It's really true: you can never judge a person until you walk a mile in their shoes. It's true about a lot of things, but it's especially true about night shifters.
No, you're thinking night crawlers. They're worms. They don't wear shoes.
I'm talking about people who work the graveyard shift, night after night, only seeing the light of day in the wee hours of the morning before most people even begin their day. I've known people who worked nights and I tried to be empathetic to what, I thought, must feel like hours on end of lonely nights, crickets chirping, fighting the urge to sleep like a never-ending battle between immortal enemies.
All those things are true, to a certain extent, but there's also an unexpected upside to having a schedule compatible with the workforce in Asia. I present for your consideration the top seven advantages to working the night shift:
1. You can have breakfast for supper every single day and no one will think anything odd about it at all.
2. On the flip side of that, you can have a margarita for breakfast (on your nights off, of course) and no one will call you a drunk.
3. When you go out on your nights off you're the last person to get tired.
4. The bad news is you can't remember what day it is. The good news is you don't care.
5. Waking up in the middle of your sleep cycle doesn't seem quite as bad when it's daylight out.
6. It's easier to fight the urge to play outside with the horses instead of doing housework on your nights off when it's dark outside.
7. Bad hair "days" aren't quite as stressful when you know only two other people will see you.
Of course, even with all these advantages, I am still looking forward to the day school starts, when I can get back to the land of the living. In the meantime this schedule has made me look at things in an entirely new light. For example, what if you mix the mayonnaise in the can, WITH the tunafish? Or...hold it! Take LIVE tuna fish, and feed them mayonnaise!! Oh this is great. I should call Starkist!
(Only a handful of you will get that reference, and that's ok.)
I'm an idea man, Chuck.
~J
2 comments:
I've done that schedule on a limited basis and you're right, there are advantages to it.
My mom worked the 12-8 night shift for 30 yrs. as an attendant in a mental institution. That was a different situation and interesting some nights when the patients were up and around. Hope you get back to normal when school starts. Get some sleep after those margarita breakfast drinks!
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