The Living Dead Workers On The Grave Yard Shift

Ah, the nightshift. Blue Collars breaking 2 hours in for coffee, newspapers with day old news, and a cigarette. 4 Hours in for a sandwich or really smelly Vietnamise fish (it's probably delicious but it smells like ass, no offense!) Companies started a 3rd shift to increase production, and ultimately, profits. Except they aren't. MSNBC says, and I quote:

Turns out that the all-night shift might not be such a bargain after all. A new study from Lexington (Mass.) consultancy Circadian Technologies, which advises the nation’s largest companies on how to manage their extended-hours operations, estimates that maintaining the practice may be costing companies a steep $206 billion annually — $8,600 per worker.

Oh, it gets better, read on:

The reason: No matter how many espressos night workers might belt back, their bodies are telling them it’s time to sleep just when their employers need them to be the most productive. Graveyard-shift workers make five times as many serious mistakes and are 20 percent more likely to suffer severe accidents, Circadian found.

Spending the first 12 years of my life working jobs as the one described I can attest to these truths. I started experiencing a sleep disorder. Dizziness, low grade narcalepsy (I would nod of in strange places and not remember how I got there.) I had to axe the 3rd shift because of this and employers were intntolerant with their "New employees MUST work 3rd shift during their trial period" policies. I can't tell you how many times I was turned down because one of these clowns couldn't read a doctor's note.

Since then the Narcalepsy has subsided, and I don't have dizzy spells. But 3rd shift jobs remain despite the protesting of the medical industry. What's worse, in some cases companies don't seem to understand what effective communication is all about. I remember one particular company I worked a whole week for. Not One person on the floor spoke English as his first English. Hell, they couldn't even manage English as a second language unless the phrase "No speak English" became a qualified phrase. They were actually in charge and trying to tell me, an English only speaking guy, what I was doing wrong, in Spanish!!! Needless to say, by the end of the week, I was discharged from employment. The explanation I was given was, "You're not following instruction." Yeah, well, stupid, hire someone that's bi-lingual at least!

Look, the hard facts are: Third shift doesn't work. Production is down, profits are down, expenses are up and accidents are up. Kill it. Think of another way.