I wouldn’t typically blog from work ( … probably too busy having a smoking break!)
It’s something I do in my spare time, so future employers or clients need not worry on that score. In this case I’m going to make an exception because I am working on an extremely quiet 12 hour night-shift that runs from 7pm until 7am. It’s the middle one of three in a row. The Trainer vs DBA argument certainly became more complicated this week! Training might have been hard work – but at least I could outlast the students 😉
The reason for the shifts is that We went live with a complex, mission-critical and extraordinarily expensive system last week and so we’re working around the clock to make sure it’s a success. I’m often on-call as a DBA – phoned at 3am when something needs to be fixed – and sometimes work strange hours to get the job done, but long night-shifts are a different experience. There’s not much reward in refreshing screens waiting for something to happen.
There’s work to be done and it gives me a little more space to think than a day shift but knowing that you have 12 long hours ahead of you is pretty soul-destroying and the part between 4am and 7am has to experienced to be believed. I’m pretty tired as a result, but I’ve noticed a few interesting articles while surfing as I was trying to get to sleep this morning.
I noticed recently that Mike Ault had blogged about a strange parallel execution problem he’d encountered. I raised some concerns with Mike over the blog because I’d never seen anything like it, but Jonathan Lewis has written a much more useful note that I think you should read in conjunction with the blog.
Mark Rittman has written an extremely interesting (and timely, from a personal perspective) blog on technical publishing. I remember the first night I met Mark he talked to me about some of the articles he’d written and the relative financial rewards and I can see where he’s coming from. It’s well worth checking out the blog and some of the related articles because I think how we consume technical information is changing constantly, for the better or worse.
I also noticed what looks like another good Oracle blog, via Jeff Hunter’s blog.
Oh, well 5.5 hours down, 6.5 to go
Psst. I also occasionally blog from work.
However, my wife will confirm, in a court of law, that I also work from home (evenings & weekends) and travel in my own time so she thinks we’re even.
Shall we start a self-help Google Group ?
A 12-hour night shift is cruel. Even in an 8-hour shift, that “hole” around 2-3am brought me to my knees – either I froze silly or, if I could get warm, fell asleep.
We worked on the assumption that no one could think at that time of night, only respond to alarm bells (Ã la Pavlov), so only basic baby-sitting was expected.
I agree with DaPi (did 5 years of graveyard shift and never could get used to it). The thing which always got to me was getting home at 8:30 am on a Saturday morning, catching a fast nap of an hour or two, then getting up and going out with my wife. I’d live like a normal person Saturday and Sunday (up in the day, sleep at night), then find that I couldn’t even catch a nap on Monday afternoon. So I’d be up from 7 am Monday morning through 8:30 am Tuesday morning.
And I always thought I was a night person (*rolls eyes*).
You have my deepest sympathy and utmost respect. 😄
dapi said
“We worked on the assumption that no one could think at that time of night, only respond to alarm bells (Ã la Pavlov), so only basic baby-sitting was expected.”
I tried to do some intelligent work with all of that time but couldn’t get many useful thoughts to come out. The spell from 19:00-01:00 wasn’t too bad, but that was when there were still mundane tasks to take care of. Maybe tonight I’ll do the interesting stuff first and leave the mundane for later 😉
It’s the last night tonight then I have many days off so they look after us pretty well otherwise. It’s just a busy time. Well, it should be but things have gone a little too well.
(And I should definitely know better than to say stupid fate-tempting things like that!)
bill s. said
“And I always thought I was a night person (*rolls eyes*).”
I made that mistake, too 😉 There’s something different between that ‘interesting’ night, which probably stops at around 3am and the ‘cold, cold’ night that just keeps going (and going) until bedtime.
But, you know, I get well-paid for it. It struck me that the rest of the people I bumped into on the same shift probably don’t.
*Endless* smoking breaks though!
Sorry, I couldn’t resist 😉 I’ll leave it well alone from now on. Honest!
(Otherwise that andy c will be moaning again)
I occasionally blog from work, but I don’t want to let it eat into the 40 hours, so I tend to work 40+ hour weeks.
Also, my blogs are often based on technical problems I solve at work. Indeed, writing is my way of making sure I’ve thought through a problem thoroughly, as well as my way of remembering it for the future and sharing it with others (within the organisation and, of course, without the larger community).
I think that therefore qualifies as work-related, so I don’t mind doing it with company resources occasionally.
>>*Endless* smoking breaks though!
Meaning … screw the smoking room! Smoking in the office and using a coke can (filled with a bit of water) as an ashtray …. those were the days !
koert said…
Meaning … screw the smoking room! Smoking in the office and using a coke can (filled with a bit of water) as an ashtray …. those were the days !
>> Shhhhhh! We don’t want them all to know about the coke can!
>> Sadly, the main benefit of smoking breaks overnight is that you can stand outside the front door instead of walking a couple of hundred yards to the smoking shelter. Lucky me!