Worst work shift hours you've ever gotten

Have to say 11am to 7pm, working as a lifeguard full time (40 hours). As while being a lifeguard, particularity at a private pool that pays more than public ones. Is one of the better summer seasonal jobs you can get. If you get a nice building with residents that don't give you a hard time. Going to work that late in the morning, meant I got out pretty late in the afternoon. So it was very difficult to attend any events, or have a social life. And I was too tired to do anything on the weekends.

I've also done graveyard shifts (11pm to 7am). That also sucked since other than battling melatonin buildup that makes your body sleep at night. My shift started late Sunday evening, and I had to work Friday morning. Meaning my only true off day was Saturday. Other than the job of being the only overnight janitor at a Planet Fitness sucking.

Power plants run 24/7/365 and need pretty much the same staffing all the time so no "who is gonna take the weekend shifts" and other solutions. So a lot of "solutions" get tried. Worst EVER:

Seven nights of grave shift, off at eight in the morning, back two days later for seven nights of swing shift, off at midnight for one day off, start seven days on day shift the next day. The cool thing is that at the end of day shift you get four days off...but after a couple months your body just stops recognizing that there is supposed to be any kind of sleep schedule. I did it for three years and I've never really slept right since.

These past several weeks has been particularly fresh on my mind as being quite grueling. I've been getting up at 5am every day and going home by 12am. When I get home of course I take my shower and get ready for bed, but bedtime hasn't come around until around 1am. I have been getting about 4 hours of sleep before I wake up again at 5am (if I manage to get any sleep at all or I just roll around restless until I have to get up again) to do the same thing. I've been taking power naps in my car for about 30 minutes midday to prepare for the second half.

It's kinda tough to recall the last day I had off because everything's been so fast-paced recently everything kinda blends together, but I'm glad to see that this Friday I'll have off and I plan to make the best out of it.

I've been pretty lucky, never had to do an extended period of really bad hours. For a while in high school I worked at a computer store on weekends and it sucked having no days off but I enjoyed the work.

in university I worked as a research assistant taking measurements of a creek. A couple times we had to do stuff at night, I think the worst was a 12pm - 2am shift where we ran behind schedule. when the weather was good we would work 7+ 10-12 hour days in a row which was pretty brutal since we'd start at like 7am to avoid traffic.

another time, I did two 14-hour shifts two days in a row, one of which was my birthday. we needed measurements of the entire stretch of creek under consistent weather/flow conditions.

I work on construction sites. It was raining, but we needed to get the wall up anyway. I got up at 5, was there at 5:30am and didn't leave until 8pm. And it was raining. And wet. And cold. And since we were shredding the old timbers, my foot went through the floor at one point and I sprained my ankle. Still had to work, though.

Fun stuff.

I did a month of overnights while working security several summers ago. 11pm-7am. While I greatly enjoyed the calmness of the city in the night at 3am and being able to hear a train miles off in the distance, that disruption to my sleep cycle nearly killed me. I was sick for the first half of the month, and almost non-functional for the second half. Took me almost a month to get back on track.

Worst hours I've ever gotten was probably 6P to 6A working security. Basically, my work schedule during the week was:

Sun: 10P-6P

Mon: 10P-6P

Tue: off

Wed: off

Thur: off

Friday: 6P-6A

Saturday: 6P-6A

That might not seem bad considering I'd supposedly have 3 days off but the reality of the matter was during that time period, I'd average closer to just 1 day off with that schedule, jumping between all three shifts on any one of those days (1st shift - 6A-2P, 2nd Shift - 2P-10P, 3rd shift - 10P-6A) because I'm normally the go to person for whenever someone calls off and people called off constantly. I, myself, never complained of overtime but the poor sleeping schedule was, and still is, definitely taking its toll...

As for the worse shift I've ever had, 3 years ago we had one of the most shittiest winters in recent history here in Chicago with barbaric cold temps and brutal snowstorms. I didn't have a car back then and was biking through that hawk so I never had major issues getting to work outside of freezing my ass off (18 mile ride one way, 36 miles to get to work and back). I ended up working 32 hours straight during one of those snowstorm starting from Sunday 6A and ending Monday 2P because all the other guards who were suppose to show up couldn't thanks to having their vehicles buried in snow and them not wanting to shovel their way out. That.....wasn't fun at all considering I barely had food outside a few snacks and the urge to sleep was hitting me hard....

My worst hours were during the opening of a new branch for the company I work with. 2 weeks with one day off, working 14h-16h a day. I least it payed well.

I dread the 9 to 5. Waking up at 3AM every morning even though the alarm is at 6AM. Taking public bus and metro or drive in hell traffic. Get home after 7PM only to eat and sleep to do it all over.

As a lorry driver you never get the luxury of set finish times, you never really know.

Last week I worked a 5am- 11pm shift, that was one of my worst.

To make matters worse there was terrible traffic as the motorway got closed while I was on it due to horses getting on it, it took me 2 hours to get home (normally a 20 minute drive)

Long day

Night shifts were pretty bad. I did 9PM to 5AM. I didn't eat, barely slept, but on the plus side I lost a lot of weight. I only did that for a summer. 11AM-7PM is a more recent shift that I hate. I miss lunch and supper.

Worst shift was 8 am to 11pm working retail. On my feet all day. The shift was supposed to end at 9, but something happened to the cash accounts so I had to fix that shit with 2 other employees for 2 hours messing around with an old excel spreadsheet. **** that job.

Used to do 4pm-6am wed, fri, sat, sun in the nighclub scene. Money was amazing, but geez my body hated it. Now I work in retail, worst shift we get here is 7am-7pm (boxing day) and its not even that bad as the company gives you free lunch

I did homework for once in my life... never again, don't ask me why.

I worked Christmas day and bank holidays 6 years in a row when I use to work. I use to work in a kennel with dogs and cats. I didn't mind but a little bonus would have been nice. All we got said back to was its in your contract happy Christmas. I wasn't working there for my boss any way I was doing it for the animals. At least when I worked 9 day straight in the summer with 80 animals and on my own at least twice the boss gave me a 50 quid bonus.

I had a couple of overnight shifts as I was winding down my prior job in the fast food business. I never want to do that again.

Used to work 1500-2300 or 1530-2330 when I worked in a couple of grocery stores before... Did that part time for close to 11 years. Not so bad, but combine it with school (from before high school and all the way through university) and it takes it toll on you.

I've worked quite a few 9am-11:30pm shifts as a manager at a pizza place. It's not fun to be standing that long but it's not too bad since I've never had to consistently do it. It's just every once in a while.

I used to work a swing shift, but because the work load sort of changed nearly every day, and things were cut from the day and added to the next, and everything was done as a "batch process" (i.e. not continuous, three-shift cycle) I had to come in when I could.

It sucked. So, for example, I would come in at 12PM and work until 10PM. Then I'd find out something got cut from then next day, so I'd have to be in at 7 AM in order to get my hours the next day because the work would basically be done by 5 PM that day. The next day might be huge as a result of things being cut the second day so I'd have to be to come in at 3PM and work until 1 AM and....OH NO something happened in the other department so the fourth day is super short, take a four-hour nap and come back at 5 AM to get your hours. Basically:

Mon 12PM-10PM

Tues 7AM-5PM

Wed 3PM-1AM

Thurs 5AM-4PM

It was a really bad time in my life. I don't think I could have done it if I didn't work four days a week.

mon-tues 6am - 6pm

thurs-fri 6pm - 6am

off until tues;

tues-wed-thurs 6am-6pm

fri-sat-sun 6pm-6am

Two 21:30 to 13:30 shifts in a row.

@jak42:

6 am to whenever the job is finished and sometimes that goes as late as 7 or 8pm. At least the pay was great!

@killered3: Well that's good to hear. Sounds like you've moved on too.