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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

A Big 'Ol Pile of Shift Work

Back when Hubby Blue and I were just dating, there was a time in our relationship when he worked as a part-time police dispatcher for the community college he was attending.  He rotated shifts every weekend, going through the rotation of 7-3, 3-11, and 11-7.  This was the year 2007...the same year Kenny Chesney came out with his single, "Shiftwork."  I came to HATE that song, because it reminded me that my boyfriend had a shiftwork job which prevented me from spending time with him on the weekends!  Little did I know that just 6 short years later...I would still hate that song!

I haven't blogged in a few days because...I just haven't felt like it.  I don't know why exactly.  Too much to get done, maybe?  Hubby Blue is now done with FTO and like I said before, he works from 6:00 at night until 2:00 in the morning.  I'm trying not to think about how challenging a schedule it is because a) there's nothing I can do about it and b) I'm doing my very best to support my hubby.  HB has Wednesdays and Thursdays off, so when I really look at the week as a whole, I'm only dealing with being alone on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.  Yes, I'm alone Saturday and Sunday nights, but at least we're home together during the day.

The worst part about this shift is that we have little to no time to communicate.  We might have 10 minutes over my lunch period or 15 minutes while I'm driving from work to my exercise class and Hubby Blue is driving to work, but for the most part, we haven't really talked since Sunday afternoon.  I can deal with being alone all night, but what I can't really deal with is the feeling of not being married for 3 days out of the week.  I'm not used to having to make a list of topics I need to discuss with my husband 3 days from now because we don't have time to talk the same day.  I'm not crazy about the fact that if I forget to bring something up on my husband's weekend, oh well, I just need to wait until the next weekend.  I know we just need to figure this out, and I know it'll just take time.  This feels like this is yet another adjustment after a long 6 months of adjustments and re-adjustments!  I should be used to this by now, no?! :)

The other thing I'm struggling with is SLEEPING!  Hubby Blue gets home between 2:45 and 3:00 am, and every.single.night I wake up either when he comes in, or right before.  It's like I have my own internal alarm clock or something.  Usually I fall back asleep, so even though I'm not getting 7 or 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep, I'm still getting almost enough hours.  It's not ideal, but what was even worse this morning was that HB came home at 2:45, I woke up...and I never fell back asleep.  I might have dozed a little, but I was basically awake until I watched the clock change to 5:45 and my alarm went off.  Needless to say, it was a tough day (and of course, as luck would have it, it was also my day for my principal to observe my teaching.  Just lovely.)

So, tonight I'm going to bed early, and I think I'm going to try something a little drastic next week!  I'm going to...wait for it...go to bed at 7:00 and just get up at 3:00 in the morning to start my day!  HA.  Is that not bizarre or what?  Who does that?  Who gets up at 3:00 am if they don't have to?!  NOBODY, that's who.  I don't know if I'll actually follow through...but it's a thought!

Let's just hope this shift work can eventually take us to the beach to have a beer by the edge of the sea and this round-a-clock place.  And we'll drink our money away.  And party 7-3, 3-11, 11-7.

(You can google the lyrics. :))

3 comments:

  1. I feel your pain... I often refer to myself as a "married single" because yeah I'm married, but I feel single because I'm alone most of the time. It is something you will get use to.

    I also understand the waking up at night and not being able to fall back asleep. Dan is now working 3rds for FACT Team so sometimes his pager will start blaring at all hours of the night for a call out! It's the worse!

    Hang in there!

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  2. My fiance used to work 4 on, 4 off every week. It was a pretty decent schedule in comparison to some others I have heard. In a way I feel lucky (not the right word, but you get the point) that I didn't meet him until he was out of the academy and had been on patrol about a year and a half or so. I have a friend that is about to go through it with 2 little ones and everything about it sounds exhausting. We are getting married this year and his schedule also switched, which I thought would be a good thing, but it has also been really hard. Tuesday-Friday 12pm-10:30pm. On paper that sounds like a really good schedule, but already we have spoken less. His new detective job lasts for the next 4 years and he is a lot more busy than when he was on patrol, so he calls less, texts less, etc. He also gets stuck at work a lot too which before didn't matter, because he was getting off at 3:30 in the morning so I wasn't going to see him anyway (we dont live together yet). But now that I have the "chance" of seeing him at 10:30pm when he gets off, it is even harder when he gets stuck at work till 2am or later. I've appreciated reading your blog. It's nice to be able to relate to someone. I tried to start a blog once, but turns out I'm only good at reading them and not keeping up with my own :)

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  3. I am engaged to a police officer. We have been together since high school so I've been there through it all. The college, the academy, and the first day of FTO. He has now been working two different jobs for about 1.5 months now and it is very hard. Both jobs are nights from 5-3 for one and 5-5 for the other. With the two jobs it leaves only 1 day off each week. I'm still going to school and working two jobs which means it's two to three days between us seeing each other. As you can tell I'm new to all this. I'm just trying to to get out here and read how other people are getting though it. It's hard but I am so proud of everything my man does!!

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