Flipping Schedules

One of the questions I always get is how long do you work. Well, as I have said I’m on call my job is like being a fireman or something. Firemen don’t usually spend 8 hours a day putting out fires same thing here. Much like firemen situations can arise at any moment and you have to be ready and alert. So if you get a call a 2am then you have to be alert at 2am. Being that we have to work some random issues at random times and the fact that we talk to our friends and families and things like that our schedules are off. For example I was "on" for 29 hours on Saturday.

After a while you need to get back on a regular schedule so you have to “flip” your schedule. For example let’s say you need 8 hours to get a good night’s rest and you get up at 8am and you end up staying up till 4 am so for you to get your 8 hours of sleep you will sleep till noon. Now then if you do the same amount of time up you'll now find yourself going to sleep around 8am. You schedule is now “flipped” and you are sleeping the entire morning and now getting up in the afternoon (4pm). That works fine for when you have to work at night but, after a while you are going to want to start going to bed at regular hours and see sunlight for you to do that you have to flip again but, you may not have 3 days.

What happens is you get up a 4 pm and then you stay up till about 10pm the next day that is about 30 hours. It sounds wild but it’s really easy to do because if it is a slow day you are just doing paperwork and when you should be asleep the people from home are at work sending you emails. It’s funny to me a lot of times I’ll see people come to work email me to say they are in for the day, they’ll email me at lunch, then email me before they go home, and depending who they are email me to say they are going to bed. I’m up the whole time. It’s weird when you see someone’s whole day unfold right in front of your eyes. Well, I’ve just flipped back to days and now I gotta do some work that will have me up in the middle of the night so I’m going to have to “flip” again. My job is never done.

*grabs cape and flies out the window*