my bosses did allow me from time to time to work an earlier shift the preceding day, but it was still rather annoying
2) Any pot lucks, or company events was always morning or earlier afternoon (You can attend if you want to drag your happy ass into work earlier). This lead to 2nd shift getting the left overs or "Sorry, it's all gone" . It was more annoying then anything
3) Alot of Missed events in the evening. This includes 2 Halloweens, and a number of shows and racing events that I would want to attend. To attend, events that other people wouind't think twice about I would have to use a day off. On the plus side, I had time off to do dentist and Doctor appointments, but general speaking we went to more events then appointments.
4) I will get to do stuff around the house. Before I could either wake up earlier, or after work. That works for things that you can only get done in a hour or 2, but if you want to work on something that would take 3 or 4 hours then general it would have to wait until the weekend. Generally speaking, with frist shift, if you get up then go to work. Then when you get home, you have most of the evening free. Working 2nd doesn't work like that You will get up 3 or 4 hours before work. Take out the time you spend getting ready for work, you have 2 hour sto do something. then after work, you have the same 2 or 3 hours to do something before you go back to bed. No to mention, I perfer to do everything after work. I *HATE* having to do something physically, like mowing the lawn, or any outside work, before having to go to my job. As a result, would always be a littel sore, and tired all day.
5) Kills the social life. Not that I had one to start with.. But it basically kills any remaining one that I had.
6) Other people don't respect your work scheduled. People don't realize that if you work late you don't get up at 8am daily. So people (including family in friends) are calling you in the morning, coming over to your house, unexpected etc when you are trying to sleep. I don't call you at 3am, when I'm up. Don't call me at 9, just because it's 9am, and I'm still sleeping doesn't mean I'm lazy, it just means I work late!!