| Most people remain under the false impression that the world sleeps at night. Over the past few years I’ve chosen to work a variety of night jobs – ranging in degrees of respectability – that have exposed me to a whole other world of living and I’m here to tell you that, though a majority of our civilized nation may heed the setting sun, there is a strong minority out there doing anything but. An entire community composed of some of the most interesting people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet is living life on the back-side of the clock.
We have become a partner of convenience to the global economy and our nocturnal habits directly service the functionality of modern life, yet the motives of anyone who willfully works the nightshift seem forever in question.
Like the first mate who gladly guides a sleeping vessel through the blackened sea of night with little ado, so too, do we deliver your fuel and print your bank statements, clean that coffee stain next to your mouse pad, bake your doughnuts and monitor your heart rate. We guard you while you sleep and prepare the world for when you wake. And though there are a myriad of hardships associated with this lifestyle, the truth is each of us has chosen it for reasons that are entirely our own.
"Night is the only time I can work because I go to school during the day and to pay bills and pay for school I need to work full-time," says Peter Chachula, a full-time student by day and full-time machine operator by night. Peter, one of my co-workers at a downtown plant and four-year night shift veteran, is a prime example of the thousands of people in this city who rely on the shift to facilitate their daily struggles and ambitions.
A quick glance around the floor at work reveals an array of sleepless faces soldiering on in quiet defiance of conformity. Each has their own story. There’s Val Abeng, a father of two who’s part of an ever-growing trend in dual-income families that sees one parent working nights in order to be with the kids while the other is gone during the day (with almost nine years on nights he says he’ll never go back to days). Mario Andonov, who has a degree in chocolate-making and seven years experience editing for film and television, recently immigrated to Canada from Bulgaria with his wife and three-year-old son. Now severely underemployed, he works the backshift so his wife can study English at Mount Royal College during the day. Also underemployed is Greg Chaykowski who, despite a masters in international relations and a fluency in Mandarin, reluctantly toils away the nights in order to keep his days clear for ever-elusive job interviews.
Despite our different reasons for choosing this lifestyle, we all remain bound by the night and the hardships inherent to it. Sleep is a luxury in this world (to get six hours in a day is reason enough to gloat) where most of us drift, day through night, in a constant (but familiar) state of semi-consciousness.
"You’re almost like a zombie," Chaykowski asserts regarding the reality that the majority of night workers carry a large sleep debt. "You’re not as mentally alert because you’re brain kind of shuts down automatically."
For the night worker, the pursuit of sleep is hindered not only by all of the racket "you norms" make every day (what with your incessant driving and honking and hammering and mowing), but also from our desire to re-integrate with you and your sunlight ways. Whether it is to mind the kids, go to school, work a second job or juggle relationships with family and friends, all of it comes at the cost of arriving at work that night with your mind in a coffee mug.
Ann-Marie Stevenson, a supervisor at the sleep lab, confirms as much by referring to the recent findings of Nelson B. Powell, who compared the effects of sleep deprivation to that of intoxication. Powell concluded that a 24-hour period of wakefulness is equivalent to a blood alcohol content of .10 per cent.
Aside from this chronic lack of sleep and the obvious strain on personal life, there is also an array of subtle inconveniences come with working at night. For instance, going for a beer after work is impossible one in our world. There are no a.m. happy hours. To order a beer in the morning is to be looked upon like you are Bukowski incarnate.
Likewise, going out to eat is to accept that you will either be having dinner for breakfast or vice-versa. More often than not, this leads to unhealthy eating habits as many workers are too tired to prepare a healthy lunch of their own and have few alternatives for take-out.
"It’s sort of the photo negative of someone else’s schedule. It’s like swimming upstream," John Packman says over our dinner/breakfast after what is to be one of his last nights on the shift.
He has the bloodshot eyes of a man on his 38th hour without sleep. A sentimental undertone emerges from our discussion (probably due to the fact that he’s sleep-hammered).
"It could be looked at as a mental exercise. By not necessarily being bound by any time, I can now sleep anytime anywhere."
There are other perks as well, most of which stem from the lack of congestion and aggression so predominant in the daylight hustle. "You do notice on a day shift that there is more of everything, there’s more people around and it can start to get a little claustrophobic," continues Packman. "When you take a break at a regular job you’re jockeying for position with everyone else, you’re waiting in long lines, hurrying through traffic. Take a break on the night shift and you just wander around and hear the crickets chirping. It’s a lot more relaxing."As we prepare to leave a Tim Horton’s amid a sudden swell of morning commuters, Packman adds: "I think there is a definite feeling of flying under the radar when you work at night. There’s a sort of collective understanding that you’re not under the watchful eye of everyone in the universe." |
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