Monday, September 26, 2005

A-B Rotation

Yesterday afternoon I talked to my boss and he told me I was off today. I protested, but he ordered me to stand down. When I got home, I found Milady had also been sent home, so we went out for dinner. A place with a table and silverware and a tablecloth. Then we came home and crashed.

I'm off tomorrow too, and another 8-5 guy is watching over the evacuees that I have been watching over. I stopped by late this afternoon and checked on everyone. They improved the position today, making strides in creature comforts.

I talked to my boss late this afternoon and I am off tomorrow too. What they have done is put all us daytime guys on an A-B rotation. It is a standard law enforcement shift rotation and it lets you cover the maximum amount of man hours with the minimum people and keeps everyone rested, fed, and not burned out.

The way it works is this. They designate shifts as A shift, B shift, with day and night rotations. Sometimes they designate all four shifts from A-D. Anyway, lets say a guy on A shift works Monday Tuesday. Off Wednesday Thursday. Works Friday Saturday Sunday. B Shift is off Monday Tuesday, works Wednesday Thursday, is off again on Friday Saturday Sunday. The next week the days are reversed. Everyone works half of the available days in the month, and you have a three day weekend every other weekend.

Now, you have to cover day shift and night shift, and there are two ways to do that. You can either change from day to night every time you come back to work (Work days Monday Tuesday, off Wednesday Thursday, work nights Friday Saturday Sunday), or you can be stabilized on days and nights. There are pros and cons to both methods and I have worked both methods. Being stabilized on days and nights works best for me, but having rotating shifts spreads the wealth around. Actually, if I had my druthers on 12 hour shifts, I would rather be stabilized on nights, because nights are generally quieter than days. There is less going on, and the headquarters guys aren't around.

So anyway, I am off again tomorrow. Back to work Wednesday morning. I thought I was finally off the old A-B rotation, but things have a way of changing.

1 comment:

Kelly(Mom of 6) said...

Woo Hoo! Shiftwork again! I've done that rotation..I, too, liked nights better for much of the same reasons. Funny how people like to sleep at night.

I'm glad you and your wife got some time together and a little rest. I have been wondering how things have been holding up over your way.