as a new job “perk” at a hospital I get to choose what days I work: because I get differential if I work weekends, I wrote I want to work everyday but Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Now I wonder if I should have chosen Mondays and Fridays. On Mondays people act all stressed out (beginning of the week) and on Fridays they’re also insufferable (they all want to go home ASAP)
I’ve never inverted my weekend like this so if you ever worked like I’m about to, how was it? Any drawbacks?
I work 7 nights, 8 off, 7 nights, 8 off and so on…
All I can say is that ending my 7th nightshift coming out monday morning it is great to go shopping, it is great to go to the local spa, it is great to basically do any activity cause no crowds.
The downside is that I am usually the only person low age and rest are retired people. Or my friends that work shifts too and are off, thats great.
If I wouldn’t have a wife that has only off weekends and works a regular 9 to 5 I’d probably try to work every weekend and take days off monday to friday. Weekends suck imo cause everything is crowded.
I like to go to the gym monday to thursday, I’m usually alone at 10 in the morning with a few old people doing random exercises. But they don’t block the leg press, the benches and the pull up bars.
In general I am very grateful for working shifts (especially night) cause more money, less stress at work (quiet at night) and no management. And I can go to the gym when no one is there.
Pretty glorious.
If you want to go out and do something: have lunch, go to a movie, or whatever, it’s not nearly as busy and you can have a more peaceful time.
You won’t have a great social life, depending on how much time your job takes up on the weekends. I’m guessing you have an 8 hour workday? You’ll have to plan out your night activities in advance so you don’t get sucked into something that will make your saturday/sunday morning suck. I used to work every weekend, had my days off monday-wed, and it wasn’t great. Your adult responsibilities will love you. You’ll never have to take off to make an appointment for the doctor or for businesses that only deliver when you’d normally be working. However, your friends will always be grumpy that you can’t make the shindig they planned for the weekend, whether it’s just hanging out or going to a festival on the square.
Split days off sucks, from personal experience, don’t do that. Two days together off in the middle of the week is good if you don’t care about a social life.
Socializing is going to be tough. Most people want to get together on the weekends.
When I worked 6 am to 2 pm I had to get up early, but I had afternoons free. If I had to work on a holiday or weekend I could still be off in time to hang out with people. Pushing back a holiday meal to 3 pm isn’t hard on the family. If the people you know like late hours, 12 pm to 8 pm or 2 pm to 10 pm works well. You can stay out until 2 am and still get enough sleep.
I work in a hospital and the worst days to work are weekends. The hospital is still full of patients but most staff are off so its busy. And its much harder dealing with sick patients and emergencies on a weekend as a result. Also all your friends and family are off on the weekend so you can’t see them.
Meanwhile if you have days off in the week, it’s great because everything is open (unlike a sunday) and all the kids are in school. So you can go out an enjoy the parks, or venuesnlike gyms or shop freely etc. But most of your friends and family are also at work so that limits things.
I would definitely take 2 days off together, not split them. If I were to have 2 days off and work every weekend I’d either take Mon/Tue off or Thu/Fri. I think its just preference and howbbusy your job is. It could suck being in work on a Friday while everyone else is gearing up for weekend off and discussing their plans, plus also people head off early where they can - I’d probably take Thu/Fri off so I didn’t have to put up with all that.
I personally work 80% of full time and do 3 long days plus oncall. It works out 3x 10 hour days and 2 hours pay per week is for my weekend oncall work every 16 weeks. I end up with 4 days off every week and its glorious. So aiming for a 5 day week may be a mistake. When I was 100% full time I did 4 long days for a bit - it was OK but I had Tue off, worked the other days and had the rhythm of weekend off then on/off/on - it didn’t feel like i was really off for 3 days a week. I’d definitely recommend always stick off days together.
But it may be longer daysnis the real best option if available. Even working 100% hours you have 1 less day commuting on 4 days, and if you work 10 hours so you start early and finish late you can even miss rush hour. I used to stay late or come in early to miss traffic when i was doing normal 9-5 work so switching to 10 hour 8-6 was easy. Depends what your role is and your own stamina for long days is though.
