I have of recent been transferred over to a dayshift job. I am becoming aware that this is a significant change after years and years of being on the back shifts... Not having to contend with as much traffice....or parking issues...also fewer people around on the back shifts. I am now rethinking my preps and or survival strategies........applications..with this new shift.. I have prepared myself a new locker into which I am bringing my prep/survival stocks...a bit at a time.....as I had on my olde work location. I am having to deal with more people....not only on the job but off work as well.....traffic, crowds..parking ..et al.. It is sort of a new awakening now after being shielded from this daily chaos...so to speak for years and years by being on the back shifts....in particular the graveyard shift. I keep thinking to myself......"You folks do this every day???!!!" Am I going to be able to adapt....make the change....survive if you will??? In a manner of speaking i have been protected from all this daily chaos...by being on the back shifts. Nonetheless....I am now a daywalker.....and it is slow going ...trying to make the adjustment...one day at a time.....one day at a time.. Watcherchris Not an Ishmaelite.
It is difficult mentally ...psychologically ....getting used to the volume of two legged wildlife out here ...particularly on the city roads/traffic.....the madness if you will. This is going to take some getting accustomed to without myself becoming/morphing into said ....two legged wildlife... That is one of my biggest concerns... Watcherchris Not and Ishmaelite.
there is obviously more traffic about these days as in years past, we have rail strikes here at the moment, wife's nephew does rail replacement as a bus driver.
Major hell, eh!!!! It's a major wake-up call as to how many critters are in metropolitan herds. As you witness all of the mayhem, think that we are in "good times". In a scenario mask function within your mind, impose a SHTF/panic template onto the masses you witness during the day. You and I know that 98% of those commuters are utterly and totally unprepared for any SHTF scenario however small. Imagine their behavior after being without "sacred" electricity for two weeks. In one week, people would be getting angry and starting to lose emotional control. Now two weeks have gone by ... no open stores, no lights at night, no gasoline (we might store gasoline and kerosene, but they sure do not). This is when people start breaking into private residences for food and whatever else. Minimum, hundreds of thousands of people decompensating psychologically. Multiply crime rates by 1,000x even 10,000x. Violence will break out like cholera. Without sanitation, actual bacterial cholera will break out among the masses. Image the smell in the air. I once held a position where I had to commute into a major city / state capital. Traffic was maddening ... almost literally so. The last position I held involved driving on a segment of interstate. I would be going 80 mph (130 kph) and people would be passing me. This, in heavy traffic. It was a NASCAR race going to work and coming home. When people wrecked, it was horrible. I retired last year. Of course, had to clean out my office. Documents, I couldn't care less about. Left all the books and professional journals. However, gathering up my survival food required multiple cardboard boxes. Were I at work and a major SHTF event happened, getting back to my rural home could have been a major challenge, thus my provisions. Always keep necessities at work. When others panic, you will have what you need. Even keep a water purifier at work. I keep on in my car with all the other tools. In my car, I keep ropes and extrication gear should I need to get a casualty out of a folded vehicle -- I don't have the Jaws of Life machine, but a bunch of other heavy tools. I've seen some hellish wrecks. .
Boy can I relate to this Chris. I worked the night shift in a shipyard for about 15 years too and when I went to the day shift...well I didn't like the change at all. All of a sudden getting up was hard and going to sleep in time to get at east 6 hours sleep was nearly impossible. To this day I am pretty much a night person. I don't sleep as much now but I try to go to sleep when the sun starts to come up and then be up by noon. There are just too many people out and running around during the day. When I worked 3:30 to midnight I usually cam home ate and then went for a walk or went fishing. VERY peaceful! In the day you sort of take your life in your hands to go walking on the city streets! The fishing isn't as good and I hate getting sunburned!! I like to fish and the morning is a great time for that. More often than not when I want to fish the dawn hours I do it as the end of my day and not the beginning. In other words I just stay up all night and go fishing. When I was younger I often went two or three days without sleeping. Now I usually die out and sleep after about 36 to 48 hours. I don't sleep as lo g as I used to. Sleep has always been a problem for me. Insomnia when you work a 7 to 4 job can make it hard. I've never understood why Blue collar workers are expected to start the day at the ass crack of dawn and White collar workers sleep in and work 9 to 5. When I started my own business I went to work at 9 and called it quits at 3. I then came home, did my books and ordered parts for the jobs that I had done that day. I usually got a UPS shipment every day. My UPS driver got a Christmas gift every year because he was an important part of my ability to work. He made sure that I got my stuff both on time and in good shape. A lot of times I was his last drop and we would visit a little and maybe have a drink. He had my cell phone number and could call me and if possible I would meet him someplace. I lived about 7 miles off the highway down a dirt and some times muddy and slimy road.
By Olde Geezer..... Agree entirely.....and that was my intent at my olde work location on the back shifts. That if something happened there and we could not leave for about a week....it would be pure chaos... But would not starve and even had toilet tissue should the need arise. Most of the people could not think past last night's sports games...and would become a huge liability. My olde locker with it's food stuffs in a lower drawer..I left to another in my crew...as I have three other lockers still at that secure location...,I still have security access....but did not anymore need that olde locker . I am slowly restocking a new locker....at my current location. My new model short wave radio receiver and two way amateur VHF/UHF walkie talkie I brought with me. I am considering a long range two way HF Radio and roll up G5RV antenna which I can quickly hoist up if need be. This radio will also work two way on the CB bands. By Texdanm... Wow...Tex....have you ever described conditions here to a Tee!!!! In the bullseye.. I reckon night shifts are pretty much in my blood so to speak.. Watcherchris Not an Ishmaelite.
I did a lot of night shifts when I was employed at the Telephone Exchange but I always found it messed up my sleep patterns and messed up my sense of smell too!!
In my crude poetic way ....I mostly felt relaxed....protected at night versus the DayWalkers out here.. Mother night protected me in the bosom of her darkness.....so to speak....I came to feel safe in this manner. It botheres me not at all to go by the graveyard after midnight on my way home...car or scooter... to visit with my woman......for I know I am safer with the deceased than with the two legged wildlife out there. Oh...I go too ..in the daytime and often bring my electric weed eater and tend the family graves....but it bothers me not at all...for reasons aptly stated...to visit in the middle of the night...and I am often up those hours. Watcherchris Not an Ishmaelite Not a DayWalker....too!!!!
The problem with the day shift for me was that there were WAY to many bosses that all seemed to think that they needed to mess with SOMEONE to prove how important that they were. The night shift had one boss and he seldom left the office. THAT was why the night shift out produced the day shift by about 30%.
I am still on the night shift. I almost NEVER go to bed before midnight at the EARLIEST and then never get up before noon. Even when I go to bed, I read for 3 or 4 hours. I love to read and the night is quiet, peaceful, and nobody bothers me! I see the sunrise occasionally and that tells me that it is time to go to SLEEP!! The BEST sleep time for me is from 5 or 6 AM to noon. I love being retired and live the scheduled that my body prefers.
As I pass graveyards, I say a prayer for the dead. This is especially true if I see the flowers on a new grave. I think this may in some way help them transition (couldn't hurt). Even good souls can get lost (per life after death accounts), so I say prayers and ask Advanced Souls to help-out / intervene in the crossing of souls. Our current house belonged to a Marine veteran of the Korean War. Not only have I prayed for him, I looked-up where he was buried, went to his grave, and said Prayers for the Dead. He'd worked for one company after the Korean War until he died. Seems more than a loyal soul to me -- I imagine him a totally honorable man. Therefore the prayers. I do my best to take care of his house in which I now live. I've left his Marine Corps unit insignias / bumper-stickers on the backyard workshop doors. His body is dead, but I bet that he isn't. My prayers are for the departed to leave this world behind and eternally evolve. Life after death accounts indicate that when we pass from this world, we are totally different than we imagine ourselves. When our bodies die, so do many attributes of our soul's self-image. We are NOT what we imagine ourselves to be. The Prophet informs that there is as much difference between this world and the next as there is between the fetal existence and this existence. This world isn't just a dream, but it might as well be. What to do???!!!!!!! Man, I don't know. Older religious texts are contaminated by man-made crap (total crap). I'll just pray and do my best to follow the teachings of the Prophets. It is an absolute fact that we will be shown our entire life and be judged thereby -- but not by Divinity. It will be us, our own selves who will be the worst judges. I've read this; however, I've also spoken with members of Code Teams who've resuscitated stacks of Code Blue patients. I've worked with (been part of the training teams) of medical personnel who have been there during the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people. I've closed the eyes of both of my parents and one of my own children. In this world, it seems one has to get some serious calluses on your heart. Welcome to hell. .
It probably sounds weird but I have spent countless hours in a grave yard sitting on a head stone talking my troubles out to the person in the ground. They don't talk a lot to you but they listen really well. To me cemeteries are peaceful quiet places...especially at night. There aren't a lot of places like that in a city with a big population.
we go to bed regularly at 9pm and are up by 6am, sometimes 5.30am, early morning is the best part of the day.
Me too. I'm a night person. Always had great night vision. I'm fairly positive that people are genetically "wired" to be a night or day person. Critters sure are. Owls aren't the only night hunters.
It always drove my Dad crazy that I didn't rise with the sun on the week ends unless we were going fishing. The truth is that when we were going fishing I usually just didn't sleep. When I moved out it was years before I had a job that was on the day shift...and I NEVER liked it. When I started my own company I worked from about 9am to 3 am. Then I came home and ordered parts and on the rare occasion that I brought a job home I worked on that. I guess that to someone raised on a farm, laying in bed until it was hot outside wasn't a good idea. I wasn't raised on a farm!!! To me the night was where I felt most comfortable. I could eat and then go for a peaceful long walk without have to dodge cars or put up with goofy kids on bicycles. Back then there wasn't much else to do. At midnight during the week I usually got home in time for the national anthem on the three channels we had back then. The only issue that I had was that at first the cops weren't happy that I was out and about when there was no reason for me to be there. Once they got used to me and knew who I was we usually just waved at each-other. I did have two cops stick their guns in my face one night. In the end we were ALL shook up. I was on the board of directors of my church and in charge of the building and grounds. I had keys to everything and often I would walk to the church at night. I would like the candles on the alter and just sit at peace with the world and think. One night I was sitting there and thinking and heard a sound at the entrance to the sanctuary. I got up and went back to see what it was. When I went through the swinging double doors into the entry. There were two cops there and they both swung around on me with their guns in their hands!!! I think that I must have looked huge to them with the only light coming from behind me from the candles on the alter. I jumped back and threw my hands up while they jumped back and pointed their guns at my face! I yelled at them and told them that this is a church and they don't need guns here. They were not impressed and wanted to know what I was doing there. I answered simply that I was praying. They wanted to know if I was a minister. I told them that I wasn't BUT that I was o the board of directors and chairman of building and grounds. We went into the preachers office and sat down and gathered our selves. I showed them a list of board members where there was me, My Father and my Mother. The church doors never opened that one of us didn't go through them. I offered to wake the preacher up but they didn't need that. The only thing that they told me was to LOCK the door when I was inside at night...You can BET that I did! I had lived there nearly all my life. I owned a house there and all my school buddies were there. The economy crashed when the Government decided that the ARABS were more important than Americans and wiped the oil industry out. Everyplace that I had ever worked for as a machinist went out of business. One of those places threw 4000 people out of work and they never came back. You couldn't hardly sell a house but you COULD get a hell of a deal if you wanted to buy one as thousands of people either left or just lost their homes. Posted later... WOW, Talk about a long winded wandering missive!!!
was up at 6am this morning, moved both cars as we are expecting the Roofers at 8.30am. be good to get the work done eventually.
I have done some roofing and in East Texas in the summer you want to be on the roof when the sun comes up. By a little past noon you HAVE to get off. Then you can come back in the evening and get a couple of hours in. If the roof was a fairly simple one without a lot of valleys it was a one day job. Great money but hard on the body.
