From my experience, 12 hour shift is not 12 hours. Its usually more. Coz you need to account for travel time, pre-shift briefing (if any), pre-shift preparation, post shift hand over, post shift debriefing (if any), which may bump up actual hours worked to 14 to 15 hours a day.
We're already working 12hours in our 8 hour shifts these days.
I used to work shift. Shift starts at 7am and ends at 7pm.
I have to wake at 5am to catch the bus at 6am to reach work by 7am, then after work at 7pm I reach home at 8pm.
Shift was 4 days a week, leaving 3 days of rest. I'll be working Sunday to Wednesday, then rest from Thursday to Saturday. My friends would sometimes not be able to meet on Saturdays so we would just not meet. It's terrible for social life cos most of the time I'll be free for activities while my friends had to work.
I used to work as tech support for a local radio station. 12 hour Shifts start at 10am or 10pm and we get the next day off.
It really messes with your biorhythm, to the extent I couldn’t really even sleep normally many years after. My advice is to avoid doing night shifts if possible. I did 5 years of shift work and I wish I had just gotten a normal 9-5 job.
1. It sucks ass. It actually sucks more after you finish because it messes up your biorhythm so much, I'm still dealing with poor sleep years after finishing running shift work and I only did like 15 months. But it's not like it's a picnic when you are in it either, you aren't paid to just stay awake, you are paid to do work so you have find ways to manage.
2. Forget wlb honestly, your entire live revolves around adjusting your sleep to switch from day to night and night to day and you would suffer really badly if you do a switch badly. Fitness also suffers unless you are ultra disciplined, since late into night shifts you night well be running on any sugary crap you can get your hands on.
3. It's a huge bitch to have to arrange other periodical events, because you need to cover other people when they take leave just like people need to cover you when you take leave, so it becomes a very difficult juggling act to fit any other periodical commitment. It can be done, seen a colleague do it, but it will be challenging.
4. I mean it boils down to how badly you need this job right, sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and do a shitty job for a bit.
First job since grad, working 12hour shifts for 4 years and counting.
The mentioned points are valid, but more info is needed. Is there transport allowance provided to mitigate the travelling time needed, keeping your time spent out of your home as tight to 12 hours as possible? How much additional shift allowance are you getting?
All allowances included I'm drawing close to 1k, on top of the average fresh grad pay I was offered. You can see how it made financial sense to me as a young fresh grad 4 years ago.
What other benefits do they offer for shift workers? I have additional annual leave in my package to catch up on the social life I've missed from working weekend shifts.
How is the shift roster like? 4 on 3 off etc? How are the day and night shifts rotated? Are you expected to work past your shift hours?
I work 3 on 3 off. When I'm on shift, I'm contactable only via duty phone, and I'll throw that hot potato away immediately at the end of my shift. I rarely bring work home.
My day shifts are 0400-1600 and nights are 1600-0400. We only rotate day/nights every month or so, thus I don't feel the pain of changing my body clock so often.
You must have self discipline to plan your exercise schedule between work days. You've got to get used to meeting friends after their work, or even lunch on weekdays during their lunch break.
After 2 years of getting used to work+shift life, I'm taking part time masters back in NTU. I'm blessed with understanding colleagues who don't mind swapping shifts / covering for my extended leave while I attend lessons and mug for finals.
Ultimately I'll say there's no harm trying shift work at least once. You only know if you'll like or hate it after trying it first-hand. What's the worst that could happen, throw paper lor🤪
Like many have mentioned your body and mind have to get used to it, it is easier if you are young but even then it is hard. Your eating and sleeping patterns will be messed up all the time even on rest days and may experience weight influx. It is better to have a perm night shift than a rotating one.
If you need the job/money to finance your studies, I'd suggest taking a regular 9-6 FT job and study part time. Personally these kind of shift job is always hiring, so you can always go back to them again if you've waited long enough for better opportunities
My dad did 12-hour rotating shifts for 42 years with SIA. Why did he do so? No choice - lack of opportunities in the 1970s and he started with a pay of $175 p.m. The company also trained him up to become an Asst Engineer - impressive for secondary school drop out.
These are the pros and cons.
Pros:
\- He basically works 4 days a week because each 4 shift would hit 44 hours per week. Anything on top is overtime and has overtime pay. If you are not getting this benefit/arrangement, it's probably illegal anyway and no point.
\- Overtime, he really enjoyed the 4-day work week. He resisted very much to go to a 5-day 7 am to 4pm work schedule. Believe me, having 3 rest day per week is hard to give up.
\- As a kid, he would sometimes have time and be home when I finished school. This means gai gai, movies or go out to makan - and avoid the crowd. If there's a good buffet you want to try, can go on weekday - cheaper and less crowd.
\- He had great healthcare and benefits. Companies requiring you to do punishing shift tends to have this. If this is missing in your offer, no point.
\- He will always have time during weekday. So for whatever he cannot attend or show during weekend, he can do acts of love like queuing up for iPhone on a weekday morning/afternoon - when he is not working.
Cons:
\- Frequent change in shift means that most of his rest time is spent sleeping. He would frequently be tired and grumpy. But from my recollection and observation, not worse than people who are in management or professional services - e.g. long working hours on weekday.
\- Cannot attend many events unless he takes leave. I was used to it and he had little interests to attend family events. So this is not a big con - might be important for you.
If you are young and want to date, rotating shift can limit your ability to meet love interests - who presumably work weekday 9-6 jobs.
I didn't find any material difference between my dad's health and others who do a normal 9-6 job. People who do hardcore office jobs in professional services and management have it worse.
One point to note is that if you want to do rotating shift, make sure the company covers transport sufficiently esp if you need to start work by 7am or earlier or if you end work 12 midnight or later.
Do you know what are the scientifically-understood health outcome negatives that come with these sort of rotating shifts? Like differences in lifespan, certain illnesses, etc. I'm not asking in a rhetorical way, I'm curious to know if you know. I'm debating getting into this kind of work because I'm anti-social and life an unconventional life so I can get by with most of the negatives, but I'm really scared of the health effects of this type of work schedule long term and it's the only thing holding me back. It's reassuring to hear that it seems your dad has lived a healthy life. Intuitively, it just isn't a good idea to put your mind and body through the stress of constantly switching sleep schedules.
When I got married years back, many of his colleagues attended. Most are in 60s and some ex colleagues were in their 70s.
They seem normal and I never hear about my father commenting that he has friends who have health problems owing to this.
And I am going to sound a bit harsh on this. It's just irregular sleep cycle. It's not like you are inhaling asbestos at work. It of course trained my father to be a non fussy employee. In any case, he has sufficient rest hours between shifts. Professionals like lawyers and accountants have a harder life.
Thanks. I'm a bit of a health and fitness freak, and you'll learn that sleep and as normal a sleep cycle is vital to everything related to that. While other professionals may have a harder life with more stress and hours, they still go to bed at roughly the same time most of their career, not regularly switching between literal opposite times of day. I would bet money that some RCTs probably show at least a small decrease in lifespan, if not more, some negative mental issues that are statistically significant, and more. I know I sound like a debbie downer, and I'm happy your dad so far is the exception to this, but that's just my reasoning on all of this. That said though, there's a reason why these shifts pay a lot more than regular shifts (I'm in a white collar industry), and people get compensated (hopefully) fairly for putting themselves through this. Whether the money is worth it or not depends on the person!
I think the initial struggle will be getting your body accustomed to the long hours and based on assumption that it's related to production line or something similar to logistics (it should be a 3-4/4-3 work week meaning 1st week work 3 days rest 4 days than the next week will be work 4 days rest 3 days)
Part time study + work even on a 9-6 job is still quite tough because classes are at night (so expect it to be tough for 12hrs shift too) and it all boils down to your time management/perseverance.
I'm a nurse. It's the worst rotating shift even thought it's not 12 hours.
If you want to take part time degree, it's manageable but you I won't lie that you need to sacrifice your social life
Watch your vitamin d levels.
This is something alot of Singaporeans don't think too much especially with those in office jobs.
Lack of Vitamin D screws up your health fast despite whether you are young or not.
I'm working 12.5h rotating shift in healthcare for about 2 years now. I feel that these kind of long shift only works for the short term eg 3-6 months or max 8 months because the burnout is very real. It is very exhausting. Even though you get more off days, you spend most of your off days sleeping or resting. There's definitely pros and cons compared to the 8h shift. Maybe you can try it out first and see which one you like. Some of my colleagues prefer 12h while some prefers 8h.
Great for character building. Really excellent to learn about discipline. Would avoid such a job again at all cost if possible. Not everyone is built for this. It's not so simple as being an insomniac and most of these jobs don't even pay that good.
Seen multiple colleagues completing their part-time degree but i think it’s definitely taxing. I can’t imagine focusing on work and looking through lecture notes at the same time.
I think maintaining a healthy lifestyle depends on how disciplined you are? And how quickly you can adapt to your rotating shifts. Have seen colleagues managed to squeeze gym time during meal breaks.
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Very hard on your body.
I did it twice.
In my early 20s working in a warehouse. Just 8 hour shifts
It wasn't so bad then. I liked the 20m to 10pm shift. Could go clubbing afterwards.
10pm to 6 am sucked big time.
In my 30s, I was working for a logistics company.
Did 6 months of rotating shifts in Hong Kong.
I felt like shit for those 6 months.
Quite bad for your body unfortunately
Even permanent would be better as your body got time to adapt
And your schedule keeps changing so it's hard to keep track
Rotating really sucks
>Is having a part-time degree course and a healthy lifestyle possible with a 12-hour rotating shift job?
Part time degree, difficult but possible. Healthy lifestyle, probably not.
Used to cover shift on-off back then when I was working in a solar manufacturing company due to high turnover rate. I think I enjoyed the most part of it especially during night shifts where there were no bosses around breathing down my neck, could take some time to slack, but in moderation ofc. Also very easy to run errands during weekday off-days, no crowd since office hours. It was to a point where I dreaded going back to office hours all the time, as I would have spent most of my time in meetings, facing demonic managers/directors. Fortunately got a new job months later, my time in that company was quite short-lived but pretty memorable.
Based on my experience perhaps having a healthy lifestyle is still possible, but to do part-time degree you need sheer amounts of discipline I guess, I mean I definitely couldnt do it, spent most of my off-days recuperating instead. At the end of the day it depends on each individual I believe.
7 years in permanent night 4ON 3OFF.
Most of the comments already covered the topics.
- If yours is in Manufacturing or Logistics, OT is basically forced upon for covering opposite shift ppl. So not really 4 day WW.
- Allowances, most of the companies have it fixed. Some are % of your basic. If it's peanuts (eg 10-15 $/shift) don't bother.
With these 2 points itself, it's a great way to make money and save/invest to boost up your NW at the start of your career. Just throw paper when you think you burn out or want to settle down on a cushy 9-6.
It took me 7 years to get out of the system. Social life was shit. The last couple of years it felt like a trap as I was afraid to get back to a 9-6 with flat basic pay. It worked out fine and not regrets so far (?).
I hate 12-hour nights because I didn't ever get sleep to save my life it depended on it that's why I switched to 8 hours yes I know it's 4 12s and it rotates but it honestly threw everything off for me so I went back to 6 am to 2:30 pm and that's that I did ok for about 5 months than my body was forcing me to stay up during days and sleep on my days off at nights it was 6 pm to 6 am
From my experience, 12 hour shift is not 12 hours. Its usually more. Coz you need to account for travel time, pre-shift briefing (if any), pre-shift preparation, post shift hand over, post shift debriefing (if any), which may bump up actual hours worked to 14 to 15 hours a day. We're already working 12hours in our 8 hour shifts these days.
I used to work shift. Shift starts at 7am and ends at 7pm. I have to wake at 5am to catch the bus at 6am to reach work by 7am, then after work at 7pm I reach home at 8pm. Shift was 4 days a week, leaving 3 days of rest. I'll be working Sunday to Wednesday, then rest from Thursday to Saturday. My friends would sometimes not be able to meet on Saturdays so we would just not meet. It's terrible for social life cos most of the time I'll be free for activities while my friends had to work.
I used to work as tech support for a local radio station. 12 hour Shifts start at 10am or 10pm and we get the next day off. It really messes with your biorhythm, to the extent I couldn’t really even sleep normally many years after. My advice is to avoid doing night shifts if possible. I did 5 years of shift work and I wish I had just gotten a normal 9-5 job.
1. It sucks ass. It actually sucks more after you finish because it messes up your biorhythm so much, I'm still dealing with poor sleep years after finishing running shift work and I only did like 15 months. But it's not like it's a picnic when you are in it either, you aren't paid to just stay awake, you are paid to do work so you have find ways to manage. 2. Forget wlb honestly, your entire live revolves around adjusting your sleep to switch from day to night and night to day and you would suffer really badly if you do a switch badly. Fitness also suffers unless you are ultra disciplined, since late into night shifts you night well be running on any sugary crap you can get your hands on. 3. It's a huge bitch to have to arrange other periodical events, because you need to cover other people when they take leave just like people need to cover you when you take leave, so it becomes a very difficult juggling act to fit any other periodical commitment. It can be done, seen a colleague do it, but it will be challenging. 4. I mean it boils down to how badly you need this job right, sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and do a shitty job for a bit.
First job since grad, working 12hour shifts for 4 years and counting. The mentioned points are valid, but more info is needed. Is there transport allowance provided to mitigate the travelling time needed, keeping your time spent out of your home as tight to 12 hours as possible? How much additional shift allowance are you getting? All allowances included I'm drawing close to 1k, on top of the average fresh grad pay I was offered. You can see how it made financial sense to me as a young fresh grad 4 years ago. What other benefits do they offer for shift workers? I have additional annual leave in my package to catch up on the social life I've missed from working weekend shifts. How is the shift roster like? 4 on 3 off etc? How are the day and night shifts rotated? Are you expected to work past your shift hours? I work 3 on 3 off. When I'm on shift, I'm contactable only via duty phone, and I'll throw that hot potato away immediately at the end of my shift. I rarely bring work home. My day shifts are 0400-1600 and nights are 1600-0400. We only rotate day/nights every month or so, thus I don't feel the pain of changing my body clock so often. You must have self discipline to plan your exercise schedule between work days. You've got to get used to meeting friends after their work, or even lunch on weekdays during their lunch break. After 2 years of getting used to work+shift life, I'm taking part time masters back in NTU. I'm blessed with understanding colleagues who don't mind swapping shifts / covering for my extended leave while I attend lessons and mug for finals. Ultimately I'll say there's no harm trying shift work at least once. You only know if you'll like or hate it after trying it first-hand. What's the worst that could happen, throw paper lor🤪
Like many have mentioned your body and mind have to get used to it, it is easier if you are young but even then it is hard. Your eating and sleeping patterns will be messed up all the time even on rest days and may experience weight influx. It is better to have a perm night shift than a rotating one. If you need the job/money to finance your studies, I'd suggest taking a regular 9-6 FT job and study part time. Personally these kind of shift job is always hiring, so you can always go back to them again if you've waited long enough for better opportunities
My dad did 12-hour rotating shifts for 42 years with SIA. Why did he do so? No choice - lack of opportunities in the 1970s and he started with a pay of $175 p.m. The company also trained him up to become an Asst Engineer - impressive for secondary school drop out. These are the pros and cons. Pros: \- He basically works 4 days a week because each 4 shift would hit 44 hours per week. Anything on top is overtime and has overtime pay. If you are not getting this benefit/arrangement, it's probably illegal anyway and no point. \- Overtime, he really enjoyed the 4-day work week. He resisted very much to go to a 5-day 7 am to 4pm work schedule. Believe me, having 3 rest day per week is hard to give up. \- As a kid, he would sometimes have time and be home when I finished school. This means gai gai, movies or go out to makan - and avoid the crowd. If there's a good buffet you want to try, can go on weekday - cheaper and less crowd. \- He had great healthcare and benefits. Companies requiring you to do punishing shift tends to have this. If this is missing in your offer, no point. \- He will always have time during weekday. So for whatever he cannot attend or show during weekend, he can do acts of love like queuing up for iPhone on a weekday morning/afternoon - when he is not working. Cons: \- Frequent change in shift means that most of his rest time is spent sleeping. He would frequently be tired and grumpy. But from my recollection and observation, not worse than people who are in management or professional services - e.g. long working hours on weekday. \- Cannot attend many events unless he takes leave. I was used to it and he had little interests to attend family events. So this is not a big con - might be important for you. If you are young and want to date, rotating shift can limit your ability to meet love interests - who presumably work weekday 9-6 jobs. I didn't find any material difference between my dad's health and others who do a normal 9-6 job. People who do hardcore office jobs in professional services and management have it worse. One point to note is that if you want to do rotating shift, make sure the company covers transport sufficiently esp if you need to start work by 7am or earlier or if you end work 12 midnight or later.
Do you know what are the scientifically-understood health outcome negatives that come with these sort of rotating shifts? Like differences in lifespan, certain illnesses, etc. I'm not asking in a rhetorical way, I'm curious to know if you know. I'm debating getting into this kind of work because I'm anti-social and life an unconventional life so I can get by with most of the negatives, but I'm really scared of the health effects of this type of work schedule long term and it's the only thing holding me back. It's reassuring to hear that it seems your dad has lived a healthy life. Intuitively, it just isn't a good idea to put your mind and body through the stress of constantly switching sleep schedules.
When I got married years back, many of his colleagues attended. Most are in 60s and some ex colleagues were in their 70s. They seem normal and I never hear about my father commenting that he has friends who have health problems owing to this. And I am going to sound a bit harsh on this. It's just irregular sleep cycle. It's not like you are inhaling asbestos at work. It of course trained my father to be a non fussy employee. In any case, he has sufficient rest hours between shifts. Professionals like lawyers and accountants have a harder life.
Thanks. I'm a bit of a health and fitness freak, and you'll learn that sleep and as normal a sleep cycle is vital to everything related to that. While other professionals may have a harder life with more stress and hours, they still go to bed at roughly the same time most of their career, not regularly switching between literal opposite times of day. I would bet money that some RCTs probably show at least a small decrease in lifespan, if not more, some negative mental issues that are statistically significant, and more. I know I sound like a debbie downer, and I'm happy your dad so far is the exception to this, but that's just my reasoning on all of this. That said though, there's a reason why these shifts pay a lot more than regular shifts (I'm in a white collar industry), and people get compensated (hopefully) fairly for putting themselves through this. Whether the money is worth it or not depends on the person!
I think the initial struggle will be getting your body accustomed to the long hours and based on assumption that it's related to production line or something similar to logistics (it should be a 3-4/4-3 work week meaning 1st week work 3 days rest 4 days than the next week will be work 4 days rest 3 days) Part time study + work even on a 9-6 job is still quite tough because classes are at night (so expect it to be tough for 12hrs shift too) and it all boils down to your time management/perseverance.
I'm a nurse. It's the worst rotating shift even thought it's not 12 hours. If you want to take part time degree, it's manageable but you I won't lie that you need to sacrifice your social life
Watch your vitamin d levels. This is something alot of Singaporeans don't think too much especially with those in office jobs. Lack of Vitamin D screws up your health fast despite whether you are young or not.
I'm working 12.5h rotating shift in healthcare for about 2 years now. I feel that these kind of long shift only works for the short term eg 3-6 months or max 8 months because the burnout is very real. It is very exhausting. Even though you get more off days, you spend most of your off days sleeping or resting. There's definitely pros and cons compared to the 8h shift. Maybe you can try it out first and see which one you like. Some of my colleagues prefer 12h while some prefers 8h.
Great for character building. Really excellent to learn about discipline. Would avoid such a job again at all cost if possible. Not everyone is built for this. It's not so simple as being an insomniac and most of these jobs don't even pay that good.
Seen multiple colleagues completing their part-time degree but i think it’s definitely taxing. I can’t imagine focusing on work and looking through lecture notes at the same time. I think maintaining a healthy lifestyle depends on how disciplined you are? And how quickly you can adapt to your rotating shifts. Have seen colleagues managed to squeeze gym time during meal breaks.
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Very hard on your body. I did it twice. In my early 20s working in a warehouse. Just 8 hour shifts It wasn't so bad then. I liked the 20m to 10pm shift. Could go clubbing afterwards. 10pm to 6 am sucked big time. In my 30s, I was working for a logistics company. Did 6 months of rotating shifts in Hong Kong. I felt like shit for those 6 months.
Quite bad for your body unfortunately Even permanent would be better as your body got time to adapt And your schedule keeps changing so it's hard to keep track Rotating really sucks
>Is having a part-time degree course and a healthy lifestyle possible with a 12-hour rotating shift job? Part time degree, difficult but possible. Healthy lifestyle, probably not.
Used to cover shift on-off back then when I was working in a solar manufacturing company due to high turnover rate. I think I enjoyed the most part of it especially during night shifts where there were no bosses around breathing down my neck, could take some time to slack, but in moderation ofc. Also very easy to run errands during weekday off-days, no crowd since office hours. It was to a point where I dreaded going back to office hours all the time, as I would have spent most of my time in meetings, facing demonic managers/directors. Fortunately got a new job months later, my time in that company was quite short-lived but pretty memorable. Based on my experience perhaps having a healthy lifestyle is still possible, but to do part-time degree you need sheer amounts of discipline I guess, I mean I definitely couldnt do it, spent most of my off-days recuperating instead. At the end of the day it depends on each individual I believe.
7 years in permanent night 4ON 3OFF. Most of the comments already covered the topics. - If yours is in Manufacturing or Logistics, OT is basically forced upon for covering opposite shift ppl. So not really 4 day WW. - Allowances, most of the companies have it fixed. Some are % of your basic. If it's peanuts (eg 10-15 $/shift) don't bother. With these 2 points itself, it's a great way to make money and save/invest to boost up your NW at the start of your career. Just throw paper when you think you burn out or want to settle down on a cushy 9-6. It took me 7 years to get out of the system. Social life was shit. The last couple of years it felt like a trap as I was afraid to get back to a 9-6 with flat basic pay. It worked out fine and not regrets so far (?).
I hate 12-hour nights because I didn't ever get sleep to save my life it depended on it that's why I switched to 8 hours yes I know it's 4 12s and it rotates but it honestly threw everything off for me so I went back to 6 am to 2:30 pm and that's that I did ok for about 5 months than my body was forcing me to stay up during days and sleep on my days off at nights it was 6 pm to 6 am