I spent 8 years, 9 months, and 16 days as a proofreader of financial documents – prospectuses (prospecti?) and annual reports for mutual funds – all on third shift. In that amount of time, I discovered why it’s called the graveyard shift: working at night and attempting to sleep during the day will drive you to an early grave.
Well, maybe not drive you.
More like send you crawling slowly over the broken glass of your social life into the welcomed peace and rest of death.
Do you ever get used to the hours? No. Doesn't the pay differential make it worth it? No. Isn't it cool being at work knowing the CEO is never going to slip in unannounced? Welllll...kinda.
In truth (almost), my schedule of coming home in the morning (opposite all the Surface Dwellers inching along the highway going into town), getting a few hours of fitful sleep, and being available for any after-school activities of the Fruit Of My Loins worked out in a way that was both okey and dokey: I was never late for dinner because of being stuck in traffic, the FOML probably saw more of me than those of the nine-to-fivers, and I always had the immediate sympathy of anyone who learned of my ungodly hours. ("Oh man, I can't imagine! How do you do it?")
And when I say ungodly, I mean it. There is a reason, beyond astronomy, why it is light during the day and dark at night. We were meant to sleep at night and work during the day...not the other way around. So for those third-shift heathens among us who are still fighting against the Lord's design for our lives: repent and be rescheduled, every one of you, for a return to sanity, and you will receive the gift of restful sleep.
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