Work/Sleep Balance

[andrewducker]

I can work pretty much any hours I have to.

For 3 years I worked 7:30AM to 7PM over the summers, earning money to pay off the overdraft I worked up during semester time.

I've worked 8:30 - 5:30, but with a 90 minute commute at each end.

I've worked shifts, thankfully not including ones starting at 2AM, but certainly ones which finish after that point, or start at 6AM.

And I can tell you that when I'm doing any of that I suck huge floppy donkey dick.

I stare into space.  I start typing reports (or whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing) and then stare at what I've done and wonder what's supposed to happen next.

I eat crap, my body somehow convinced that the reason I feel like crap is the lack of sugar in my blood rather than the lack of sleep in my brain.

And I stagger home afterwards, dancing the zombie shuffle and shotgunning passers-by in my head to relieve the angst.

And then I sit at home, staring into space (or at a monitor) again, unable to raise the enthusiasm to actually _do_ anything.

Because being up that early in the morning wears me down to the bone.

Nowadays I work 10:00 - 5:30, with a half hour lunch break, and that suits me perfectly.  To be honest, I'd be happy with a 15 minute lunch break but they won't let me take anything less than half an hour and occasionally it's handy to be able to pop to the shops and pick up some more fruit cordial at lunch.

I can work rather flexible hours - flexitime starts at 7AM, stops at 6PM and as long as I'm in the office 10:00 - 11:45 and 2:30 - 3:30 I'm fine.  But I like starting late, and frankly I'm more human, alive and productive when I do so. 

My body clock wishes I could work midday to 7:30PM, but that would make collaborating with my teammates nigh-impossible and that's critical to a lot of my job so I wouldn't do that most of the time even if I could.

Now - if I could get _them_ to adopt more sensible hours...

Comments

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Where my dad lives, in the rural south of France, a lot of people still work old fashioned hours, where they have a siesta in the middle of the day but work longer after that.

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

I suck huge floppy donkey dick

OK. Now I need counselling. Thats an image burnt into the retina of my mind's eye - for evar.

*shiver*

[0olong.livejournal.com]

Mmm... I function similarly badly when I get too tired. It's an awful thing.

I'm glad my current main job allows me to come in at 11 every day...

[aitkendrum.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with you. When i fell ill work let come in at 10 every morning and I was better for it. An extra hour in bed and to wake up made a bif difference and they got more out of me.

Pity then when they asked to be in by 8.30 every morning...

Now I dread getting up and I am getting so tired early in the day.

Now if they had agreed to the homeworking proposal....

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

Left to my own devices, I surface around 12-2pm. Every few months I have a month of early starts, being at work at 7:30, which means waking around 6. This is, as you'd expect, quite a challenge for me, and I usually spend most of that month as a zombie.
(until this job, I was more likely to be "still awake" at 6am, rather than "getting up" :-) )