Thursday, January 26, 2012

Wherin I bitch about rotating shift work

For those who aren't familiar with the terminology, swings is what most people would call 2nd shift. Mids is the overnight shift. Hell, after 3 years, I still get them confused.

So, EM works a rotating shift schedule. His 'month' starts on a Tuesday, with swing shift. And he works that shift for 7 days. He leaves before the kids get home from school and is home long after they've gone to sleep. Usually, around midnight. Which is sometimes when I'm really just getting into my good sleep. It wakes me up and then he sometimes wants to talk. Fine, we'll talk. So that means, I don't get back to sleep until after 1am. Awesome. Then, he has off on Tuesday and Wednesday (sort of). During this time, he has to 'transition', meaning he stays up all night. Usually, there's an 'end of swings' party at someone's house. Or he stays up all night playing video games. Wednesday, he has to go back into work. TECHNICALLY, it's Thursday morning, but you know what I mean. So, he gets up for work at 9pm. Again, awesome. I'm trying to go to sleep while he's showering, getting dressed, etc.

Then he works mids for 7 days. He gets off Wednesday morning, sleeps for a few hours, gets up and we try to work on stuff around the house. He doesn't have to go back to work until Saturday morning for the start of day shift. It's not too bad. He gets up at some god-awful hour and goes to work. I can usually sleep through it and wake up when the kids starting moving around. So he works days for 7 days. Friday, being Day Last (Never say Day 7, that implies there are more to follow). Then he has off the weekend, and goes in on Monday for T-week. This is basically 4 days of training classes and other administrative bull-hockey. He gets off on Thursday afternoon and has off the next 4 days, until the start of the next swings.

This schedule sucks monkey balls like no other. During mids and swings, it interrupts my already crappy sleep. I have issues falling asleep. Him leaving or coming home around midnight just screws me all up. Sometimes, it's nice. He's not here in the evening, so I don't really have to cook that much (not like I cook any other time, but at least then I have a valid excuse). It just seems like he's here ALL the time, or NONE of the time. He's here during the day for a week. Then he's sleeping during the day for a week. Then he's not here during the day for two weeks. It's just shitty.

I'm almost looking forward to going back to sea duty (where he'll be on an actual boat) and has to go on deployments. At least with a deployment, he's gone. It's not the "here, not here, here, not here"schedule that we have here. Now, I'm not saying deployments won't suck, they do.  I'm just saying that if he's gone all the time, I can get used to that. I can get into a groove with my schedule and the kids' schedule. I don't have to wait to see when he's coming home to worry about dinner. There's more of a support system in place. Other wives are in the same boat (pun intended) as you are.

Okay, stepping off my soapbox and ending my rant now.

8 comments:

  1. That sounds AWFUL.  For all of you!  How has your husband not completely lost his mind?!   That can't be good for a person, pick a schedule! 
    As for you, well, I know alot of stay at home moms who get up with their husbands, and make them breakfast, and chit chat.  I am not them.  I'm more of a; "You're peeing too loud while I'm trying to sleep, knock that shit off" kind of wife.  Don't wake me up.  Ever. 

    ReplyDelete
  2. That sounds AWFUL.  For all of you!  How has your husband not completely lost his mind?!   That can't be good for a person, pick a schedule! 
    As for you, well, I know alot of stay at home moms who get up with their husbands, and make them breakfast, and chit chat.  I am not them.  I'm more of a; "You're peeing too loud while I'm trying to sleep, knock that shit off" kind of wife.  Don't wake me up.  Ever. 

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dude. Rant away, that sounds effin horrible. 

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bwhahahaha. I love you. I'm the same way, hence the ranting today.  He's on mids right now, so it's just irritating the ever living daylights out of me!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks. We've only got until June-ish here. Then we get to go to a real boat. I'll be bitching about deployments in no time!

    ReplyDelete
  6. My dad was in the Navy. When not on deployment but still on ship, he would have "3 section duty" where he worked normal hours during the day, but every 3rd night he'd pull an overnighter. These schedules? CRAZY. His westpacs were way more tolerable. I'm sorry you're stuck with the crazy!

    ReplyDelete
  7. That sounds awful. I remember the first couple years the Husband was in the Marines, he worked some bizarre schedule. It was 12 hr and 24 hr shifts. So it would be like 2 12s on, day off, 24 on 2 days off...except they changed up the pattern ALL THE TIME. I never did figure it out. I gave up and started having him write out for me at the beginning of the week what he was working.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Also, being on a sea-going boat means being with MEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete