Shift Lag

I'm writing this roughly six hours before I'm due to start an early turn shift because I'm wide awake with no prospect of seeing the inside of my eyelids for hours yet. That's why I've been messing about with the layout and colours of the blog. Oh, and I've put my mum's favourite piccy of my on there. (I'll leave it to you to decide if I'm joking or not.)

Anyway, got me thinking about "shift lag". It's kind of like jet lag, but you don't get a sun tan and a man with latex gloves doesn't rummage through your luggage.

Seriously, working shifts totally changes the meaning of words like "weekend". This week, my "weekend" is Thursday and most of Friday at which point I'm back on nights.

I made the schoolboy error of having a kip this afternoon because I was feeling a bit tired. And the bit of a kip stretched out for four hours. So now I'm wide awake and thinking about going for a bit of a stroll. At bloody half past midnight!

I'll finish nights on Monday morning and have to force myself out of bed at about lunch time, otherwise I won't sleep Monday night. Which means for most of Monday I'll either be asleep or annoying my chums by being irratable to the point that they wish I was asleep.

And that's another thing: "lunch time". Because we find ourselves working at "Oh My God" o'clock we eat totally inappropriate meals at totally inappropriate times. Microwaved lasagne at 4am. Coco Pops at 7pm. That sort of thing.

Actually, I remember I used to have microwaved porridge on nights. One particular shift I was absolutely starving come about 3am because we'd been so busy. The microwave had just gone "ping" and I'd had my first mouthful when a shout came in. Two males assaulting a third who was lying on the floor.

Now, this member of public needed our help, so there was no chance of me not going. But my stomach thought my throat had been cut! Nothing else for it but to jump in with someone else and try to find my mouth with my spoon whilst sat on the back seat of the area car as it's doing 60mph. In fact, I must've been hungry because I didn't spill any.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, shift lag. Because I'm awake now, and I'm probably only going to get a few hours kip, I know that at about 10 or 11am later on it's going to hit me like a cricket bat in the chops. And that's probably about the time the member of public comes into the station wanting to make a complaint about how another copper was rude to them. After five minutes with a sleep deprived me they're either going to think that rudeness is endemic in the Police or that I'm being somehow ironic by trying to out-rude the other officer.