whats the worst work schedule you've ever had?

[gophins72]

and how did you resolve it? 15 hour days for months at a time? all nighters on a regular basis? it seems with the economy in the doldrums people are putting in more hours and employers are less understanding of employee needs, anyone have any good war stories?

 

[Kadarin]

9pm to 6am Monday night through Saturday morning. God it sucked... This was back in '01-'02.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I run a shift at a SWD (Salt Water Disposal) in New Mexico. I work 14 hour days seven days a week with two days off a month. The time that I am not at work, I am on-call. It pays more than just the bills so I am content with my work schedule for now.

In my line of work, if the SWDs go down, the oilfield stops until we are back online and with the oilfield in the San Juan Basin picking back up, this job is secure for as long as the life expectancy of our well-bore (roughly 179 years left on our well-bore).

 

[BoomerD]

I've worked all sorts of fucked up shifts in my life.

7-12's with a 4-5 hour daily commute...for 6 or more months in a row. At least 2-3 times per week, 12 hours stretched to 14-16 hours...and the commute was still there.

6-8's with a 2 hour daily bus ride into the jobsite. We rotated shifts every week. (day-> swing-> graveyard -> back to days. (probably the worst one for me to deal with)

worked 4-10's for one company...3-13's for another...at the same time. The money was good...and I never had time to spend it. (that's what wives are for)

 

[Zebo]

Worst was 16+ hour days sometimes 6 days a week humping food carts miles per day across LA convetion center in a tux as food server. Made good money Union & we got 17% of bill but it's a young mans game. Started at 3-4 in the morning and quitting time was 7-10 PM in busy times.

 

[boomhower]

My current one:
All 7-7
Mon Tues days
Wed Thurs off
Fri-Sat-Sun nights
Mon Tues off
Wed Thurs Days
Fri Sat Sun off
Mon Tues nights
Wed Thus off
Fri Sat Sun days
Mon Tues off
Wed Thurs nights
Fri Sat Sun off
Rinse and repeat

I like the rotation of days since we get two three days weekends a month but the constant rotation of days to nights sucks. My preference would be two weeks of day and then two weeks of nights.

 

[JMapleton]

8AM to 6PM

Who the fark is up at 8AM?

 

[Crono]

Nothing that bad. Right now it's 8PM to 5AM.

 

[ultimatebob]

The worst schedule I had was working in a server room from 7 am to 7:30 pm for 11 days in a row. That said, the time they had me working 12 1/2 hour night shifts during the first half of the week and switching over the 12 1/2 hour night shifts the second half of the week was even tougher because of the way it screws up your sleep schedule.

The worst hours I ever had consistently, though, was a 7 to 1 shift in the morning followed by a 5 to 9 shift in the evening on Sunday's back when I stocked a grocery store. What really sucked about that (other than fucking up your entire Sunday) that is nobody was stocking the store in the afternoon, so the place was a mess by the time I got back at 5.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Worked the night audit at a hotel for a summer before my last year in college. I think my hours were something like 18:00 to 06:00, 5 days a week. Paid well since I was putting in 60 hours a week. Damn that summer was a mess though.

 

[FeuerFrei]

I worked from 11pm-7am for four years. I was kind of a zombie. Never could adjust to sleeping days. Ruined my life for a decade.

 

[Azraele]

Where I used to work they made production employees work 12 hour days 7 days a week to keep a schedule. Then when they got the order out they laid everyone off.

 

[Linflas]

Navy at sea, 12 on, 12 off endlessly until in port. On the other hand there was not really a lot to do when off so 12 hours of work was no big deal.

 

[tboo]

Any kind of night shift. I hated working nights.

 

[ravana]

6 am to 12 am for about a month.

 

[herm0016]

i am working 6p to 6a right now, but usually my schedule is when i get a call i work untill that job is done, i have had jobs take over 30 hours stright.

i also work in the oil field, probably home to some of the worst schedules.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

In 2004 I worked at a local amusement park.

Schedule was typically Open-Close with a Tuesday or Wednesday off. Had to get there an hour early or so, and two hours or so after. I lived about 45 min away. Schedule looked something like this:
Sunday-Tuesday: leave house at 7:30 then be on the clock from 8:30 AM until 12:00 AM and get home at almost 1 AM.
Wednesday: off
Thursday:leave house at 7:30 then be on the clock from 8:30 AM until 12:00 AM and get home at almost 1 AM.
Friday-Saturday: leave house at 7:30 then be on the clock from 8:30 AM until 1-1:30 AM (due to open later) and not get home until 2 or 2:30.

Basically 80 hours/week minimum. Was crazy. Then again, I was getting ~$450/week all summer at 17.

 

[Glayde]

One summer home from college I drove a garbage truck.

I'd start ~4am mon-fri and get off between 1-3pm depending on the day. (Thurs and Fri later since those were the residential days).

At night mon-sat I'd work a 5-6 hour shift at a restaurant usually 5-11pm.

The few nights I had off during the summer hanging out with my friends I'd simply be dozing off the entire time.

 

[child of wonder]

Worked in a cold freezer loading trucks. 4 weeks it was 7am to 7pm.

After those 4 weeks we would get done at 7pm Friday night then have to show up at 7pm Sunday to start 4 weeks of 7pm-7am shifts.

Then we'd get done at 7am on a Friday and have to be back at work at 7am on Monday morning for another 4 weeks of 7am-7pm.

Rinse and repeat.

 

[rasczak]

and how did you resolve it? 15 hour days for months at a time? all nighters on a regular basis? it seems with the economy in the doldrums people are putting in more hours and employers are less understanding of employee needs, anyone have any good war stories?

6hours on, 6off, 6on, 3off, 9on, 6off, 6on, 3off, 9on. it was resolved when i left the fishing industry.

 

[L1FE]

Longest day for me was about 34 hours. Worst stretch was a span of 3 months when I was averaging 80 hours a week not including the flight there and back if we were allowed to fly home that week. Looking back, the last 5 hours of the 34 hour day were pretty much worthless.

 

[Jeeebus]

November/December 2008, spilling into January 2009. I billed 105 hrs/week, every week, including holidays. It sucked hard. Not something I could sustain for much longer than that.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

July 7-July 11, 2008. In that time, I billed 118 out of a possible 120 hours preparing an appeal brief to the CAFC for a pro bono case. I seriously wanted to kill myself at the end of that week. It was everything I hate about being a lawyer, all wrapped up into a single hellish week.

To make matters worse, we persuaded 2 of the 3 judges on our panel, but the CAFC took the case up en banc (sua sponte), and we ended up losing 9-2. Between myself and the two other attorneys on the case, we donated roughly $500,000 worth of attorney time and resources to the case.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

November/December 2008, spilling into January 2009. I billed 105 hrs/week, every week, including holidays. It sucked hard. Not something I could sustain for much longer than that.

Jesus Christ. That is awful. I think I would have quit immediately after my legal obligations to represent that particular client ended. Life is too short.

 

[Loop2kil]

01:00 am to 11:00 am m-f