Education & Work Forced to work overnights

Manager called me in and apologized for his email. And changed his tune about the shifts and said they would be negotiable.

So thats good that he apologized.

I wonder if I should wait it out now and see if I should stay. Or if its just a matter of time before he loses his **** at me again.

 

Why don't you find out? You'd be amazed what can be achieved over a cup of coffee...

 

Well now that you have him bent over you might as well ask for a pay rise while you're at it!

 

Haha such great advice. Im sure that would go down well.

 

Tim86, tell him to GFH, and that you'd like his thoughts on both a pay rise (it's not his money) and a 6 week break (just like he's been on), and if he says no, ask him if he's really really sure...

 

your manager sounds like an absolute tool but between needing to check with Internet randoms as well as your union reps before you take any action and the bollywood dramas of your soul being destroyed and your body shaking etc you hardly sound like the most valuable employee either.

I'm sure your fellow overworked and equally as irritated colleagues will greatly appreciate you considering taking night shifts, thinking they have a brief reprieve and then quitting.

sorry if that sounds harsh, just how it looks from here.

 

Whilst I agree night shifts suck massively and I hate them more than anything, I will still do my part so that other people on the roster don't end up doing double as many.

I struggle to sleep during the day, getting an hour or hour and and a half at MOST so I regularly go 60-72 hours with less than 3 hours sleep... and I am in a VERY safety critical job. Our night shifts are from 0930 - 0600 without a break.

I knew the job was going to be shift work before I applied, so I can't very well complain about it now can I?
It's like people joining the army then complain if they have to go to war...

 

Well, yes and no. Different people handle disruptive sleep patterns/shift work differently. I'm not saying they're great, but some people can accommodate them better than others. Sometimes the first time you realise this is when you have a job with shifts, and you just never adjust to it. While hindsight is 20/20, it's not always easy to predict how you will function on shifts.

I personally couldn't do it - I need my sleep. If I don't get regular hours etc my depression becomes almost unmanageable. But I know this having worked shift work - and that wasn't even overnight.

 

I don't get the shaking either. I did around 140 hours last week (didn't exactly count), including not sleeping at all since a couple of hours Saturday night. Plus I have another 24 hours on call. I'm hoping to sneak a nap this morning, but frankly I have too much to do. I would NOT do this if I had a reasonable choice. It's brutal, and makes me hate life.

Anyway, do what's right for you. I hate working nights so I get it.

 

You would be surprised what it's like working on the phones as a counselor. The stuff you deal with, no person should. It's easy to sit there on your high horse and criticize. Some people are better suited to the night shifts and whether that's due to their lifestyle, resilience or other factors, that's beside the point.

The OP has explained that he doesn't feel comfortable with it, and that it would greatly impact his own mental wellbeing. In this line of work, it isn't a suck it up princess, you need to be there 100%, because no matter how you're feeling, the person on the end is in a vulnerable situation. For a manager to disregard these feelings just shows gross negligence on his behalf. Probably spent some time on the phones, couldn't hack it and went up the chain...

 

So what if all staff hate night shift?
Presumably someone has to do it.
Marg

 

Tell them to call you back in the morning, oh maybe they won't.

 

...and I hate it when the office opens at 9am...too early.
930 is a better time I think

 

Lots of people prefer it and they used to pick up the shifts. Then they were told they could no longer start at hours that suited them better. Such as a 11pm start rather than a 10pm start. So the rosters got less flexible. Then they singled out only the night shift workers to have all their calls recorded. Then they pulled the night shift workers off 50% of their nights. Then they pulled night shift workers off of their nights completely after 6 month stints.

So all the people that wanted to do night shifts could no longer do as many night shifts as they wanted to do. And they felt vitimized by being the only ones being recorded. Then they felt undervalued because work would no longer give them flexibility with their nightshift start times. Then they were forced to cut half their night shifts. Then they were forced to drop them completely.

So a lot of the overnighters quit or dropped them completely because they couldnt be bothered getting stuffed around any more.

 

Manager never worked on the phones. Doesnt understand the work or value the employees doing it. He just doesnt get it. Alas thats just the way it is when you make a lawyer the manager of counsellors. Although with some interactions Ive heard him having with some people. I think he does get it some times. But obviously his leaning is much more focussed on the bottom line rather than employee wellbeing. And admittedly a good dose of that is needed in the role.

I dont get drained from the calls where you deal with people with actual problems like being sexually abused or about to jump off a bridge etc... I take those sorts of calls every week. The issue for me is being exhausted while trying to help these people. You screw up a call with a kid trying to disclose sexual abuse and they will think you dont understand or cant support so they shut up and might not disclose again for years. Lots of potential for harm.

 

Uh huh. Taken night shifts before to help out. With the understanding that later on it would be someone elses turn to chip in. Why did I think that? Because my manager said it to me. Right now I dont really want to be getting no sleep while trying to build my house 9.5m off of the ground.

Not a valuable employee. Sure whatever you reckon mate. Im very good at my job. And I consistently meet all my benchmarks day in day out for year after year. Ive done about 5000 counselling sessions with children in that job. Pretty worthless hey?

 

Yoire getting emotional again. I never said you werent good at your job, based on your posts here in the past i definitely think theres a good chance you would be, i said you dont sound like definitely the best employee either.

theres a big difference between me saying that and you coming up with the word worthless and imo being good at a job or the specific tasks in a job and being a good employee are 2 separate things.

Anyway i was just trying to provide constructive criticism where it clearly wasnt wanted so ill leave you to it, hope it works out.

 

Edit my big amazing response deleted

 

Actually nevermind. I dont think anything good is going to come from debating what constitutes a good employee sanj. Too many variables to accurately communicate over the internet. Im sure you've got valid opinions on the matter, and if you walked in my shoes a bit you'd probably understand where Im coming from a bit better too.

Probably best to leave this thread to fizzle out. Thanks everyone for your responses and guidance. Ill see how it all plays out. Not 100% sure what Ill do. But Ive taken on a lot of your feedback and Ive got lots of plan b's and c's so it should all be right.