Night Shift Woes And Triumphs

I'm not sure the the hell is with this picture, but it sort of fits

Since I work night shift, my sleep schedule is pretty jacked up.

I work from 7am to 7pm, then drive a little over an hour home.  I get about six hours of sleep, then I wake up and leave way earlier than I need to for work.  Why do I leave way early for work, you ask?  Well, because I'm anal.  I fear being late for anything.  Everywhere I go, I leave too early.  I'm pretty sure it drives my wife crazy.  Also, traffic is unpredictable in my city, so I never know whether it's going to be an easy hour long drive, or a horrifying two hour drive.

The six hours of sleep is fine.  I certainly have no complaints there.  But, I switch between night schedule for work days and day schedule for days I'm off.  I like hanging out with my wife and, besides, that's when everyone else is awake, including grocery stores and other places that I might need to go.

Anyway, I usually do pretty ok switching between schedules.  I have a pretty erratic sleep background anyway, having spent time in the military, so I do ok switching around.  But, for some reason, lately, I've had trouble during my off work days.  I'll wake up at 1:30 or 2am and just lay there, completely friggin' wide awake, tossing and turning, trying to shut my brain off so I can just get some damn sleep.  Luckily, my tossing doesn't wake up my wife.  It just annoys the snot out of me.  I usually fall back asleep around 6:15am or so, then my wife's alarm goes off about 6:45.  Being the fuckin' awesome husband that I am, I get up with her and help make her lunch and breakfast.  After she leaves, my plans are always to fix, repair, build something that needs fixing, repairing, or building.  Unfortunately, I soon find myself on the couch with the dogs licking my face at 3pm, another whole day having gone by without getting any of the shit done that I had planned to do.  Pain in my ass. . . I don't know what my problem is.

Night shift isn't all bad, though.  I would never trade it.  I am in the really fortunate position of working with an awesome team of nurses, techs, clerks, and doctors (well, most of the docs, anyway).  The day shift peeps are cool too, but they're just too serious. . . or something.  I can't really put my finger on it.  Night shift folks are more fun, and I think we have a really cohesive team.  Plus, everyone enjoys making fun of the PITAs (Pains In The Ass) as much as I do.

Oh, and the night time pay is way better too.

As much havoc as it plays in my sleep schedule and my ability to get shit done, I'm not switching from night shift.  I like it here. . .