Night work. Most all of us have done a night or tow. Many have done nights for a few weeks straight. A few of us have worked nights for months or years of our careers. They aren’t exactly fun but a ton of work can get done at night that would be difficult during the day. Sometimes, the only option is to work nights to get critical items of work done. Night work is almost universally viewed as a necessary evil, even by crews that make their careers working nights for extended periods of time.
Nights can actually be enjoyable when just looking at the work. Quite a bit of work can get done at night. Myself and my crews got to just focus on the work. As a manager, when I’ve worked nights, I got to spend more time with my crews and was even able to put in a little sweat equity as well – I wasn’t bogged down by logistics and coordination work that can only take place during the day and regularly took up much of my day. Even the slow times at night are interesting. Especially on road construction projects, I find beauty in the near complete stillness, calm and quiet that can be found while taking a quick break on a center median barrier wall. It’s not quite the bottom of the ocean or the surface of the moon but night work crews get to experience our world in ways that most don’t.
So, if and when we pull some night work, try not to worry about the reduced sleep and focus on the increased ability to focus on the work. Enjoy the low shadow and dark of night experiences along with the eerie after midnight calm that regular day shift workers won’t understand.
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