Monday, August 24, 2009

what's your favorite shift?

I am conducting another poll. This time I am asking: What is your favorite shift to work?
  • days (typically 6 am - 2 pm)
  • swings (2 pm - 10 pm)
  • graves (10 pm - 6 am)
  • cover (something like 7 pm -3 am)
I've placed the poll on the upper right of the sidebar. This isn't just for cops to answer. Wives, girlfriends, anyone who is affected by a cop's shift work. You can also leave an explanation here in the comments why a particular shift is your favorite, or least favorite.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I voted days because I love having my husband at night when I come home from work. He'd vote nights because there is more going on nights and he's just finishing a month of nights. It's 5 days on two days off and long shifts. It's a tough schedule compared to 4 days on 4 days off nights.

Librarian-In-Training said...

My husband's department must be unique in that there are two shifts: nights from 6 am to 6 pm and days from 6 pm to 6 am. I think I like days better, for now at least. :)

TM said...

Right now, my boyfriend works a shift from 4pm until 12:35am. It really ruins the day for getting anything big done. Especially when he leaves 2 hours early to make use of the gym. That's why I voted for days because you get more time together to do activities and in the evenings for social gatherings.

Natalie said...

I agree with copswife, except that FH has the same line-up at Librarian-in-training. They alternate shifts, so it's 2 sets of days then 2 of nights so it's equal for everyone in the small dept.

With all honesty, I'm liking nights more and more though because it gives me a chance to have "me time" instead of disciplining myself to go to bed when FH does. ;)

Anonymous said...

We have two shifts for patrol. 6am to 6pm or 6pm to 6am. I prefer nights. When we had 8 hour shifts, eons ago, I preferred 3pm to 11pm, though my favorite was the cover shift.

I'll. Take. Anything. But. Days.

Anonymous said...

PS It's so funny that you put this up because I just wrote a post about depression and linked an article that said depression among officers can be linked to shift work.

Meadowlark said...

At this department patrol also works 2-days (6a-6p) immediately followed by 2-nights (6p-6a), then 4 off.

That said, Husband currently (and perhaps permanently) works M-TH 8-6, M-F 8-5. I absolutely LOVE this shift. After 20+ years of marriage with weird shifts, I think it was about time.

Commchick said...

I'm actuallly a dispatch supervisor on nights and I love this shift. However, my guy is a sergeant on day shift and it has really made it difficult to spend time together. He's off Sat. - Mon. and I'm off Fri. - Sat. which helps a little bit. Unfortunately, he also has other obligations that occasionally eat into our time. But, I love him, and if I could spend more time with him I would probably change shifts to days.

Raindog said...

I work Afternoons (1600-0200)
I become very grumpy working Nights (2200-0800).
If I worked Days (0800-1700), I'd never see my children.

Given your schedule, I'd work 7 PM to 3 AM, gladly.

OrdinaryLife said...

My husband currently works days (6am-2pm), and I LOVE it! It is nice to have him home in the evening for dinner, the bedtime routine w/ our little one, and then we get some quality time after that. However, he would prefer to work nights (10pm-6am) because there is more to do and they deal with more indepth calls (not just VIN checks & cows in the road). Our agency does a 6 on, 3 off schedule. They have talked about doing a 12 hour rotating shift, but most of the older guys are against it. Maybe someday!

Momma Val said...

For now afternoons work well for us. When our children are in school though mids or days will be a must though. It is very hard to have friends and do stuff on afternoons with people who are working days. Both your family times are reversed and they want you to sacrifice yours but would not dream of sacrificing theirs??? Midnights are very hard on my husband with a sleep disorder and small noisy children in a small house. Then he thinks days are very boring cause it's all old farts that are biding their time til retirement and don't want to do anything.

Meadowlark said...

Interesting thing on the "old farts biding their time".

At Husband's department everybody works 4-on, 4-off except Sgts & above. (of which there are only a few) and detectives.

There is no shift bidding, which makes it nice.

Momma Val said...

Sorry, no offense intended ML. Most departments in the Chicagoland area DO have shift bids and then the most sought after shift days gets all the guys with the most seniority (the older guys). Then sometimes the younger guys will trade a day with an older guy and they are bored to death, a call comes out and nobody wants to answer it. I guess if there is no shift bid at a dept, then there is a better mix of ages and enthusiasm. This is what Cop Dad has told me and then most of the local cops wives I know say their husbands deal with the exact same thing at their PD's too. Oh, almost forgot in shift comment, I LOVE mids cause I get the best sleep EVER!!!

Meadowlark said...

None taken. Although now that you mention it, are you saying OLD people fart all the time? 'cause NOW I'm offended. :)

Momma Val said...

Ha! Ha! Sorry for the highjack Police Wife but actually if the farting all the time thing meant age then my husband would be ancient BUT he is actually 5 years younger than me yet farts more. You are too funny :) Think the older cops are tired of all the action though and want a quiet boring day after all the years of excitement . . . . . kinda like old people.

MountainDispatch said...

I like day shift and swing the best. Grave makes me batty - I like it when there's stuff going on. That said, day shift works best for me since I have young kids. I live in a very small town, so there's not a lot of daycare options anyways, and having my kids in overtime or overnight care costs more than I make :(

KD said...

I voted "not sure" because there are pluses and minuses to all of the shifts as I see them. As you know DH is moving to swings after the current shift bid is over and I'm anxious to see how I like it. He loves graves (hates days), I love days (hate graves), so either way someone is unhappy at our house. Maybe swings will be a happy medium!!

OrdinaryLife said...

Our agency has shift bids too....my husband shouldn't have enough senority to pull days, but one guy wanted midnights, and the other wanted to work afternoons (to keep an eye on his wandering wife), so we lucked out for now. Who knows what will happen next time around?
MommaVal - most of our day shifters are waiting for retirement too....we call them ROD's (retired on days). My husband makes them get out and run traffic with him sometimes! Won't let them get too senile. We joke that he needs an AED in his car....since he is the most likely one at our agency to need it!

Marcus said...

I don't know how folks can have a normal, functional social life working mids? I did that for a year and it drove me insane.

Because of Love said...

Just have to say that Josh works both days and swings! 6am to at least 10pm. Everyday but Sat and Sundays. Sat are 4 to 9. Sundays are at 7 to about 3, sometimes to 9pm. He is ALWAYS working.