Working overnight shifts

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by skeeter_01

One of the things that I loved on midnights was the comrodery..working midnights is like being in a special club!

Lol, none of that here. There is only one staff on nights at a time, so I am completely alone for those 8 hours.

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Sunlight - as much as possible...but at least 30 minutes a day, possibly while walking so that you're getting sun directly and getting some execrcise in.

I think that is probably a huge part of my problem. I do still get in lots of walking (I don't drive) and I make sure I get in at least of hours worth of wandering a day - but the weather has been shitty lately so there hasn't been much sun. I notice that I'm actually WEEPY on days when the weather sucks, now.

The vitamin D pills I will look in to, since like I said I'm sure it's the lack of sunlight that is killing my soul.

Hopefully some of those suggestions work. I have to decide soon if I want to do full-time nights permanently or not - right now it's just a trial basis for me. I know that I SHOULD go ahead and take the position - because it's full-time and I'm sick to fucking death of being part-time. (it's hard to get a full-time job where I work...I know people who have been waiting for 15 years and are still part time). Just with how I'm feeling right now, it's hard to imagine doing this forever (or, until someone on days or afternoons retires - which won't be for another 5-10 years).

Another thing that I've been doing, to combat the feeling of isolation from my coworkers, is I've been showing up 30 minutes early (they're done their work by then, so I'm not interrupting anything) just to chat about work stuff. I also go to the staff meetings, even though the night staff aren't required to do so - just to keep in the loop. That's helped and I don't feel like I'm not part of the team, which is a feeling I was really worried about getting.

So, really, I guess the biggest thing I need to fix is my new exciting tendency to burst into tears if I can't find the socks that I feel like wearing or I slosh my coffee or insert-thing-that-is-not-supposed-to-be-a-big-deal-here.

How long have you been doing graveyards for, Outlaw?