If you are not used to what shift work is then it will be alien to anyone, I have worked every kind of shift pattern that has been done at some point in my working career, the one that I have not done was the day shift, mon to fri 9 til 5 or there about and I found this very hard and very mundane, just because of the fact that it is something that I am not familiar with and did not know how to plan my time right.
The shift pattern I was working before joining the railway was a 12hr shift, 4 days on, 4 off, 4 nights on, 4 off, then back to days and so on, very nice for me and simple, I knew what my shift was months and months in advance as it was there on paper. The hrs were 6am to 6pm for days and 6pm to 6am for nights. When I finished at 6am on my last night shift that day was, even though I was sleeping most of, my rest day, thats how it is, the beauty about these shifts is that when I booked 4 days holiday I had 12 days off. The down side is that your shift pattern is your shift pattern and for Christmas of 2012 I worked Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and the day after on Nights.
It is as they say swings and round-a-bouts, if I would of stayed at that company then I would of had the whole of Christmas off for 2013, as it happens I was off anyway.
My point is, it is what it is, you get on with it and take the positives there is to shift work, I worked effectively 6 months and had 6 months off, each month I worked about 15 days and 15 off and my holidays.
Things are slightly different now but I still take all the positives from my shift pattern now.
), early, early, night, night, rest day, early (rest day worked).
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