What I'm about to write is going to sound a hell of a lot like whining.
Okay, it is whining.
What kind of whine? It's not sham pain, I'll say that much. Maybe you'll just think I'm bored-oh, I don't know. I'll just line up my problems in neat little rows, eh, and we'll go from there.
First world problems, right? I have a full time job: millions aren't so lucky. I make only a little over minimum wage: more in one shift than about a billion people make in a month. I like (most of) the people I work with and the fringe benefits where I work are better than those anywhere else I've worked (with the possible exception of McDonald's before they abolished free meals).
And there are lots and lots of other people on this shift. More than fifteen at my store alone (and we're short five full timers at the moment). Some of them even have families--which would suck, at least until the children are school aged and you could sleep while they were off at school. The night premium of a buck an hour is most welcome, too. We won't mention how my last job paid almost seven bucks more an hour for essentially the same work and workload (oops, we just did).
I did nights once for the better part of eight years. I've worked Close-Open at McDonald's, and night shifts at three different variety store chains. At 7-Eleven I even had the same schedule I have now: Tuesdays and Wednesdays off.
7-Eleven was a pressure cooker that I firmly believe took years off my life. My current job isn't, at least not yet. If I make manager, it probably will be: the night manager at my store has had one day off in the past month. Her choice, but--well, lacking any other experience, I'm not sure whether it's the same in other environments. You can choose to have your two days off a week, but you are held fully responsible for what goes on during that time, and so what kind of a choice is that, really? That's retail for you. Almost everywhere, once you get above the level of grunt.
As much as you want to leave work at work, when you work nights, every minute is a reminder that you're backwards. Monday night is my Friday and Thursday night is my Monday morning. Supper is at breakfast time and breakfast is after eight p.m. And somehow the 'days' seem shorter when you work graveyards. That's ridiculous: we all have the same 24 hours. But I definitely had more energy to do things after work, when after work was 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Now it's eight a.m and
"DON'T MAKE ME DO STUFF"
I'd get up the energy to do stuff if anyone was around to do it with. They're all working normal hours: by the time I get up it's coming on bedtime for the rest of the city. And on my "days" off? Yeah, Tuesday and Wednesday are primo hangout nights, you know?
(This should be changing once my class is over: actually, I might be going to six days a week for a while, but my day off will move around.)
Bluntly put, I feel disconnected. With myself, with the world, with everything and (almost) everyone.
This is, as I have been told in no uncertain terms by more than one person, nobody's fault but my own. I get it. I come home, eat dinner, and go to bed; get up, have breakfast and go to work. Same as any other working stiff. I'm sure there are whole nations of nine-to-fivers who tell themselves every day that there's got to be more to life than eat, work, eat and sleep. There's just something about night shift that drives it home a little bit harder, is all.
Somebody call whine-one-one and summon the wahmbulance.
The positives, aside from the bunch I've mentioned, are that I can do all the things that use electricity without bankrupting us. I'm not even exaggerating overmuch: the hydro rates in Ontario are insane, and off-peak is the only time they're even close to affordable. I have this mad urge to go around unplugging everything between the hours of eleven a.m. and five p.m.
I get entirely too much pleasure in virtually tucking people in at night on my nights off and virtually wiping the sleep from their eyes in the morning. The off nights are great for filling my head with music. (Can't listen to music at work anymore: it's a safety hazard.)
And people have really gone out of their way to accommodate these weird hours of mine, for which I am very grateful and because of which I really hesitated before writing this out. I don't want to seem unappreciative: I'm anything but. I just wish I didn't feel like so much of a burden on people. Would I feel this way on days, too? I doubt it. I didn't.
It's almost 8:30 in the morning. Time to make supper.
Please pardon my snivelling. This blog is for sharing myself, warts and pustules and all...
2 comments:
Shortly after I finished high school I took a nightshift job in a 24 hour doughnut shop. (This was before Tim's) Once I got used to the sleeping pattern (which took quite a while and was very distressing) I actually liked working nights a lot. I found that once I was free of socially acceptable times to do things - including eating - I did things I wanted to do when I wanted to do them. I lost weight because I had meals when I was hungry, I got more easily into an exercise routine because I wasn't waiting for a scheduled class at the Y. If I could have actually earned a living I think I could have just always worked nights.
On the other hand, I found adjusting to the shift very distressing and in my scaffold career I dread the nightshift during pulp mill shutdowns because I won't get adjusted before its all over and then I have to reorient myself to the day shift world.
Also, this post makes me dreadfully sad. That a management job pays only a little more than minimum wage is surely some kind of travesty. That your night shift differential is a dollar is worse. In my carpenter's union's collective agreement the shift diff is $6 an hour. I worked minimum wage food service jobs exclusively for 11 years before I took up construction and joined a union. Nothing would ever induce me not to work union again. I get really pissed at the politics and machinations sometimes, but the improvement in my life thanks to wages and benefits outweigh all nonsense.
karen: I kind of enjoy the nights in and of themselves. It's what they mean for the rest of my life that bothers me. And I'm not management, just a common grunt. Hopefully I'll make management at some point. Your note about wages is well taken. I came from one of the highest compensations in my industry back to industry standard. It was a hell of a pay cut. As for unions--I agree with you, for the most part. I've seen workplaces grind to a halt because of endless petty grievances--but I've seen management get away with much worse in non-unionized environments, too. One franchisee I used to work for refused to pay overtime. It was the straw that broke my back. Loved the place, still have dear friends there...but I detest being taken advantage of.
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