Being a Nighthawk

Nighthawks – Edward Hopper

It's a shift I've never worked. Beach Bum, on the other hand, always has. He reflects here on his life as a Nighthawk:

Somehow over the course of my entire work history I have found a way to end up on third-shift. Yes, a couple of times the choice was intentional, since the alternative was worse, but more often than not situations have arisen that seem to seek out my sorry ass and stick me with a vampire-like existence.

For those who aren't acquainted, third-shift hours usually run from eleven o'clock at night to seven o'clock in the morning. The one consistency though is how badly working nights can screw with your physical and mental health.

These dangers run from an increased likelihood of cancer and heart disease when the natural metabolic cycles of the human body get screwed six ways to Sunday because third-shift workers are going against millions of years of evolution by not sleeping at night. Scientists recently found another monkey wrench banging around in the delicate human mechanisms that's even more fun. Researchers have discovered that during normal night time sleep cycles, the brain flushes out harmful wastes that, if left in place, can cause all sorts of nifty illnesses like, for instance, Alzheimer's disease. So those of us working night are not only wrecking our physical bodies but the brain as well. This new information does seem to confirm my wife's assumptions that I have loose, inert jello swishing around between my ears and not active brain cells.

What I've found fascinating though is the number of people who can't fathom the concept of working third-shift, nor the hassles involved. This includes numerous coworkers of mine who can't understand why I don't want to hang out with them until their nine o'clock morning meetings. Well, to be honest not staying for the morning meeting goes beyond just wanting to go home at the end of my shift to sleep. Despite the fact that my daytime coworkers all think highly of themselves, I'll be kind and say they aren't the most enlightened or cosmopolitan people. So I don't enjoy hearing about their views on the “proper” treatment of illegal aliens nor how every school in America needs to a heavily armed encampment. You can call me a snob if you want or a snowflake elitist, I'm just not keen on turning the country into a continent-wide weapons free-zone, dotted with fortress-like concentration camps.

Sleeping through the day, while most other humans are living normal lives is a whole other order of magnitude of difficulty. That is unless you develop certain strategies and methods. The first item is installing shades and blackout curtains to limit sunlight into the bedroom. These methods do not block all light but it reduces it down to the point to a dark twilight. That your bedroom takes on the atmosphere and mood of a tomb is something you learn to ignore.

Sounds from the outside world is the biggest obstacle to sleeping during the day. So much that I have developed an intense hate for the person who invented the motorized leaf blower. The sound of the average lawn mower has a white noise quality and in my experience, the noise of a motorized weed whacker quickly fades into the background. But leaf blowers, those insidious creations, make a persistent nightmarish noise at just the right frequency to make sleep impossible. The smaller leaf blowers used by home owners are bad enough, sounding like a swarm of mutant bees. But the big commercial version used by lawn care services remind me of a shrieking demon set loose on earth and wanting to party.

Then of course, you have the usual disturbances which includes phone calls, trucks and cars driving through the neighborhood sharing their music, and people who knock on your door for some reason. Phone calls can be ignored, except when two or three hit close together. That's when the little voice whispers in my head as I try to sleep – it might have been something important like my wife with a flat tire or one of the kids getting sick. So I jump up, fumble for the phone, only to discover it's some fool offering a great deal on life insurance.

Trucks and cars are a unique obstacle to sleeping during the day in that civility and human decency have decayed to the point that far too many people do not realize no one really wants to hear your musical playlist. That goes for every genre including heavy metal, country music, electronic dance, experimental jazz, besides the usual rap and hip hop. Now I wouldn't mind someone playing a selection of soft classical music as they drove by, but if that every happened my new concern would be that I’d suddenly died.

Starry Night – Van Gogh

The absolute worst hurdle to sleeping during the day is the knock at the door. Most of my neighbors don't think much of me, or I them, but I do have good relations with a meager few with strict instructions from my wife to do nothing that might alienate them. So when there is someone knocking at the door who will not go away, I've got to answer it. Luckily this situation is rare but there was an occasion when one of the good neighbors was irate. She was convinced that one of my two dogs was loose and had taken a shit in her yard. It took me gathering up my two dogs and showing them to her to defuse the situation. Even then, I could tell from the tone in her voice that she didn't totally believe me. The other occasion involved the old lady living next door who desperately wanted me to know one of my lawn sprinkler heads was stuck. The issue for her was that the stuck sprinkler head was watering a portion of her yard and driveway.

Self righteous justification is a dangerous thing, but I honestly feel at times that my hate for suburbia and the people who inhabit is based in fact.

The question you might be wondering about is, if third-shift is such a pain why don't I find another job? A good damn question and my best answer revolves around the fact that despite it all I actually like where I work. Most of my previous work experience was doing maintenance in the manufacturing industries where it's always obvious you're just helping the rich elites and that they will massively screw the workers the minute the economic winds change direction for the worse. As a mechanical specialist in a hospital, I feel like that I am helping people, however indirectly.

At times third-shift sucks beyond human comprehension, its strains on the human body and the social inconveniences cause me to buy a lotto ticket every once in awhile so I can daydream about winning and telling the world to kiss my ass. On the other hand, given that I'm such an antisocial curmudgeon whose disdain for the locals is extreme, I have to admit working third-shift is sort of a sanctuary.

To me, that is a totally messed up and maybe ironic state of affairs.

Read more by Beach Bum at Random Brain Droppings by a Carolina Parrothead