The early bird catches the nap
It happened again this week – a peril of the early riser. A courier came to my door in the mid-afternoon and rang the bell despite my clearly worded sign that reads: SHIFT WORKER SLEEPING – PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB! When I finally dragged my dazed and dozing self to the door, the courier held up a package as if it were a rare diamond and said, “I saw the sign but I thought you’d want this anyway!” Some people simply don’t get it.
Only people who have worked shifts can truly understand what it’s like to get up at 1:30, 2 or 3 a.m. each morning. Those are the various times members of the 680News morning show start our days. After more than eight years straight on these hours I think I have figured out a couple of things we are doing wrong.
First, we fake that we’re awake. Even when we’re dragging our behinds and feeling as frisky as a three-toed sloth, you’d probably never know it. We are so far past complaining about being tired that we just perk up and get on with it and we’ll admit that we have very little sympathy for anyone who joins us short term and whines about their lack of sleep. But we also give the impression that it’s no problem rising each day when many people are just getting to bed.
Second, we really love our jobs. This is a huge problem! If we love our jobs and the jobs require us to get up at 3 a.m., well, then, who is there to blame but ourselves?!
Each of us on the morning show has tales of thoughtless people who have interrupted our precious naps in some way and not even realized it was an imposition. My favourite was the sweet little boy who was looking for sponsors for a rope-skipping fund-raiser at his elementary school. After he woke me up with crazed doorbell ringing I asked him if he saw my sign. “I read it”, he said, “But I didn’t think it meant me.” He was just so darn cute that I sponsored him.
Have a terrific long weekend, drive safely and get lots of sleep!
August 4th, 2007 at 3:15 am
the other side of this is the fact that early risers also go to bed really early, and therefore are not able to attend long boring social functions…..wait maybe that’s a good thing!!!!……
August 5th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Years ago when I worked in morning radio, (I think John Ross and Con Stevenson may be the only guys there old enough to remember me) I built a timer/relay device that turned off my doorbell and phone bells for a specific time when I was having a mid-day snooze.
Somewhere there has to be an engineering department that has come up with something clever to assist the morning folks.
Later in life I toyed with the idea of a coin-operated doorbell where those visitors I actually wanted to see would get their loonie back. I’d still like to do it if I could find the right mechanism that wouldn’t look really ugly in my front door.
And, as far as early birds go, just remember that the early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
August 6th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
The coin-operated doorbell idea is priceless! (No pun intended!)
We have to face it. The way we morning show people live is simply not the way the rest of the world works. We can only continue to plead for understanding.
Thanks,
Lisa
August 10th, 2007 at 4:55 am
Hi Lisa,
I have been working shift work for 30 years and as I grow older, I dislike winter more and more to the point where I now hate it. The only positive about winter was when I would crawl into bed after finishing a midnight shift, I would not be kept awake by lawn mowers, kids playing outside, and construction. (Honest, despite that comment I do love kids). The midnight shifts are long gone now, but I still crawl out of bed at 4:30 a.m. to start work at 6:00. Thank you to you, Paul, and the whole gang for a great job.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:49 am
I just want to say that I love that you wrote “drive SAFELY” at the end of your very interesting blog on shift working. Where have all of the “ly”s gone? Hardly anyone tacks them on any more. Can you do something about this? Work your magic, Lisa please-and-thank-you!
August 18th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Shazam!
OK Lorie, all fixed!
I think we, as a people, are just generally kind of lazy with the language.
It takes effort to use the proper words, properly.
And we’re also loathe to correct another adult when they use a word improperly.
Well, some of us are.
Whenever one of us in the newsroom used to say “I feel badly” an ex-staffer would pipe up “No, you feel BAD!” So now it has become a habit for us on the morning show to say “I feel bad and badly”, just to keep everybody happy. Humour certainly helps!
Cheers,
Lisa
August 25th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
First, I would like to say thankyou to you and Paul for being real troopers with those early mornings, and early evenings to bring us a very informative and professional morning show. I also would like to comment from one shift worker to another, “No more phone solicitations either!”
I do not want windows, I do not want doors, I do not want timeshares and I do not want steam cleaned floors!
I pay for my phone, (Are you listening CRTC?) I do not want my own phone being used by someone else to solicit me! Where is our DO NOT CALL LIST? Where is the enforcement for it?