I miss working night shift. I used to work a 1900-0700 shift in a very small, very slow emergency room. I rigged the system to run games, I sat and read books, I listened to music while surfing the net... and got paid a good amount of money to do it. If I was tired, I'd ask the triage nurse to cover my desk (checking someone in took about 45 seconds, so she didn't care), and I'd slip into one of the treatment rooms and take a nap. They'd wake me up before the boss came in.

The first couple weeks of working nights are rough. It takes a little time for your body to adjust, and even if you slept well through the day, you occasionally get those head-almost-hitting-the-keyboard moments every once in a while.

I never worked a night shift but I've worked two jobs with evening shifts. Those are pure heaven. Working from afternoon until night, getting home early enough to go to bed at a decent our, and waking up at around 10 or so in the morning to fart around in the city while everyone else is at work. God I miss that.

Oh just wait till your dead tired after a long overnight shift, and want soem real "food"... and everyplace that is fast is serving breakfast only.

I like working the night shift, but I hardly ever get to do it. Mostly what I have are days where I work a full day shift, then work a six hour maintenance window during the night, and then turn around and head back the next morning at 9AM to make a meeting. Day or night, committing to one shift is good - it's living on the edge between the two that's the worst.

The last two residents in the place next to me were night-shifters. And let me tell you the problem with night-shifters: they don't see anything wrong with holding a loud party with all their friends on the back deck at 2am on a Sunday night.

Is there something inherent to the night shift that turns people into inconsiderate pricks?

Working tech support for a hospital I have covered all sorts of shifts. My nights and weekends are often taken up by work. I have actually spent 3 nights in a row sleeping in a patient room during a blizzard just so we had some one on site if we had a system problem. It was not a big deal when I was single but, getting paged in the middle of the night and dragging myself to work is not much fun now that I have a SO.

No no, it is the daysiders that are inconsiderate. When one is trying to sleep in the middle of the day, there's always all that offensive light, and construction work and people being loud and having no thought to you and your need for sleep.
Also, living right next to an elementary school can be annoying as the bell wakes one up every couple of hours and then one has to try and fall asleep to the less than soothing sounds of hundreds of chillens screaming at each other across the playgound.

I miss working nights.

The summer after I graduated high school, I landed a job as an intern on a small indie film called The Locusts. The whole summer was a very, very cool experience. Met Spielberg, Vince Vaughn and Paul Rudd before anybody knew who they were, Ashley Judd.....good times. But about a month into the shoot, we started shooting at nights, working in 12-hour shifts. So the work hours were basically 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Not too bad by itself, there was always plenty of coffee around (I usually brought most of it to people), but the drive home in the morning was absolute hell.

I had to drive 75 miles one-way to the location, and no matter what I would be half-way asleep the whole ride home. Scared the hell out of me. About 5 a.m. I would start chugging coffee and mountian dew - anything I could think of to get myself wired for the trip home. It never worked. I finallly figured out that the only I could keep myself awake long enough for the ride home was to get an ice-cold can of sode and stick it in my crotch for the ride home. Absolutely the only way I could keep myself awake.

Anyway, that's my nightshift story.

Put my time in as a janitor, then unloading trucks at a big box store. Always took myself for a night owl, but I really didn't enjoy working overnight. Put in a few nights on a forest fire fireline. Quite the surreal experience with the flames dancing around, and all the crackling and popping, occasional tree crashing. Sleeping outdoors on a hot sunny day sucks though. Tent=Tasty bake oven.

Everyone in the military should joins hands with me and laugh at only a night shift. How about morning, evening, night and morning again in a row shifts?

You people complaining about light while trying to sleep need to get some curtains.

I worked at night and lived in an apartment complex that was constantly under construction with a couple on the floor above me that loved to fight LOUDLY in the middle of the day. So sleeping SUCKED.

Being at work when all your friends are off work sucks too. Having your 'lunch break' after decent food places have closed means you get the dregs of the food for the day if you're not making your own.

I didnt like it and hope to not do it again

Yeah. I really enjoyed bivouac because of all the sleep deprivation. Friggin' sweet.

Same here, but I also want a cave.

That's impressive. I was at work 28 hours straight once, and close to that a few times. You get to the point where you really can't talk or think, and you are trying to finish up the last of the reports and if something insignificant happens like a pencil tip snapping or a stapler being empty you either cry or go animal. It's funny when you've recovered and your buddy's are telling you what you did and you can't remember all too clearly, but it takes me days to recover from stuff like that now.