The 12 hour shift...ackkk

Recently, the local major employer here in the area has switched to 12 hour shifts. 24 hours one week and 60 the next.

What could be the rational behind this? Can't be productivity...lol..everyone is grumpy, miserable and sleep deprived. The way I see it, productivity has dropped and people getting hurt has risen. Absenteeism has gone up times 10. Works well for me, I just call around 10am, guaranteed they are short handed, I can volunteer to help them out by coming in from noon to 8.

Anybody else work the dreaded 12? What are your secrets to keeping your sanity? DH gave it a valiant effort for 5 months, got so run down he had to go back to part time.

Eww. Twelve hour shifts? Might not be so bad if you really
enjoyed your job, but gosh, it doesn't sound like everyone
is whistling while they work.

Hubby can't figure out why a company would have such
a shift, though some local companies do the same. Paper
production. Nothing like making toilet paper for twelve hours
straight. Poor guys can't escape work even when they use the
restroom. Can't help but to think about work.

I'm sorry you're having to work these shifts.

:-( KM

My DH works at our local paper mill (doesn't make TP though, lol) and they've had the 12 hour shifts for probably almost 10 years now. There's a few things I've learned in those years.....

There is a 12 hour shift schedule that is called the "DuPont schedule". There are many variations of this that just don't work as well. Our guys here are on DuPont, but many of the local pressed metal plants have gone to 12 hour shifts that are NOT DuPont, but something someone else came up with....and it's awful.

I'm not saying my DH's 12 hours are wonderful. I miss 8 hour shifts, however sometimes it's hard to argue with having 7 days off in a row once a month. It's actually a 28 day cycle, but that sounds like I'm talking about something else, so we'll say "one month". LOL!

I guess the idea behind the longer shifts is to be able to work the factory 24/7 and allow the workers to actually have more days off. The days off are nice. Since DH has to take a week's vacation at a time (he can't take one or two days, has to be a week) it's great to combine one week's of vacation with his scheduled week off....2 for the price of 1!

When the 12's first began it wasn't so bad for us. But, as time has worn on, it's easy to see this is harder on the workers....especially the older guys and gals. I can see it in my DH too. His shifts are 7:00-7:00, either days or nights. Night shift sucks. Bad. He works, he eats, he sleeps. That's it. We don't have kids, and at this point I'm glad because they wouldn't know their Father very well.

Since my DH is a supervisor he actually gets to go in to work 30 minutes to an hour before the shift begins. So, really, he works about 13 hour shifts.

The very bad thing is when there aren't enough folks to actually cover the jobs. Folks have got to be trained ahead of time for when someone retires, bids out, quits, gets sick....or worse, when we lose a man. It's happened plenty of times here that something went wrong and instead of having the 5 guys they should to cover a job there were only 3...and the third man had an emergency. Two men are left to cover 12 hour shifts with no days off.

Don't be surprised if absenteeism leads to new rules that are very hard to live by. It has happened here. No one thought the rules would stick, but they have. The problem with most of the places that run 24/7 and do the 12 hours is that they can only make a worker stay for 4 hours before having to let them leave. It used to be they could make you stay for a whole shift because it was only 8 hours. Now they only have 4 hours to find a replacement....and suddenly no one answers their phones now that we all have caller ID. That's another reason why the training is so important....to be able to have guys step up into higher positions so that every job is filled and thing don't go crazy if one guy doesn't show up.

If your 12's are an actual DuPont then I think that's the best you're going to get. If it's some variation from that....well, from what I've seen none of the others really work very well. Lots of times if you have a union the 12's will be mandatory for while (6 months to a year maybe) then the union will get enough complaints that they will eventually call for a vote. That's what happened here and after the vote we are still on 12 hours.

Good luck. Get lots of rest, don't plan on doing anything on the days you have to work. Make friends, because 12 hours is a looooooong stretch if you don't have any friends to talk to!

My hubby works the 12 hour shift....like he works Mon, Tues, 8am-8pm and then off Wed, Thurs. and then works Fri, Sat, Sun. and then the next week off Mon, Tues and then works Wed, Thurs. and off the weekend... but the catch to his in...one month he works 8 am to 8 pm then the next month it switches to 8 pm to 8 am...And at first i had a hard very hard time when he worked nights...could not sleep for anything and even had to start taking a sleeping pill when he worked nights, now i still have to take something to help me sleep, but i am not as scared as i used to be, i just don't like being home alone at night with the 2 girls. The very hard part is when he is sleeping during the day and all the kids are here, whether it be my girls friends, the kids i babysit, whatever, hard to keep kids and giggling girl, esp. teenage girls quiet.
And when he works the days 12 hrs..well i kinda like it cause it gives me some very nice peace and quiet, when the girls are in school.

And to tell the truth my hubby likes the night shifts better then days...he says you don't have the bosses breathing down your back and all the stress that goes with it.

He works in a factory spinning nylon....

Char

DH's biggest problem was the nights...he can't sleep more than 3 hours at the best of times. Trying to get him to sleep during the day was impossible. Eating was a whole other problem. He had to wake up and eat right away, that wasn't gonna happen, on days he had to eat at 9 at night then go right to bed, that wasn't happening either. He lost 30 pounds in the first month and a half. The air in there is bad too, I tried a 12 hour shift to take the slack off DH and my bronchitis kicked in bad, spent the whole night coughing and throwing up.I am a wuss. That's when i got the bright idea to put us both "on call". We get up with the dogs, have our coffee and about 10 am I call to see if they are short handed, no surprise, they always are. Then we go in and cover the rest of the shift, noon until 8 pm, nice, normal, 8 hour shift.

They were running 24/7 before this, but using 8 hour shifts to do it. The 12's need more people and I'm noticing a lot of machinery break downs from the wear and tear too. I really can't see it paying off for them.

My hubby had trouble sleeping during the day as well cause of all the light...so i went to walmart and got some black heavy cloths and put in on the windows to where it does not look so tacky...used push pins to keep in it and it looks like blinds most of the time and in the winter it helps keep the cold out.

Char

Oh, Char, my gosh, if you get a chance, ABC Distributing sells
theater curtains, and wow, are they dark!

They keep the cold out and the light. My son put some up in
his room for video gaming, and they are really cool!

KM

As for sleeping during the day, that can be hard. I've found that what works best for my DH is lined curtains. Just regular curtains that have a lining in them. You can buy them or make them very easily. If you make them just line them with muslin. We also have mini-blinds up, but the pull down shades seem to do an even better job. Heck, now you can get the pull down shades at the dollar store.

Eating for us isn't that big of an issue because we don't have kids. If we did have kids I know DH would be eating alone and I'd constantly be warming up meals for him. We make a lot of food that can be used as leftovers and this helps greatly. That way he always has a choice of things to take to work for his meal that he can pop in the micorwave....and I do the same thing for my meals when he's working. We've never had a set dinner time, always because of how he's worked. We may eat our dinner at 11 am or 9 pm. It all depends on his shift and what's going on that day.

Char, I assure you that being alone at night does get easier. When we were first married and DH worked nights I could hardly sleep. There were many times I stayed up until he got home, keeping myself busy with some project, just not wanting to go lay in bed and be afraid all night. Well, after 14+ years now I look forward to him working nights so that me and dog can have the big bed all to ourselves!! I set both sides of the electric blanket to MY setting and crawl right in the middle, tee hee hee. I don't know when I got used to him being gone at night, but I did.

Also, for sleeping during the day it can really help if you play soft music, run a fan, etc. in the room you (or your DH) is sleeping in. It goes really far to drown out noises like neighbor's lawn mowers/snow blowers and even little girl's giggles. I've known some folks who wear ear plugs to bed, but I don't think I could sleep with them in....but I have ear troubles.

12 hr. shifts...I was one of the first 3 hired by American Express here in Canada ions ago..did my training in Memphis, Tenn. The division was called 'Space Bank' at that time very high tech..anyway, within 6 months I had to hire over 100 people to start working in all the divisions and we applied (at that time it was a must) to Workman's Compensation to run 12 hr. shifts..our shifts ran 8am - 8pm Mon/Tue/Wedn. 2nd shift 8pm-8am and then Thurs.Fri.Sat. same with part timers working on Sunday..

Almost no sick call ins..doctors appts. could be scheduled for off hours or off days..once you travelled to the office what was a few more hours knowing that you'd have 4 days off...virtually well received by all employees..was just too bad I was management and could not participate..we had nothing but positive feedback...

How about 6 -10s, can make a girl a real B####, on top that the 12pm to 10pm shift to boot. no life

yuck...that's bad!!

You can't change jobs somehow?

Like to, I am a manager so we get the worst of it.

I set up a Dupont schedule for my guys once, at first they didn't think to much of it until they figured out that they got 7 weeks vacation a year on top of their regular vacation. Tie the two together and you can get 3 weeks paid vacation straight. :)

IF you get vacation time.

Yes if you get it, my guys always did. My youngest son works 12 hour shifts 7 days on 7 days off but there are no vacations.

I work a 12 hour swing shift. For instance I will work Wed and Thurs days, 6am till 6pm, then be off the weekend and then work Monday and Tuesday night 6pm till 6 am. Then be off Wed (if you can count Wed since you have to sleep or feel like poo poo) and Thur. Then work days again Fri, Sat, and Sun. It just keeps rotating like that. There is also overtime. Most of the time someone volunteers but if not we have a force in list and whoever is next on the list has to work OT. OT varies depending on how many are on Vacation, medical leave etc.
It has some advantages. Like being able to schedule appointments on off days. But, it's really hard on the body. I always feel so bad on nights then when I'm on days feel better just in time to start nights again LOL. I used to work the 8 hour swing shift but about 13 years ago we went to the 12. We have no sick days only 2 days per year of what they call emergency leave which can be used for anything. We do have vacation though but you can't take it just anytime.