I’m on nights this week, Monday to Thursday. It’s just before 4 am on Tuesday morning.
The first one should really be the worst, I miss a nights sleep you see. The other people who do nights sleep during Monday, I can’t do this though, I’m not the sort of person who can put some hours in the sleep bank. So I have to just stay awake till 6:15 when I can go home.
I’m really tired now, yet oddly, better than I felt at about 1 am. If I was drunk I could happily stay up this late, yet sober I find it really hard. I’m finding the writing of this blog quite arduous, the appropriate word always seems to be out of my reach and the general flow of sentences seems unfamiliar and difficult.
I’ve been slurring my speech as well, the three guys I’m sharing this shift with have noticed I’m flagging. They did nights last week though so are already into the swing of things. Plus they’re the sort of bastards who find it easy to sleep.
I haven’t done nights since towards the end of 2002, they really are a struggle. The extra money is great and the only reason to do them. The promise of extra time to test your software on the rig evaporates when you’re so tired you are unable to work out why something isn’t working.
Like I said, you’d think Monday night would be the worst. Yet it isn’t. There is always some point on the third or fourth night when I become exhausted and my temper completely goes. I sit at the desk jiggling my legs, grinding my teeth at anyone who talks to me, and wanting to smash the keyboard through the monitor. When I’m tired, I don’t want to be asked work questions, I want to be left alone.
The only weeks at work I can remember though are the ones on nights. It’s an unusual event, there are only four of us in a building which during the day has over 500 people in it. It’s quite eerie, down the testing rig, a large room filled with millions of pounds worth of testing equipment, it’s almost sinister. You’re alone with all these grey cabinets, twinkling lights like in wargames, and very little of the room is visible to you at any one time.
Yet I remember the night we broke the big bosses model plane by chucking a ball about quite vividly; the night we went and investigated all the other offices in our building sticks in my mind due to the fact I ended up with dozens of cactus spines in my hand. We used to invent more and more elaborate ways to pass the time and we’d always leave in the morning with a feeling that we could maybe have done more actual, er, work.
Tonight, the rig broke down early on. We had to call a bloke out of his bed to fix it. Still, a little bit of excitement goes a long way in this job.
I’m counting the minutes now. I’m on the home lap, yet time is slowing ever more.

…

On Friday night, we had some visitors for drinkies. It was fun, I could drink this time and took the chance with relish. Not actual relish like you get on burgers but you know what I mean. I already had a sizeable family of empty beer bottles by the time people turned up, by the early hours I was probably being obnoxious.
I think we pissed the neighbours off by being loud, they were talking in exaggeratedly loud voices on Saturday morning, and playing music louder than usual. I blame Dave and his foghorn voice.
I seem to have picked up some bite marks from Johnny H. I don’t know why we started some sort of indoor death match, but he has left a bite mark on my left arm and right leg. I do remember trying to stick a biro into his brain, whether this was an opening attack or a retaliatory gesture, I’m not that sure now.
Saturday was spent in a daze, on Sunday we went for a walk around Fleetwood. It was enjoyable at the time but really cold. Marie has a cold today, next time she’s wrapping up warm whether she likes it or not.
Not the most exciting weekend after Friday, but what I actually wanted with the horrendous week of nights sat before me.
I know people who’ve worked nights many years, my dad did it for over thirty. Jesus, I’d be in a mental home long before that. I don’t think I’d last a month.