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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To find this shift pattern brutal?

70 replies

3on3off · 21/05/2021 10:57

Three days on, three days off. 12 hour shifts (7-7), alternating between days and nights every fortnight. No flexibility as everyone in the department does the same shift pattern.

It's only been a few months and I feel completely exhausted by it. I'm grateful to have a job but completely exhausted. Work days I feel like a zombie, I come home eat and go straight to bed. I miss having down time in the evenings and time to relax. I miss so much by having to work weekends pretty often. I missed the entire Easter weekend, multiple Bank Holiday weekends and I'm working Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day as my leave requests have already been rejected.

The department has been having issues with poor staff retention. All my colleagues are drained by the shift pattern.

AIBU to think this shift pattern is actually difficult and I'm not just being whiny (as family members who work a Monday-Friday 9-5 tell me I am being Blush).

OP posts:
Dixiechickonhols · 21/05/2021 13:02

YANBU the day to night switching must feel like permanent jet lag. Are you in a union. If everyone hates it/looking for new job might be worth approaching them.

x2boys · 21/05/2021 13:04

Yes shift work is brutal ,I did 20+ years of it as a nurse

DeadButDelicious · 21/05/2021 13:05

YANBU. DH works 4 on 4 off, 6-6 with a mix of 2 days and 2 nights. It is tough and it does have an impact on him and family life. The 9-5 crowd really don't get it.

x2boys · 21/05/2021 13:08

And unless people have worked night ,s they have no idea just how tiring they are ,my mum never got it ,she would frequently phone me at about 11am when she knew I worked the night before,and wonder why I was still in bed Hmm

Brefugee · 21/05/2021 13:10

I hate sleeping in the day on weekends knowing that every person in my life is enjoying their weekend.

If you're going to be in any kind of job with shifts, you have to let go of this kind of thinking, it will just make you miserable.

InTheHeatOfTheSun · 21/05/2021 13:12

12 hour shifts are brutal, even more so at nights. Is there a reason they are so long (such a shame that the UK opted out of the working time directive, the shifts would have been capped...

The UK hasn't opted out of WTR. Individuals can opt out of the maximum working hours/week part if they choose to do so but that's the only aspect. The rest requirements cannot be opted out of.

bitheby · 21/05/2021 13:14

It'll be the alternating between days and nights that's the killer. I vaguely remember some research on this when I was studying psychology. People flipping between nights and days had huge impacts on their health.

iolaus · 21/05/2021 13:23

12 hour shifts and mixing days and nights are crap - people often think it's good because of the amount of days off (you do a full week of work within 3 days) but you spend quite a bit of time recovering, the sickness rates go up and noone wants to do an extra 12 hour shift

Sassybeaa · 21/05/2021 13:26

I hated working nights 8-8! It would get to around 5am and I would start to feel really down and tearful.

Working in healthcare, I would sometimes be so tired I didn't feel safe to be looking after anyone else's life.

PyjamaFan · 21/05/2021 13:26

The swapping from days to nights and vice versa sounds particularly difficult to me.

Are there any jobs that don't do this?

plus3 · 21/05/2021 13:26

@Brefugee

I hate sleeping in the day on weekends knowing that every person in my life is enjoying their weekend.

If you're going to be in any kind of job with shifts, you have to let go of this kind of thinking, it will just make you miserable.

Agree with this though - there are advantages to shift work. I really like working full time in 13 days rather than 20, I love the days off in the week. With good requesting you can make your annual leave longer, ie days before and after a week gives you so much time off (although this relies on being able to request your shift pattern) More opportunity for overtime/extra shifts as required.
Dozycuntlaters · 21/05/2021 13:31

My partner works for the met, does 12 hour shifts, days and nights and as a result his body clock is fucked. However, he does get a lot of rest days off to recharge his batteries not that this seems to make a difference. I get it must be hard though, and its difficult to maintain a relationship with someone on shift work. It will be the death of us because he just doesn't go to bed at a normal time but then again, i love the fact that he works 2 weekends a month and has 2 off. We don't live together.

ginghamtablecloths · 21/05/2021 13:36

I couldn't agree more. Twelve-hour shifts are bad anyway - how can you make safe decisions when you're exhausted near to the end of a shift? Late DH was a driver and his work hours dominated our lives. It is so tiring and bad for your health. I'm fairly certain that it contributed to his final illness, in fact I would say that the job killed him.

BillywigSting · 21/05/2021 13:38

Yanbu 12 hour shifts are hard graft (I do them too) and switch from days to nights is soul destroyingly exhausting.

I've just done four long days and this is my second day off. I've spent most of the last two days either sleeping or catching up with all the shopping /cooking /cleaning /errands that I haven't been able to do on my work days.

I'm in for another three long days starting tomorrow before I get any real time off and I don't even do nights (I really can't hack them) and am dog tired all the time

userxx · 21/05/2021 13:47

Working shifts is hard going. There is a reason it takes years off your life

This.

BashfulClam · 21/05/2021 13:51

My dad did shift work at it out me off got life and I try to shy away from it. He did 5 x day shift 8-4, 2 off, 3x nightshift 12-8, 3 off, 3x backshift 4-12, 3 off and back to the start. If the clocks changed tough if you got an extra hour (great if you got one less) working over 365 days . Basically if him and his workmates didn’t work Christmas Day etc there would be no dinner, no tree lights, no tv as he worked in a nuclear power station.

KarmaStar · 21/05/2021 13:59

I've always worked shifts and that sounds quite a good shift pattern.have done much worse .prefer shifts to nine to five.you'll soon adapt.

Pinkpaisley · 21/05/2021 14:06

I know there is no chance I could handle mixed shifts. I might be able to adapt to the night shift which obviously comes with challenges of daytime appointments and life so I’m not 100% sure it wouldn’t break me. But the mixed shift pattern you describe, I doubt I would last a week before either the migraines or my mental health forced me to stop. I know workers are needed for these shifts and it’s not just about profits, sometimes these are incredibly essential jobs, but that schedule just sounds inhumane.

user1497787065 · 21/05/2021 14:07

I have done shifts,

Day 1:0900-1800
Day 2: 1800-0900 on Day 3
Day 3: off from 0900
Day 4: Off

Back to day 1

This was exhausting with absolutely no chance to establish any routine.

HoppingPavlova · 21/05/2021 14:08

It’s the mixing of the nights and days that is the problem. Best stretch I had at work was few years where I pretty much only did nights. Then tag teamed DH on my way in and his way out and looked after kids until he got home, grabbed 4hrs hours, got up and back. Then used the sleep bank on weekends as he was home so would come in, go to bed within 30mins, sleep 9.5hrs straight, take 30mins to have cuppa and shovel some food in and out the door. On my off days the minute he came in from work we would tag team and I’d go to bed at 5pm and not wake until he was leaving at 8 the next morning. You make it work. I found the key was the same routine and consistency. If I had that all was well. If I had to change to cover for someone on leave etc everything would mess up pretty quickly.

BTV2000 · 21/05/2021 14:20

YANBU, but I did 18 months of Mon Fri 9-5 and hated it 🤣 went straight back to my 12hr shifts! Maybe I'm just strange!

Crunchymum · 21/05/2021 14:21

It doesn't sound right that you are doing both Christmas and NY.

These should be shared fairly. No-one would be expected to do them all? I'd be kicking up a massive fuss about them rotaring you in for them all.

MrsChuckBass · 21/05/2021 14:24

I'm a shift worker, have been for the past 10 years. I do 6 days (7.30-7.30) on and then 6 off. I do two months of days and two months of nights.
I actually prefer this to working Monday-Friday 9-5. I could never work typical office hours again.
Yes night get some getting used to, once I got into the routine of it I've found it fine

Original poster
3on3off · 21/05/2021 14:33

I agree that switching between days and nights is really hard.

For example, this week I'm working night shifts on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. So I'll finish work at 7am on Tuesday morning and Tuesday is one of my days off despite having been at work (!). No matter what I do on Tuesday the day off will be a write off - I either force myself to stay up completely or after a short nap and spend the rest of the day too tired and miserable to do anything or I sleep the day away. Then I have two more days off where I feel continue to feel jet lagged and exhausted before I'm back on nights again.

There is no flexibility at all as the whole department is on the same rota pattern so if you ask for a day off there is no one to cover you unless they come in on a day off and work overtime, if that makes sense which is ok for an emergency or to cover someone's annual leave but not a sustainable method at allowing any kind of flexibility.

It's ironic that working in healthcare can be so bad for your health and wellbeing.

OP posts:
bitheby · 21/05/2021 15:04

I can't find the study that I was thinking of earlier - I think it was part of the psychology degree with the OU and I'm sure they used a case study of rotating shift workers that used health psychologists to re-do the rota to make it better from a health perspective.

There's so much research on the impacts of shift work on health. If you all collectively complained then they might at least look into a different pattern. It would surely save them money on recruitment.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5028173/