Considering Returning To Shift Work At Nearly 50 Years Old-Thoughts?

HughFreakingDillon

I am so tired of my current career (accounting), some of my co workers, and especially my boss. Thinking of making a move. But that move would involve shift work. I'm 47. My kids are early teens. I've been a Monday to Friday office drone for 17 years now. These shifts would be 12 hours, 4 on, 4 off kind of rotation. 

I used to like my job, but I quickly realized over the years that your working situation is only as good as those you work with. And back in the day, it was literally like The Office. Now, it's brutal. Obviously, no guarantee the new job would be better, but the dynamic of shift work is different than day in day out same people same shit. 

Now, 20 years ago, I had no issues with shift work. BUT, I lived alone, had no kids, and was obviously 20 years younger. Just looking for people at my age or older for some insight into working shift work at this age and things I might not be considering. 

It would definitely be a "shift" back to only having every second weekend off (much less important to me now than it once was), having to miss functions, potentially concerts (gah!), kids' stuff (like sports or dance). And the sleeping is a big concern. I already have sometimes had issues with insomnia. And we live in a small house; I hate the idea of having to tell my kids to be quiet an entire day because daddy just worked the night shift (especially in summer or weekends if they are home). I know people do it, it's just not super ideal. 

Anything else I might not be thinking of?

Spunkie

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HughFreakingDillon

tish said:

Higher rates of cancer higher with shift work that switches from day to nights, but steady hours shifts OK. 

4 day weekends rock! Less commute better on environment. That's how David Suzuki's office rolls.

Take a risk. You don't like, get into a new accouting place with better relationships. Relationships are the most instrumental correlates of subjective well being.

yeah, the older guys that have worked in that department for years just look....tired. like, all the fucking time. the commute isn't much of an issue...I live a 25 minute walk from work. 

I have high anxiety and a deep fear of change. It's hard enough changing jobs/departments within my company. I can't imagine going anywhere else after. been here since 1997. 

I took a risk moving to this job two years ago. As a result, now I'm even MORE gun shy of risks. lol. 

thanks Tish!

cutz

I had a job that was 4 on, 4 off(12 Hour Shifts), that went from Day shift to Night shift.

I was in my young 30's and I hated it. It fucked with my Sleeping big time. It got to the point where I needed to be rested for work and I felt beat up and tired all of the time and when I tried to go to sleep I had a difficult time. I felt like I aged a year for every Month working there. I didn't last long as I got another job as soon as I could. 

Oh, and I hated working too many weekends.

HughFreakingDillon

cutz said:

I had a job that was 4 on, 4 off(12 Hour Shifts), that went from Day shift to Night shift.

I was in my young 30's and I hated it. It fucked with my Sleeping big time. It got to the point where I needed to be rested for work and I felt beat up and tired all of the time and when I tried to go to sleep I had a difficult time. I felt like I aged a year for every Month working there. I didn't last long as I got another job as soon as I could. 

Oh, and I hated working too many weekends.

yeah, I've been weekend free for 15 years. this would be working every second weekend, but those weekends woudl basically be completely shot, working 12 hours each day. 

my wife thinks that too many days off in a row would lead me down my "path of bad behaviour". lol

mace1229

Thanks for sharing. I’ve been struggling lately.
I haven’t shared this before, but I resigned 3 months ago from my job. Change is scary. I don’t know what I’m doing next but I needed a change. Been teaching 14 years and the school violence is out of control here. Fights all the time and they don’t report it because they don’t want a mark against the school. Teachers being assaulted, myself included, for trying to ask students to return to class and not vandalize the bathrooms. The principal would apologize on behalf of the students and then tell me it was just an accident. And tell me not to contact parents about it. School shootings seem to happen weekly here. They don’t make big news because it’s common and not technically a school shooting, it’s during school hours across the street from kids who should be in school. A former student of mine was killed 3 weeks ago a block away from the school in a shooting. I don’t feel safe here and I can’t keep sending my kids to school here. Starting somewhere new scares the crap out of me.

But I saw the writing on the wall. We’re putting our house on the market and moving somewhere where the cost of living is low enough where we won’t have much of a house payment, if any at all, and starting over. 
My brother did it a year ago. A cop in LA he didn’t feel the support and moved out of state after 20 years on the job. He’s so much happier now.

HughFreakingDillon

good for you mace. my issue seems infinitesimal now. that sounds incredibly stressful. good for you getting out. 

mickeyrat

been running nights for 5 plus years now in trucking. I flip my schedule back on the weekends. blackout shade , blackout curtains. ear plugs, eye mask. cool bedroom temp. usually sleep well enough. come monday I nap for 3 or so hrs in tge afternoon and schedule is reset for the work week. Saturday is a 3-4 hr nap then up for the day. bit sluggish but the pay helps alot!!!!

mrussel1

What do you mean by shift work?  Are you exiting accounting and doing something completely different?  Will you be non exempt whereas your accounting role is exempt?

Loujoe

That's my schedule! 4 on 4 off. Days and nights. Been doing it for 8 months. Really 3 days off. I sleep all day after my last night. Kind of crazy but I dig it. 

The Juggler

Good luck to you. What will you be doing with the new shift style job?

Also, please don't say that you are close to 50 at age 47. That means I will be close to 50 in three years. I want to put off even thinking of that  number for as long as possible!

mrussel1

The Juggler said:

Good luck to you. What will you be doing with the new shift style job?

Also, please don't say that you are close to 50 at age 47. That means I will be close to 50 in three years. I want to put off even thinking of that  number for as long as possible!

November for me.  But hey,  for golf tourneys,  I'll be able to play the white! I'll be a big bomber up there!

HughFreakingDillon

mrussel1 said:

What do you mean by shift work?  Are you exiting accounting and doing something completely different?  Will you be non exempt whereas your accounting role is exempt?

right now i'm a 9-5 er, monday to friday. this other job would be 12 hour shifts, either 6am to 6pm, or 6pm to 6am, depending on the rotation, and it's 4 days on, 3 or 4 days off (can't recall exactly). 

HughFreakingDillon

The Juggler said:

Good luck to you. What will you be doing with the new shift style job?

Also, please don't say that you are close to 50 at age 47. That means I will be close to 50 in three years. I want to put off even thinking of that  number for as long as possible!

it's hard to explain, as it's very specific to the industry that I'm in, but it's entry level IT. 

Loujoe

50 is the new 40. It's just a number. A BIG number. Uggh.

The Juggler

mrussel1 said:

The Juggler said:

Good luck to you. What will you be doing with the new shift style job?

Also, please don't say that you are close to 50 at age 47. That means I will be close to 50 in three years. I want to put off even thinking of that  number for as long as possible!

November for me.  But hey,  for golf tourneys,  I'll be able to play the white! I'll be a big bomber up there!

Unless whites are different down in VA, that's usually what most people play here. Don't tell me you play from the tips? You're one of those guys?!

The Juggler

HughFreakingDillon said:

The Juggler said:

Good luck to you. What will you be doing with the new shift style job?

Also, please don't say that you are close to 50 at age 47. That means I will be close to 50 in three years. I want to put off even thinking of that  number for as long as possible!

it's hard to explain, as it's very specific to the industry that I'm in, but it's entry level IT. 

Nice. You gotta be happy with whatever you are doing and I know the people you work with play a huge factor in that. Hope it works out for you. Are you able to work from home at all?

mrussel1

The Juggler said:

mrussel1 said:

The Juggler said:

Good luck to you. What will you be doing with the new shift style job?

Also, please don't say that you are close to 50 at age 47. That means I will be close to 50 in three years. I want to put off even thinking of that  number for as long as possible!

November for me.  But hey,  for golf tourneys,  I'll be able to play the white! I'll be a big bomber up there!

Unless whites are different down in VA, that's usually what most people play here. Don't tell me you play from the tips? You're one of those guys?!

No..  I play from the Blues. So my course is 6800 from the tips, 6500 blue, 6200 from white. 

edit:

7000, 6600, 6100.  I'm playing 6600 usually.  Sometimes on a really windy day I'll play the combos which is 6400

HughFreakingDillon

The Juggler said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

The Juggler said:

Good luck to you. What will you be doing with the new shift style job?

Also, please don't say that you are close to 50 at age 47. That means I will be close to 50 in three years. I want to put off even thinking of that  number for as long as possible!

it's hard to explain, as it's very specific to the industry that I'm in, but it's entry level IT. 

Nice. You gotta be happy with whatever you are doing and I know the people you work with play a huge factor in that. Hope it works out for you. Are you able to work from home at all?

in my current job i've been working from home full time. the new possible job is on site. but my current job i'll be back full time in a month. my idiot director just likes the whole team to be together, which is dumb and arbitrary. some of us don't need to be there. but whatever. 

mrussel1

HughFreakingDillon said:

The Juggler said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

The Juggler said:

Good luck to you. What will you be doing with the new shift style job?

Also, please don't say that you are close to 50 at age 47. That means I will be close to 50 in three years. I want to put off even thinking of that  number for as long as possible!

it's hard to explain, as it's very specific to the industry that I'm in, but it's entry level IT. 

Nice. You gotta be happy with whatever you are doing and I know the people you work with play a huge factor in that. Hope it works out for you. Are you able to work from home at all?

in my current job i've been working from home full time. the new possible job is on site. but my current job i'll be back full time in a month. my idiot director just likes the whole team to be together, which is dumb and arbitrary. some of us don't need to be there. but whatever. 

Your experience is pretty universal.  Why such a dramatic career change rather than finding an accounting job with a different company?

HughFreakingDillon

mrussel1 said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

The Juggler said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

The Juggler said:

Good luck to you. What will you be doing with the new shift style job?

Also, please don't say that you are close to 50 at age 47. That means I will be close to 50 in three years. I want to put off even thinking of that  number for as long as possible!

it's hard to explain, as it's very specific to the industry that I'm in, but it's entry level IT. 

Nice. You gotta be happy with whatever you are doing and I know the people you work with play a huge factor in that. Hope it works out for you. Are you able to work from home at all?

in my current job i've been working from home full time. the new possible job is on site. but my current job i'll be back full time in a month. my idiot director just likes the whole team to be together, which is dumb and arbitrary. some of us don't need to be there. but whatever. 

Your experience is pretty universal.  Why such a dramatic career change rather than finding an accounting job with a different company?

cuz I don't care for accounting. I'm not an accountant. well, I suppose maybe you'd call me one. But I have no formal accounting education. I took this job to get out of shift work (ha!) and to get full time at my company. and I liked it for a really long time, but like I said, I slowly started to realize it wasn't the job I liked, it was the people. and as people move on to different roles over time, that departmental camaraderie is gone. my boss creates a toxic work environment by being a spineless ass trying to be everyone's friend. I know he talks out both sides of his mouth, hoping to keep everyone happy, but all of us know full well he's full of shit. 

I just need something different. I just don't know if I want something THIS different. 

and when you say my experience is pretty universal you mean by going back to the office, not where I work. only my department. every other department, if they aren't essential to be on site (or exec), they won't be. only finance. and it's dumb. the rest of the staff (200 or so) are mostly going to be hotelling newly renovated shared space, which I'm sure has its own challenges, but still. I just can't stand blanket decisions that don't make sense.  and I told him that yesterday (I have a bit of a reputation of speaking my mind, your title be damned). 

and I stated prior, you may have missed it, I have very high anxiety issues, especially surrounding big change. I can handle change within the box that I'm in (although this current role started a few months prior to covid, so learning it working remotely was a fucking shit sandwich mentally). leaving that box could break me. 

Loujoe

Maybe your boss will leave?

Say a prayer to whomever you pray to and see where it goes. If you do change to the other position, try to do it gracefully without burning any bridges so you could go back if it's too hard on you and your family.
Anyway good luck and be kind to yourself

HughFreakingDillon

Thanks Lou. No, I’ve always been good about not burning bridges. It’s a company of 200, and I’ve held 4 positions in 3 different divisions, so that would be career suicide. (For example, I’ve hung out out with the president and other execs; it’s a company that seems to foster long term tenures; the prez started in security). 

I doubt my boss, my director, or our VP will leave. I obviously can’t be sure, just a feeling. 

HughFreakingDillon

Made my decision. not going to do it. it would just be too disruptive to our family life. thanks everyone for the insight/thoughts/suggestions!

mrussel1

HughFreakingDillon said:

Made my decision. not going to do it. it would just be too disruptive to our family life. thanks everyone for the insight/thoughts/suggestions!

That's probably what I would have done.  Devil you know...

2-feign-reluctance

I'm leaving the 8-5 Monday - Friday world myself Hugh! 2 more weeks left!! Good luck! 

HughFreakingDillon

2-feign-reluctance said:

I'm leaving the 8-5 Monday - Friday world myself Hugh! 2 more weeks left!! Good luck! 

What're you moving to, chris?

josevolution

Good luck guys! 

West Coast Dreamgirl

Sounds like the best decision @HughFreakingDillon

bootlegger10

2-feign-reluctance said:

I'm leaving the 8-5 Monday - Friday world myself Hugh! 2 more weeks left!! Good luck! 

If it is 8-5 Mon-Fri with no work outside of those hours....don't take that too for granted.   The world of email, flexibility, etc....  means you'll be on call 16 hours a day, every day.  

static111

Is there any other type of work than shift work?