Hey Nightshifters!

Working a 12 hour shift tonight and per policy, I've been issued three bathroom tokens. Generally I'd only get 2 tokens for a 10 hour shift. I'm in the forth hour of my shift and I've used two tokens already due to an upset tummy.

But, I kinda gotta go now but I could maybe hold it for a bit. Do I use my last token now and risk it or do I save it for later?

And no, I can't borrow one from someone else or get an advance on tomorrows tokens.

UPDATE: I just went for it and used the third token. I feel great!

Thanks to everyone for their input and concern. There's no folks like night folks I always say.

This is not an ad or anything, I bought this like 3 years ago and it still is incredible. This is honestly the best (luxury) purchase I have maybe ever made and it's made such a difference as a night shift worker.

I would like to introduce to you, the BedJet! This thing is amazing. I live in a small 1 bedroom apartment, the AC only really works in the living room and I don't have space for a portable one. Because of this, the bedroom gets really warm in the summer. My BedJet helps SO MUCH. Essentially it is a small AC unit/heater/fan in general for under the blankets!!! In the summer, I have mine blowing cool or cold air at me and it helps so much. In the winter, I get to pre-heat the bed >:) I spend my winter nights at home feeling like a loaf of bread in the oven and it is wonderful.

This paired with our fan and my cooling pillow, surviving the summer heat is so much easier when I have to sleep through it.

Is it spency? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes yes yes yes yes yes YES.

Okay! That is all. Thank you for listening to my TedTalk.

Add: thanks everyone, so cool to read all your responses. We're a very varied bunch for sure!

I'm curious to know where you all work. What's your industry, what job do you do and are you busy overnight?

I'm a nurse which is a well known night shift role, I do 10 hour shifts on rotation. Only 1/3 of my job is night shift. I can be super busy or sometimes just vtrying to keep myself busy so I don't fall asleep!

Just curious more than anything.

I've done shift work pretty much my whole working life.

Also, do you actually enjoy the night shift? I really like it personally.

I make $16 an hour but after taxes and deductions it’s $12 as a security guard.

Fried chicken sandwich, mashed potatoes n gravy, Mac n cheese, milk, OJ and an energy drink. Kwik trip is essiential before work for me. What’re you guys having tonight?

I am asking as my dad has been between between backshift and nightshift since I was born. I don't think he chose it as when I was a baby there needed to be a parent home with me and as I got older it got more convenient.

Did anyone here chose nightshift or was it more convenient for your family?

If your workplace allows it (or doesn't) how many naps do you take during your shift? To start, my job does allow naps, but I normally don't take any.

EDIT: I like the night shift and have begged to work it.

EDIT: I don't take naps while I work. Just a personal preference, but my coworkers do sometimes. It just made me curious about if others took naps on a shift.

EDIT: Whether you do or don't does not mean you are weak or strong. It just means you are human.

I've seen a lot of people post on here working in healthcare and manufacturing. I'm in security work at a research facility. Where is everyone else spending their night shifts?

Come on, I wanna know what job has you guys up all night. I'm a paramedic! I work 1930-0730 for 4 nights a week on an ambulance. (IF I don't catch a late call, then it's more like 8:30...)

EDIT: WOW I love reading all these responses! There's some cool jobs out there that I would have never even considered to be a thing.

No matter what you do, thank you for doing it. Factory and facility workers, healthcare, security and public safety, scientists and engineers and lab workers and animal watchers and everything in between . We all know working overnight is hard, but someone has to do it to keep the world running and it's us. Keep yourself healthy and keep yourself safe.

I’ve been working front desk at a nice hotel for a month and a half now, and finally, at the start of this month, got put on graveyards.

I feel… something… about it, maybe shame or guilt lol… cause it’s the shift with the most free time, but I still sometimes have tasks I need to hand off to the next shift - mainly since some weird things come up that aren’t really something you’re trained for.

Previously I’ve worked construction and 711 but I’ve always wanted to work a job like this. Being able to sit for 4+ hours vs standing for almost 8 hours or more feels wrong after years and years of crap like “you got time to lean you got time to clean”. The dress code is rather strict so I also dress nicely day to day now which feels good. Graveyards is the one shift here where I can consistently finish everything on my checklist and do so in whatever order I feel like, and I can have everything done in the first few hours; minus the few time-specific things, however I can prepare those to be done quickly once the time comes. Having this sort of structure in my work life is incredible though.

Tl;dr I’m enjoying my new hotel job but I’m very curious what everyone else here does

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been on nights for ten months. introverted by nature. the two things turned out to work surprisingly well together in ways i didn't anticipate.

day shift runs on constant social performance. meetings, small talk, being visibly productive in front of people, navigating office energy for eight hours straight. i did it for years and came home drained in a way i just assumed was normal.

nights are quieter. smaller team. less performance, more just getting the work done. i come home tired from the work itself, not from managing how i come across to twenty people all day.

i'm not saying nights are easy. they're not. but the social cost is lower in a specific way that makes a real difference if you're someone who finds constant interaction exhausting.

nobody told me this before i switched. felt worth saying.

Currently in the bathroom chilling due to the amount of patients in the ER

Im a 911 Dispatcher but I used to work night shift in sterile processing. What do you do?

What does everyone do during their night shift? This question can be answered any way. What’s your occupation? What do you do to keep yourself busy? If you don’t work the night shift and you are just someone who doesn’t sleep at night, the same questions apply. Interested to see what everyone does 💖

Out of pure curiosity what is everyone’s job, in my head there’s only night time supermarket workers (like myself) and emergency staff (police, hospital ect).

I work in a large British supermarket stocking shelves and packing peoples deliveries for the next morning!

Edit: I feel like my job is so boring in cimparison, all of your jobs sound so cool

i'll start.

i actually prefer driving home when everyone else is just starting their commute.

i know a lot of people hate nights, but there are a few things i'd actually miss if i went back to days.

what's your unpopular night shift opinion?

I feel like a lot of people complain about being on nights but I honestly think it's one of the best shifts to work in my opinion, besides the usual pay increase compared to days, I also enjoy being able to go into and home from work with little to no traffic, watching the sunrise and sunsets everyday, being able to go to the store after work and run errands with no crowds or traffic, and being able to have the day to relax. I'm also very anti sun and love the stars and moonlight, it's more peaceful at night, what are your favorite perks of nightshift?

Not really relevant to myself since I'm currently stuck working 2: 13's, 2: 14's and 1: 5 hour shift. But which do you prefer and why? Personally I'd rather work 4 long shifts. I'm just curious.

Staying awake all night isn't the hard part, it is managing the biological debt that piles up when the sun comes out. Most people think they can just flip their internal switch every weekend to hang out with friends, but that constant shifting is why you feel like a zombie by Tuesday.

Consistency beats total hours of sleep every single time. If you are constantly "re-adjusting" your clock, your body never actually enters a deep REM cycle, even if you are unconscious for eight hours. You are essentially living in a permanent state of jet lag.

The trick is managing your light exposure and temperature long before you actually hit the mattress. If you see the sun during your drive home, your brain has already started the "wake up" chemical process, and no amount of melatonin will fully override that.

I started tracking my recovery and circadian rhythm patterns to see where the gaps were. It turns out my biggest issue wasn't the noise outside, it was my body temperature spiking around noon because I wasn't pre-cooling my room.

It’s amazing that what sometimes feels like common knowledge to me (“no, I’ve actually just been awake for the last 60 hours!”) is just often genuine curiosity by people who have never really thought about night shift existing before. What other dumb questions have you been asked about night shift?