to really really hate, loathe and despise working nights?

[EccentricaGallumbits]

I can't sleep properly so I feel like shite.

I do nothing except sit waiting to go to work because I feel too shite to do anything interesting.

I don't get any shopping, bill paying, important stff done.

I miss things at school, appointments and nice stuff.

I miss daylight.

My body clock is shagged, my bowels seize up, i get wind, constipation and the runs.

I either eat too many meals or nothing at all.

I get all dehydrated.

My work collegues are generally a weird bunch at night.

I could mention pateints at night but that might tip me over the edge.

I have to palm my children off on various relatives to sleep over.

I am grumpy.

YANBU

I have just quit my job which was only one night shift a week. I am on a nurse bank but so far have only done one shift

The plan was that I would do early and late shifts, giving me a break from nights but I just feel my passion for nursing has gone at the moment.

I can't see me ever going back to full-time nights. I do need some direction though and I am thinking about new careers, although I don't know what. I thought being a SAHM would be a welcome break from nights and it has been in many ways but I do feel like I need some sort of job and the lack of regularity on the bank is proving difficult

the worst part of nights for me is finding out which sweet old lady has been drinking a bottle of sherry a day ,usually discover this between 2 and 4 in the morning ,when they go into withdrawl and suddenly exhibit superhuman strength and talk language that would make even hardened mners blush .Once had a 90yr old ex farmer pick up and throw a full size oxyen cylinder at me ,followed by the trolley it had been in ,was trapped in a side room with him ,in the end i told him he had to let me go or i would have to pull my pants down and wee on the floor ,i was so desperate for the toilet ! i did promise to go back , and i did with a team of porters and every dr i could rustle up ( so 1 house officer )

I hate people dying at night too ,espeially if they do it quietly in their sleep and you find them an hour later ,although on a positive note its probably the best way to go . I just hate that no-one is with them

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

major zit outbreak at around 4am, coinciding with serious headache and problematic wind.

and the bloody dog couldn't hold on and has exploded in the bloody kitchen. and i have to wait till they've finished breakfast before i can go to bed.

i swear if anyone wakes me before 6 this evening i will damage them painfully.

and breaks?????? of 5 hours?????????? to sleep????????? HA!

Yep, been there!

Worked nights for 6 years. Nearly killed me, it did.

I used to be up at 6am with my toddler....stay up all day, then go to work for a 12 hr night shift. Come home.....go to bed from 9am to 1pm............get up and collect my toddler from nursery and DO IT ALL AGAIN THE NEXT NIGHT.

I gave up nursing in the end. It was ageing me physically and mentally at such a rate and the money was atrocious!

I was either overeating or had no appetite. I was incapable of logical thought and coherent speech. I am now normal!!

AND another thing. having finished my stretch of nights I have woken up this morning with a streaming cold. I feel like crap. Humph.

Eccentrica - you're not being e-rostered by any chance are you?

Why don't you move to a nursing job that doesn't involve nights? I work in Theatre recovery and our shifts are mainly days with one on-call commitment per week

e-rostering has not yet reached us (they still struggle to find the on button on computers). am hoping it may be better than the antiquated system they have now.

also despite the best efforts of the system babies do keep being born at night and even those born during office hours need some input.

if i carry on being so grumpy about having to do nights they might give in and let me only do days.

I used to work in the labs at night.
It was very lonely and away from the main hospital.
Used to get drunks attracted to the light like moths.
I once looked up from the equipment to find a guy exposing himself!
We did have blinds but they'd been placed so that to close them you either had to crawl under a bench and squeeze in or stand on the bench and stretch.

My hair always seemed greasier when working nights

YANBU. It has been at least 11 years since I last did nightwork, but I can remember the exhaustion and jealousy (why did people have to go out on a Friday when I was working? Wednesday would be just as good wouldn't it?)
Is it possible that you could request a move to days?
OTOH, I did most of my nights at a hospice where there was little in the way of routine. The staff were great and the food was lovely.

Nights once a month for 7 days for 3 years. then, I use work night week on week off. I was single and my social life only involved the people I worked with. I would slob about all day. I can't imagine doing nights with children around! That's why it's always best to do the crap jobs early in your career before kids appear. Then hook-up with a real caring housewife/husband that loves you to pieces. I don't think my present relationship (with kid) would have survived night shift. I also got IBS during my shift years. I found the following helpful

1. Studying to get out of shift work (goals are good)
2. read a book or magazine on the loo (relax the bowel)
3. Unwind when you get in
4. Sleep in shifts 4 hour 9.30am -1.30pm then 6pmish - until you have to get ready for work. How that works with children I don't know.

Winter felt like a twilight zone never saw day light (or so that how I felt) Other than that I enjoyed the job I did!!

Sorry EG - e-rostering seems to be v good for the balance sheet and for covering the service but bad for nurses who have always worked certain shifts for family or financial reasons. Staff who can work certain shifts because of nursery etc are finding this is not considered by the system and they can only make so many requests for certain shifts per session. It also fills the expensive shifts first - so nights are fully staffed with establishment staff who don't want to be there ( that would be you then ) and days are horribly shorthanded - because as little NHSP staff must be used as possible. It also plans the cheapest possible shift whilst supposedly getting the skill mix right - so the most expensive experienced nurses end up on the shifts that they are paid the least for for a lot of the time.

i screwed then. oh well it'll be another15 years before the monkeys managers work out how to e-roster.

YANBU op, lots of people hate nights. In our hospital they introduced rotation for all staff and won't employ new staff on night contracts. Some of the day staff really hate having to do nights.

I see it as counter productive to make people do nights who clearly struggle to cope with them. There are lots of people, like me, who chose nights for childcare reasons and whilst they will let me continue doing nights in my current place of work, I would struggle to ge a night contract if I moved on

In defence of Psychiatric nurses, I've worked nights on an acute ward for 7 years and I'm not very weird

We work really hard on nights IMO, strive for as much patient contact as possible during the evening, have a never ending stream of paperwork to do to support the day staff, admissions, observations. Honestly, the picture some previous posters have painted of psych wards seems very outdated IMO.

Generally I don't mind nights but I do sleep very poorly in the day time so only do 2 nights a the moment. That's manageable when you are only getting a couple of hours sleep. I'm toying with the idea of going up to 3 nights but I just keep thinking of those bad weeks when the ward is chaos all night, and can't face it.

Hi nights are a nightmare. I work in a busy inner city A&E dept and we have internal rotation onto nights. We used to do 7 nights on and 7 nights off, which worked out at about one set of nights every 7 weeks. Which wasn't too bad. But now they have been banned, European Working Time Directive apparantly. We now can only do a max of 4 nights in a row. Last week I did thu, fri sat and sun. Home at 0900hrs monday back to work on Tues for a long day 0730 - 2030hrs. I am now bloody knackered. My wife works 3 days a week so childcare is my remit on days off. The only positive about working nights in A&E is that the lights are on and there is no walking around in the dark whispering.