For myself, that doesn't carry the same weight as it does for many people. The reason for that difference is that I work a swing shift. When I started working swing shift it was an 8 hour shift way back in 1981. So much has changed since then. The place I work hasn't changed but now we have a 12 hour swing shift (7 to 7 am/pm) which does wear you down quite a bit on the "bad" days, but we have more good than bad and it works out to a seven day "long break" once a month. Basically a 28 day cycle in which you work 14 and are off 14 with the work/break sections of 4, 3 or 1 day/night duration. It may sound a little tedious and confusing but it's got it's benefits as well as it's detractions.
Being that it's Friday, I'll be going in tonight for my first of 4 consecutive "graveyards (7pm to 7am) afterwhich I'll have 3 days off. Then it'll be 3 days (7am to 7pm) followed by only a single day off. Next in the cycle will be 3 nights, followed by 3 days off (the first weekend of the cycle) and finally the work cycle is finished with 4 daylights immediately followed y 7 days off in a row! Yes, it takes a little effort to wrap your mind around all of that, but once you are submerged in the cyclicity of the schedule, it's really not to bad. You learn to accomodate.
Over the years there were a lot of things I missed out on some family happenings and activites because of work constraints, but the pay was good, the benefits were better than they are now and I'd relegated myself into believing it was 'the best I could do' at the time. Now in retrospect I often wonder, "what If"...but that kind of a mindgame does little but bring a sense of negativity around and that's the mindset I need to avoid.
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