My long national night shift is over

[lebateleur]

I just finished eight and a half months on a quasi-third shift gig involving 10 hour days that often stretched into 12 or 13 hours. No sick leave, no time off. I am oh, so glad I am done with it, because while it was a good experience, on any given day during those 8.5 months I could:

• Bathe
  
• Prepare and eat a meal
  
• Complete a life errand (grocery shopping, cleaning)
  
• Remind other humans via phone or Internet that I exist
  
• Read
  
• Practice something (language, writing, musical instrument)
  
• Exercise

but given the pace and hours I was not able do more than one of those things per day. Tabletop gaming was drastically curtailed. Online gaming was nonexistent. The weekly dinner + movie night with friends? Hah!

While not a bad experience in and of itself, I have learned that I am not a person who can devote myself completely and exclusively to The Thing That Pays The Bills. As of tonight I am about to revert to being well-rounded Leisure Human and I look forward to it.

これで以上です。

Comments

[kalloway]

Enjoy being a well-rounded Leisure Human! It sounds well-deserved!

(That sounds like what a lot of people do here with the local papermill. It's like 70 hours a week, at least, and people will basically take like five years off having a life to work there and come out of it with enough funds to change their lives but... also literally did nothing but work and sleep to get there. I couldn't do it at this age, though.)

[lebateleur]

Thank you! The spike in take-home pay was pretty sweet, but ultimately I'm happy to be going back to something a little less demanding, even if the paychecks are smaller. And yeah, if I had tried this 15 years or so ago I probably could have sustained it for a lot longer, but so it goes. It'll be nice to have the extra time to sit around and do creative stuff from here on out.

[spikedluv]

That sounds like h-e-double hockey sticks! Enjoy having some free time!

[lebateleur]

Thank you! I've already finished a book and a half in the 24 hours since I've been off work--the free time has been working out quite excellently so far. :)

[wendelah1]

I thought Disney was giving a free 30-day-trial for their streaming service? Maybe you won't have to cancel Amazon Prime, right before Christmas? (I don't pay for any streaming services so I have no dog in this fight.)

[lebateleur]

Cool, I didn't realize that--thank you! But right now I have such a backlog of DVDs to watch and books to read (and sleep to catch up on) I could probably cancel any and all of the streaming services and not miss them for quite some time...

[under_the_silk_tree]

It is so important to have time to relax and enjoy life so I am glad that you will be able to pay the bills and have more leisure time! I pulled hours like that when I was in college but I couldn't imagine having enough energy to do it now.

[lebateleur]

Thank you! And you're dead on: life has felt so much better now that I'm able to relax for a bit each day instead of just going to sleep...and it's only been a week. I probably would have been fine with this schedule during college, but, as you said, not anymore. ^^