Lots of recent threads about first/best/worst/ jobs.

What’s the longest shift you’ve ever done? Just wondering as I rolled in at 0330 hrs this morning then awoken at 1000 hrs by someone wanting more info on the job.

My longest without a rest was leaving the house at 0700 and rolling back in at 0530 the next day.

I’m bolloxed!

Did 38 hours once. Didn’t actually feel that bad at the end but pretty much collapsed when I got home. Done over 24 hours a few times but over 12 hours is definitely the exception

Done a few 24-30 hrs ones, worst was getting into a motor at work at three thirty on a Friday afternoon (having started at 09.00) finally got out of it at 18.00ish on Sunday night, grabbed a bit of kip whenever possible, takeaways for breakfast, lunch and dinner (Burger king is not a great breakfast food). Three of us in a ford galaxy – bloody thing stank

I’ve done a couple of 24 hr plus shifts. Longest probably around 28-30 hrs.

My record for a week was 116 hrs. Rarely finishing before 4 am and back in at 8

Round the bend and some sticking out of the water. Never measured tho…

The work doesn’t seem to be a problem, I think the adrenaline keeps me going. Once I get back in the car to drive home knowing the jobs done, the life just escapes me!

Used to do lots of 24 hour shifts – 9am to 9am.
Supposed to sleep between 11 and 7, but it often didn’t happen.

That last half hour before finishing was torture.
🙂

I know plenty of people who’ve done 0800 Fri to 1800 Mon (I think including Mrs RBIT, though she may have just missed the worst of it).

We do 96 hrs in an oner, every 3 weeks we do 120hrs continuous. We’re allowed to sleep but take all calls in that 120 hrs so some nights are busier than others.

I did 24hrs on 24hrs off non stop for 3 months in the army in bosnia. After 3 months we changed to 12 on 12 off non stop for 3 months. Luckily i drew the 8am to 8pm straw

The 2 other tours i did 18hrs on 18hrs off for each of the two tours six months

Non were great

Interesting topic – current job means I am on 24/7. Not as dramatic sounding as that, but I live at the top of the staff village, I’m on call for the school in an emergency out of normal office hours, days are usually 7am-7pm or later.

I switch off during holidays and half terms, if possible, although not unknown to have to be on the ball during them as well depending on what is going on.

Still, enjoy the job though.

Worked 72 hours over a weekend with about 4hrs sleep. Regularly worked from 8am one day to 6pm the next. Not proud of the fact – bloody stupid for doing it.

Hm, must have done a few 36 hour type shifts back when I was keen – recall working on a demo on a Thursday back on Windows 1.3, wasn’t functioning so took existing program and rebuilt it, overnight, to get the demo working, stayed in til early the next afternoon to make sure demo was OK. We got the job..

I was also posted to Japan for a while, there were a few all-nighters then, and we then had to work on stuff for the Olympics, kind of an immobile deadline.

25 hours was as long as I ever did in hotels, 9am Saturday to 10am Sunday morning. That was for a big wedding.
Regularly did AFD’s (All F***ing Day), 10am to 2 or 3pm, particually over bank holidays to earn the double time, 3pm to 11pm in the restaurant followed by 11pm to 7am night portering was also not uncommon.

Happy days those were!

sadexpunk – Member

We do 96 hrs in an oner, every 3 weeks we do 120hrs continuous.

Jesus.
Astronaut or lighthouse keeper?

Rusty thats the latest modern family friendly fire service shifts for you

are we talking about sitting behind a computer tip tapping away gently, or real work?

I’ve done just shy 24hrs. Fabricating, none of this sitting on yer arse!

Mrs FD was in work for 8am today (Saturday) and won’t finish until anywhere between 4 and 6pm on Monday.

My daughter used to do from 9am-5pm in a busy cafe, then get a taxi to a well known hotel chain and work from 6pm to 3am in the morning 6 days a week, that’s working, not hanging around waiting for something to happen! she’s 22 and with only a gap year to her credit now has a deposit for a house.

0645 till 1800in the lab, went home, had some tea and saw the kids to bed, thrn back to work at 2100h taking samples every two hours (a job that took about forty minutes) through the night with a couple of twenty minute power naps, till handing over at seven in the morning and going on a regulatory compliance course till 1700h

Trust me, even with coffee and pro-plus, that regulatory compliance course was seriously tough to stay awake through 😆

I’m not gonna tell you how I initially misread that thread title…. 🙂

there’s always one 😉
how many courics?

did a 28 hour shift once. that took some “inventive” tweaking of the hours on the time sheet so that the single and double pay was accounted for correctly.

Fourbanger, no keyboards involved. If my assessment is wrong, people’s power is off a bit longer, if it’s very wrong someone might get seriously hurt (or worse). Not proper emergency service stuff but it feels close to at times.

Used to do 96 hours in the bad old days as a junior doctor, would usually get some sleep overnight but it was never guaranteed. The powers that be eventually realised this was not a great idea. Now just 24 hours which can be bad enough if you kop for it.

3 days no break but on standby all the time.

Must go to specsavers just seen the ‘f’

37hrs (clocked on Monday at 8am and my job suddenly had to be finished Tuesday for Wednesday delivery so clocked off at 9pm Tuesday night, couple of beers then slept like a baby) was the longest actually working on the the tools, but had some long shifts twiddling my thumbs waiting for others to finish their tasks. Plenty of “ghosters” as well, getting paid monthly means that by the time you get the overtime in your pocket it doesn’t seem so bad but I’d rather give it a miss if possible!

I think 48 hours during a multi handed drug investigation . started on Monday from memory i got in on Wednesday . was a while ago I could / would not do that now . did a regular 16 hour day once a week for a year that was just tedious.

Yeah, I uswd to do the 8 am friday to 5 pm Monday shifts as a junior doc as well….. Great fun – not!

Longest week is 128 hours…. That was a bit tiring too.

You’re all mad – a ‘long’ day now would be getting in for 0830 and working till 1800 – I haven’t worked a weekend, evening or night since 1999.

I DO have 2 screens for my computer in work though – that’s double the work!

Worked in Cordova Alaska when I was 21, in a fish freezer plant, we did between 36 and 44 hours shifts about 4 times when I was there. Brutal but earns a fortune. If there was fish on the dock it had to get processed. You would be given 10 mins every hour where you ate as many chocolate chip cookies as you could, the sugar crash was awful. There is no way I could even contemplate doing it now.

About 9 inches.

Oh, shiFt

I used to be an M&A lawyer. Longest continuous period of working was 40 hours (I know plenty who’ve gone longer). One of the toughest deals I did two 40 hour stints, one in each of the last two weeks (the rest of the time I was at least managing 2-3 hours sleep a night). My reward? Being allowed the rest of the weekend off once we’d closed it.

Most weeks were 60 hours minimum, usually more like 80 and too regularly over 100. All nighters were the norm and often just through workload, rather than closing deals. All while working in the big legal factories and all in the bad old days before the 2008 crash.

These days I get paid twice as much and rarely do more than 60 hours a week and haven’t done an all nighter in years.

Max I’m allowed to do normally is 12hrs but I’ve done a few 16hr shifts, however I’ve been very close to falling asleep on the drive back and have had to have a doze in a layby to get home safely.

I used to assist car photographers and once got asked by an agency that dealt with Jaguar cars to be on standby at a car studio when a new prototype was being shown to the media before it was shipped to geneva so they could photograph it and have it ready to go to print/website launch in time with the real launch.
Lots of security and embargo/non disclosures to sign and no mobile phones to leak pics with etc.
I had done something similar before and there was lots of sitting around before the next photographer would turn up to shoot the car but this time it was a bit different and any ideas of snoozing on the sofa went out the window as the car was a stunner and all the mags sent their photographers for a 2 hour slot so I didn’t stop working apart for a pizza half way though and most of the photographers didnt know how to light a car in the studio as they were mostly location/available light so I had a lot to do, the shift was made worse by starting at 1 in the afternoon not in the morning so I had already been up all morning. Got back home 24hrs later but just sat in front of TV drinking beer before I could switch off, was up for about 36hrs all in, money was good though.

Done 48 hours at work but they were sleep ins and I did get some sleep probably about 8-10 hours
NO chance i could work more than about 16 hours as i would just fall asleep

36 hrs straight, not so bad as many I’m sure but in this instance enormous concentration required throughout, ie marginal 0.5mm errors would have had the job returned.

Later discovered I was being subcontracted via my employer by a guy who was charging his client £1k for the work (a big design for print job for the Po-Po)

My overtime pay was handed to me in an envelope. It was 35 quid. I packed my things and left for good.

Once spent more than a week having a shower and an hours sleep at midnight and a meal and hours sleep at midday culminating in a solid 48hrs without any of those things where I eventually fell as sleep standing up and working.

At the point where I fell asleep we’d negotiated over-night access to a glass factory to use their acid polishing facilities. I was having to grind flat facets on huge quarter ton pieces of cast lead crystal by hand because the machine that we were supposed to use was out of action. This was prior to dipping them it vats of acid to polish them. Working away – surrounded by vats of acid I fell asleep, standing, still grinding away at the glass. Whilst I was asleep I was dreaming I was doing exactly the same thing. The only difference between the waking world and my dream was in the dream I was wearing a fetching bobble hat.

Later, driving home, I was convinced I could still feel the dream bobble hat on my head.

30 days, 7-7 heavy labour.

2 days rest. Then

30 days, 7-7 heavy labour.

Minted though.