9-5 or flexi.-time?
 

And by that I mean if you’d rather work at the standard time between Monday and Friday or are more open to flexibility (e.g., four 12-hour night shifts across the space of one full week, two morning-start shifts and two afternoon-evening shifts per week).

I worked shifts (up to 14 hours) for 10 years, have been 9-5 for the last 2 and a half. There's no competition at all for me; 9-5 is 100x better.

Flexi. (more specifically night) shifts work better for me but it’s just one of them. Everyone’s different.

One of the benefits of working nights is that (what often seems to be the case at least) you generally work 10 to 12 hours as opposed to the daily standard (8 hours). Once you’ve done a week of those 12-hour shifts back-to-back 8-hour shifts (whenever you have to work them) don’t feel half as daunting anymore.

My shifts are...

Week one

Sunday
Monday (off)
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday (off)

Week two

Sunday (off)
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday (off)
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

Then it goes back to week one and continues like that. I work 8 hour shifts 10pm - 6am

I'm not particularly keen on that system but it is what it is. I'm not for working 12 hour shifts so I suppose it's better than that.

I do 4 on 4 off. Best shift pattern there is

I do agree with that to be fair, 9-5 still feels like a “baby shift” after a decade of sometimes working 30 hour weekends (7.30am - 10.30pm both days, 15 hour shifts, brutal). But then as you say, if I really wanted back then, I could work three full shifts and have 4 days off and still work my full hours.

They did “frown upon” that though and contracts were “over 5 days” so really they still preferred us to work 5x shorter shifts. But… :shrug: I was the one doing the rotas and the worst that ever happened was a call every 6 months to say “you shouldn’t really do that”. It was more to cover their own arses I suspect. So that if an employee claimed “unsociable hours” they could say “well that’s not our policy and we told them that”.

When i worked full time I used to love flexi time, but it was proper flexi, you could go in at any time between 8 and 10 and leave anytime from 4 to 6, build up time to take Fri or Mon off ...now I work mornings 4 days a week, which is fine ...my ideal at this stage is no work at all :laugh:

What job do you do as some jobs you can't do nights

4 days on 4 days off sounds good. I work a normal 9:30-5:30 Mon-Fri though

That’s not really your business.