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Thread: Civilian question for cops who are shift workers.

  1. #21
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    I like it really cool when I sleep. In the winter I set the thermostat at 62.

    In the summer my air conditioning bill is high . . .

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by KeithH View Post
    My sons a fixed wing aviator for the Coast Guard and they have some pretty strict rules on flight time limits and mandatory recovery time when limits are reached. Looks like cops and the rest of us have no such protection.
    I was an aircrew member in the USAF before getting out and becoming a cop. "Crew rest" was considered sacred in the flying community and if a guy had something come up that prevented him from getting the required sleep/rest, he was required by regulation to self-identify and be scratched from the flight without any adverse action from unit leadership. Max flight hour limits per day/month were also set in stone and could only be waived by a higher authority on case-by-case basis. I only saw those waived a few times, and each of those were justified by a need for direct support to combat ops overseas. Granted that was just my personal experience in the units I served/flew in. The cultures in other units could have been different.

    Transition to my first year working graveyards as a patrol officer...it couldn't have been a bigger departure from my time in the military. It was standard for officers to work a full 10-hour dayshift and then stay behind for another 4-8 hours to help cover swing shift. It was also standard for graveyard shift officers to wake up in the middle of their "night" to attend court or some in-service training, and then quick-turn into their own shift without adequate sleep. Our leadership understood it was a risk, but the manpower shortage is real. And most cops would rather bank overtime than admit they need to go home and sleep.

    I was able to make it work as a younger guy without kids and a lot of caffeine. I don't know how some of the other guys i worked with were able to do it day-in, day-out for 20+ years.

  3. #23
    THE THIRST MUTILATOR Nephrology's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RJflyer View Post
    I was an aircrew member in the USAF before getting out and becoming a cop. "Crew rest" was considered sacred in the flying community and if a guy had something come up that prevented him from getting the required sleep/rest, he was required by regulation to self-identify and be scratched from the flight without any adverse action from unit leadership. Max flight hour limits per day/month were also set in stone and could only be waived by a higher authority on case-by-case basis. I only saw those waived a few times, and each of those were justified by a need for direct support to combat ops overseas. Granted that was just my personal experience in the units I served/flew in. The cultures in other units could have been different.

    Transition to my first year working graveyards as a patrol officer...it couldn't have been a bigger departure from my time in the military. It was standard for officers to work a full 10-hour dayshift and then stay behind for another 4-8 hours to help cover swing shift. It was also standard for graveyard shift officers to wake up in the middle of their "night" to attend court or some in-service training, and then quick-turn into their own shift without adequate sleep. Our leadership understood it was a risk, but the manpower shortage is real. And most cops would rather bank overtime than admit they need to go home and sleep.

    I was able to make it work as a younger guy without kids and a lot of caffeine. I don't know how some of the other guys i worked with were able to do it day-in, day-out for 20+ years.
    When I was on transplant with anesthesa the surgery attending’s wife went into labor. He said whatever, it’ll be a few hours before she delivers. He had been awake for like 36 hours at that point. He Does a liver transplant and barely makes it to the delivery. As soon as his kid is born, he immediately leaves and does a kidney.

    That's when I finally buried any residual fantasies of going into surgery

    edit: to be clear if it sounds like I am glorifying this I am not. It's incredibly dangerous and obviously self destructive. but it is what it is I guess.
    Last edited by Nephrology; 04-16-2021 at 08:17 PM.

  4. #24
    Site Supporter Rex G's Avatar
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    Long Hours, Fatigue, Making Mistakes, & Recovery

    I know that I made some truly bone-headed mistakes, when working mostly night shift patrol for 33+ years. OT shifts, court attendance, and general life events, during the daytime, sometimes meant 30+ hours at a time, without sleep. The scary thing is that many of those mistakes were not apparent, at the time.

    I believe that some of the glaring errors seen on publicly-released dashcam and bodycam videos may be fatigue-induced. When fatigued, IQ drops, reaction time increases, fine motor skills decrease, and training can go out the window.

    The extra hours worked during and after Hurricane Ike, in 2008, when I was aged 46 and 47, aged me in ways that permanently altered my life. I went from being seen as a thirty-something, athletic, and young-for-my age, to a stooped, middle-aged man, sometimes mistaken for being ten years older than my chronological age. My 75-year-old father had more get up and go, than I did. I remember that it took eight months before I felt energetic, again, and in some ways never returned to pre-Ike wellness and fitness.

    The extra hours during and after Hurricane Harvey, in 2017, when I was 55 and 56, aged me again, from middle-aged, to a stooped old man. I had hoped to keep working, perhaps even staying in patrol, until I had 35 years of service, which would have been November 2018, and maybe even driven for 35 years of sworn service, in March 2019, but, instead, I retired in January 2018. It took 2+ years to feel anything like energetic, again, and, not nearly at the pre-Harvey level.
    Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.

    Don’t tread on volcanos!

  5. #25
    I was forced too work double shifts at a City Jail for Months back in 1987.

    The place was a Zoo ..Worked 2nd and third shit and had to show the next day for roll call.
    Having had a bad temper to start with I was a nasty SOB after 2 weeks.

    Got into a few road rage incidents out of work.
    At work I threw a few Inmates into walls and broke a fellow Staff members leg who was going to slow responding too an officer in trouble code.
    I pushed him out of my way and he went flying.

    Before you judge my actions go work at a shit hole City Jail and work double shifts for 2 Months and get ordered in on your days off.
    That was worse than being held over for a week during a riot years later at a Prison I was working.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Nephrology View Post
    There's always modafinil...
    I've used modafinil sparingly for about 5 years now. It's great stuff, especially when you don't know when you're going to be able to catch a nap, you can sleep on modafinil much easier than caffeine. In my experience it's best when you can predict when the sleep deprivation is going to occur and slowly ramp up dosage beforehand. It works fine if you just have to pop it but it makes me feel a little odd. I think it's a good thing to have in an emergency kit if you can get it, emergencies often involve sleep deprivation.

    For run of the mill sleep deprivation the best thing I've found is pre-workout, generally about an 1/8th of scoop to 16 oz of water. That has the benefit of allowing you to dose according to need as opposed to coffee or energy drinks where you just get what you get. Some pre-workouts contain Himalayan pink salt and you want to stay away from that unless you want to explain why the bathroom smells like that.

    Sleep deprivation and managing it doesn't get near the attention it should from preppers.

  7. #27
    THE THIRST MUTILATOR Nephrology's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MickAK View Post
    I've used modafinil sparingly for about 5 years now. It's great stuff, especially when you don't know when you're going to be able to catch a nap, you can sleep on modafinil much easier than caffeine. In my experience it's best when you can predict when the sleep deprivation is going to occur and slowly ramp up dosage beforehand. It works fine if you just have to pop it but it makes me feel a little odd. I think it's a good thing to have in an emergency kit if you can get it, emergencies often involve sleep deprivation.

    For run of the mill sleep deprivation the best thing I've found is pre-workout, generally about an 1/8th of scoop to 16 oz of water. That has the benefit of allowing you to dose according to need as opposed to coffee or energy drinks where you just get what you get. Some pre-workouts contain Himalayan pink salt and you want to stay away from that unless you want to explain why the bathroom smells like that.

    Sleep deprivation and managing it doesn't get near the attention it should from preppers.
    Agreed. It’s good to be judicious with drugs like modafinil, but when you need them, you really need them.... and they do really work.

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nephrology View Post
    Agreed. It’s good to be judicious with drugs like modafinil, but when you need them, you really need them.... and they do really work.
    I tried it for a couple of years and could not get it to work for me. Although I was taking it almost everyday. I might have even qualified as an abuser. I remember it was supposed to be the silver bullet for fatigued air force pilots in combat. Never saw if the airlines approved it.

  9. #29
    I worked nights for most of my 11 years in patrol. I never adjusted. I read a study-Tired Cops?-in which cops were given an eye tracking test used to assess fatigue in miners. Many failed, but they went into service to make life-and-death decisions at a level of fatigue deemed unsafe for coal miners. That’s how I lived.

  10. #30
    The biggest issue I see is that night shift guys flip their schedules around on their days off. So work until 7 AM M-T-W-Th, and then be up in the daytime F-S-Su. These guys are zombies on F and M, if not the rest of the week.

    I'm a natural midnighter. Optimally, I get to bed at 5 AM and sleep until 1 PM. However, I day sleep even on my days off, which is why I'm happy about it. It has impacted my career, since I miss dayshift opportunities.

    For the OP, get another job. Seriously. It's not worth the aggravation and shortened lifespan to fight your nature. I'm lucky I can (mostly) choose a work schedule that fits my nature.

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