Shift workers often grapple with how to have a social life when working the graveyard shift. If you miss out on too many events in a row, it can take a toll on your happiness and add stress to your relationships. Night shift workers can experience bouts of feeling ‘out of the loop’ or isolated from family and friends. I spoke with some night shift workers who have managed to balance out they’re shifty schedule with getting enough social time. Here are their best suggestions.
Communicate
Help your friends and family understand you’re on a different schedule. Explain that 2 p.m. in the afternoon for them is like 2 a.m. in the morning for you. Suggest times to get together that work with your work/sleep schedule. Try: “Let’s meet up for a bite before I head in Friday night” or “How about breakfast on Sunday morning after I finish my shift?” You might find that you have to work harder to maintain relationships with loved ones who have conflicting schedules, but it’s worth it to keep those connections alive!
Use tech to meet up
In order to meet up with good friends who work traditional hours, use scheduling apps to help you find overlapping time between your schedule and theirs. This helps take the guesswork out of your availability so you can focus on planning what you’ll do for fun instead of when you can find a few hours when you are both awake/available.
Be prepared
Be ready to socialize by using your time off when others aren’t free to take care of errands and chores. Take care of meal prep, grocery shopping, dry cleaning pickup or swimming class registration during your downtime while your friends are working. Then you’ll be ready to meet up and party on once they’re off work.
Embrace breakfast dates
Breakfast is a great time to catch up because it works with almost anybody’s schedule. You’re quitting night shift at 7 am and your friend starts her workday at 9 am? Grab some sunny side up eggs together at 7:30 am! You both need to eat breakfast anyways. It can be a great time of day to touch base with your folks, catch up with a friend, or even go on a date. Breakfast for the win!
Save up your vacation time
Save up as much vacation time as you can to use for holidays or special events with your favourite peeps. Obviously, this will depend on approval from your boss and whether others have first dibs on that time off. But your odds increase if you ask for time off as soon as possible so you can make it to weddings, rock concerts, pie eating contests, or whatever events are important to you.
Find others with similar schedules
To keep your social circle full, seek out new friends with similar working hours. Look to meet people in the same industry or in other industries with unusual working hours – restaurants, hotels, first responders, hospital staff, security guards, etc. They might have a similar schedule to you and even if not, they’ll certainly understand the challenges of having a job with unusual hours. Chances are that they’ll be game for pre-work gym sessions, post-work breakfast meet-ups, or Netflix binges on turnaround days. etc.
Keep it short and sweet
If your family or friends are having a party that you want to attend, make sure to sleep the entire time before it begins. Have your lunch packed, your clothes ready and your work bag ready to go so you can rest as much as possible before stopping in for some socialization before heading off to work. In my experience, I can often attend events– but just the beginning. I stop in, say hello, grab some food, and then sail off to work. I usually make it clear when I accept an invite that I’ll need to dine-and-dash in order to get to work, but most hosts would prefer you come for a short time than not come at all.
Use e-mail
The beauty of e-mail is that you can write a bit whenever you have time, add to it later, and send it any time of day without waking anyone up. Personally, I use e-mail to stay in touch with my best friend in another city and my aunt in another country. It would be almost impossible to find frequent times to call or visit them with our mutually hectic schedules, but I can easily stay in touch pen-pal style. I often have quiet periods on the night shift, so I’ll type up an e-mail at 4 am to bring them up-to-date. They write back when they have time. We swap recipes, send photos and share stories. It’s a small thing that keeps us close despite conflicting schedules.
How do you keep your social life alive while working nights? Any tips or tricks you can share?
