Deciding Between Money and Security: A Tough Choice

[wolram]

Is it worth it, one seems to miss out on everything, ok i get paid buckets of money, but
i never have time to spend it, but then i am almost my own boss and do not have to put up with the day to day triva, just the c--p that the day shift leaves me with, stuff that they say they had no time to fix, well probably, but more like they couldnt, and i do not have a phone a friend at night, so it is fix it all on my tod or be cussed.
Would you go for the money and sole responsibility, or be paid less and have back up
if things go wrong?

Last night i had to change £3,000 worth of kit, i decided it was knackered and went ahead, no one will ask questions.

 

[Astronuc]

I worked a full time job at night while I was in grad school, during my MS program. I started working eveing shift (4 pm - midnight) and then took the midnight - 0800 shift. I did that for nearly 3 years (~ 2 yrs evening shift, 1 yr graveyard). I used the time to do my homework or read, and grade homework/tests from classes I taught. That job was in addition to going to class and teaching at the university. It enabled me to go to grad school and leave debt free, and I paid off my wife's loans from her undergrad program and bought her a new car. At the time it seemed worth it, but I spent the last year sleep deprived. I had to quit the night job soon after I started a PhD program.

 

[wolram]

Astro, you had a night job and still had time to teach, when did you sleep?

 

[Danger]

Sleep? Whazzat?

 

[wolram]

Sleep? Whazzat?

It is a thing (normal ) people do.

 

[mgb_phys]

Astro, you had a night job and still had time to teach, when did you sleep?

During lectures, admittadley it's harder to sleep while giving them -but with practice!

 

[turbo]

I worked shifts for over a decade in a demanding industrial environment, and I preferred nights to days. On the day shift, you could get second-guessed and "teamed" into paralysis, but on the night shift, we solved a lot of stuff that had the day-shifters stumped. My boss said that it was great to go into the morning production meeting with a huge success, and that if we didn't solve the root problem, it was a hell of a lot easier to get forgiveness for our night forays than to ask permission for the day maneuvers. We had a skeleton crew of maintenance people on the night shift, but they were the senior (and more skilled) millwrights, electricians, pipers, etc, who used their seniority to hook up with us shift production people and avoid the bureaucrat-heavy day shifts. Good problem-solving and troubleshooting on the part of the production guys (my crew) and good planning and execution on the part of the maintenance guys meant low down-time, high production, and happy managers who would keep loosening the leash.

 

[Astronuc]

Astro, you had a night job and still had time to teach, when did you sleep?

Toward the end of my MS program and beginning of PhD, I was suffering from sleep deprivation, and that's why I quit the night job.

I used to catch of 2-3 hrs during a weeknight, and caught up with sleep on Saturday. Unfortunately, I'd sleep until mid-afternoon on Saturday, and that would pretty much kill a good part of the weekend. The sleep schedule was too erratic and my performance suffered, not to mention the strain it put on my marriage. The money was great, but it just wasn't worth it to continue that job.