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Caffeine on the Night Shift New York Times (blog)

18.05.10

I have worked all shifts, now I am back on the Cimmerian dark shift. I am a nocturnal person by nature so it doesn’t bother me too much but I see how my fellow co-workers suffer and nothing helps but coffee. I was offended by the designer’s use of the phrase “so-called shift work disorder.” Working nights is not euphonious. It is the most difficult and most dangerous shift because it absolutely does affect your health. Your eating habits are horrendous, you have mini time or energy for exercise and you are frustrated for not being able to get as many things done during the day as you would like because you need to rest and sometimes resting during the day is uncompromising because the whole damn world is awake and making noise. In addition, it absoultely does affect your health – you addition weight if you have a weight problem, it can affect your blood pressure and your heart and if you are sitting down at a desk job on a 12 hour switch – well, your ankles and legs get swollen and stiff – so, the difficulties of working nights is not an illusion – it is a truth and employers should pay employees more money for the token it takes on their health as well as the difficulties in traveling to and from work on off hours, not to upon the dangers of working at night. I don’t drink that much coffee, but there are some who cannot function on the night shift without it – so wake up and bouquet the coffee Tara Parker-Pope! Some day your life may depend on one of those overworked night owl EMS worker!

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