I suppose you could say I have four jobs. In addition to writing, I have two other jobs which pay the bills. I work full-time as a labor and delivery nurse (at night) and part-time as a nursing instructor, which I do during day hours. My fourth and most important job, of course, is mothering my two children. Different jobs on opposite shifts plus two kids makes for one sleepy Momma. I understand “tired.” I also understand “over-worked” and “zombie-like states”. I live like that most of the time.
I’ve worked nights for the past twelve years because it works for my family. At the start of every shift, I introduce myself to my patients and explain that I will be taking care of them from 7p-7:30a. Most nurses work twelve-hour shifts, but somehow, twelve hours at night is always more shocking to people than twelve hours during the day. And the question I most often get from my patients at night is “Do you always work the night shift?” To which I reply with a smile, “For twelve years.” The reaction to that reply is usually one of surprise and sometimes confusion, “Wow, twelve years?!”…. translation: “OMG! Why would you choose to do that for so long?” And then the follow-up question is always “Aren’t you tired!?” And my reply to that one is almost always a little laugh and then something along the lines of “I’ll sleep when I’m dead…” or “It’s amazing how you can learn to function on little sleep”… cop-out responses, I’ll admit. Other times I just tell it straight “Yeah, I’m always tired … but this phase, like every other phase will one day end. And don’t worry … you’re in good hands with me tonight!”
I like my autonomy at night. I like the culture at night. I like my coworkers. In fact, I like just about everything about the shift … except for the constant state of exhaustion. And in regards to my other job, as an instructor, I love that job too! Except that it has me waking up at 4:30 am some days. That’s life. Life is hard. But to get where we want to be and to have the things we want/need, we have to work hard for them. And in addition to working hard, I am also gaining fulfillment from each avenue in my life and that helps to ease the pangs of exhaustion.
Fortunately, my children don’t know any different. I’ve worked the night shift for as long as they can remember. It’s not weird for them that their Mom sleeps during the day. Although, their sympathy for me is frequently lacking. “You’re always tired!” is a common line in my house. And when they were little they’d tell people, “My Mom just sleeps during the day,” forgetting to explain further that I work at night. While it has allowed me to be more present for them during the day, for things like school events and the afternoon pick-up, homework time and dinner; my frequent state of exhaustion has certainly led to some interesting moments as well.
So whether you’re a single person who is over-worked or a parent who hasn’t gotten a solid 8 hours sleep in years … whatever state of life has you feeling ‘rode hard and put away wet’…. welcome to the club! While there are days that I am so tired, I want to cry … like anything in life, I believe tiredness is best digested with a dose of humor.
So, brew yourself a cup of coffee and allow me to present to you, a humorous recollection of stories from myself and other people, who, like you, have had their own moments of exhaustion and survived to not only tell the story, but to tell it with humor. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, then what’s the point of being here? Seriously, life is too short!
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Amongst the many ridiculous text messages I’ve sent that made no sense, or the times I’ve answered the phone slurring my words … for every time I’ve had to explain to a teacher that “I work at night and I’m tired … I don’t have a substance abuse problem,” or the times I’ve overslept and left my kids sitting in the front office waiting to be picked up … I have learned to apologize and then laugh about it. Here are a few of my other shining moments:
One day, post night shift, I got held over because it had snowed over-night and several day shift nurses were late getting-in. When I finally left the hospital, I had worked 16 hours straight and still needed to clean off my car before I could head home. With my gloves on and ice scraper in hand, I found my car. Ice had sealed the door closed and I had to chisel it off before I could even get in and start the de-froster. When I finally got enough ice off that I could open the door, I stood there, balancing on a sheet of ice, hitting the unlock button over and over again. “Why wasn’t the door opening?! Are the locks frozen?” I peered through the hole in the ice that I had chiseled and looked inside the car, looking to see if the passenger-side door was unlocking. “Wait…where did that stuff come from? Where’s my rearview mirror decoration? Oh my god…this isn’t my car!” I sheepishly snuck away hoping someone nearby wasn’t calling the police because a crazy woman was trying to break into their car. When they did return to their car I’m sure they wondered why a portion of the driver’s side door was cleaned off! I’ll consider it an accidental act of charity.
It’s not just the wrong car door that I’ve tried to open with my remote opener. I’ve also stood at my house door hitting the car door remote and waiting for the house door to unlock.
And on multiple occasions, I’ve brewed an entire cup of coffee, with my single serving coffee maker, into the spill catch, having forgotten to place the cup under the drip. In case you were wondering, a standard-sized single-cup coffee maker has a spill catch that holds exactly one traveler-sized mug of coffee in it. Bonus-it didn’t run all over the counter! Bummer-I wasted a K-cup!
I’ve gone to a parent teacher conference wearing two different color flip-flops … I mean, black and brown … forgivable, right? I’ve accidentally worn my 12 year olds leggings to work (black…we both have black) and gone to pick up the kids with my yoga pants on inside-out.
And my favorite sleepy word-mix-ups are:
I was packing-up my dinner and additional food to share with coworkers before heading out to work. My mother, who was at my house that afternoon asked, “What’s that for?” I replied, “Work for food.”. “Oh, is that some new organization you’re a part of?”, she inquired. “Huh? No, its WORK for FOOD!”, I said again. “I know”, she said, “Is that like a meal donation program that you’re doing?” “Mom,” I became annoyed, “it’s food for my work!” She than kindly pointed out the err in my words. Tired people are also grumpy people sometimes.
And another time, when I was discussing a kind-hearted person who adopted disabled children, I instead said she “disabled adopted children.” How’s that for a switch-up in the meaning of the story?
And here are more fabulous stories from other, very tired people:
Colleen tells about the time she thought she lost her wedding rings. “I searched everywhere before deciding I had probably knocked them into the sink and they were stuck in the pipe below. I called maintenance to have someone come over. As I wiped the tears from my eyes, a shimmer of light caught my eye. My diamond ring and wedding band were on my right hand ring finger.”
Kelly recalls pouring coffee into her cereal bowl.
Tammy tells of a time she was nearing the end of a very long shift, “Back in the day (i.e.–when we charted on paper, with pens, instead of computers) after being awake for 56 hours (of a 72 hour call stretch), I charted a progress note for a labor patient, updated the orders, and handed the chart to the patient’s nurse. She handed the chart back to me, and said, “You might want to take out the sentence about the giraffe.”
Erin recalls her own post night shift moment: “I had worked three nights in a row and after my last shift, I decided to stay up and get some things done. At the end of the day, I had Monday Night Football on. It took me until the third quarter to realize I was watching the game in Spanish.” Erin doesn’t speak Spanish.
Kat remembers when she lived in an apartment building and took the elevators to and from her apartment. “I used to always say “have a good night!” … when it was 8 am and I was getting home from night shift and ready to crash. I’m pretty sure I’ve also said “good morning!” to people at 5 pm when I was first waking up.” They must have been a little confused!
Gretchen remembers cooking dinner in her sleepy state. “I was cooking a chicken and I could not figure out why the hell the chicken would not cook. I kept checking the temperature and the thermometer kept reading 90 degrees. So I kept putting it back in and re checking it. Finally, I realized the thermometer was in Celsius. I over-cooked an entire chicken by a few hours.”
Another time, Gretchen recalls ordering a custom sign for her house. The sign read “Home Sweet Home est. 2012.” When the sign arrived, she proudly showed it to her husband, “It’s nice”, he said, “but our house wasn’t built in 2012.”
Annie spoke of her long days working in a city hotel and the grueling commute that compounded her day and her sanity. “I left fairly late at night and I would always leave by the hotel entrance. This entrance had a revolving door with two regular doors flanking each side. The revolving door had a motion detector that started moving upon human approach. After a long day, not once but twice, I stood in front of the normal doors flanking said revolving door, waiting for it to somehow detect my motion and open. I would stand there in a daze for a solid minute or two before cursing myself and opening it. What a tired dunce! One day I thought I would outsmart my tired self and go through the revolving motion doors, only to snag my tote in the segment and fight the door to get it out. Those doors still have me laughing. Thank goodness nobody ever saw me.”
Chrystie, a veteran in sleep deprivation, begins with “Oh where do I begin?!” She starts by listing the places and times she has fallen asleep, “…in Starbucks waiting for my coffee, burping a baby, on the phone with a coworker, during a heavy metal concert, while my hair stylist was doing my hair…”
She then recalls things that she’s done whilst in a sleep-deprived state:
“I’ve put my laptop in the fridge, gotten a food container to put leftovers in and put the container of food BACK in the cabinet, worn my pants backwards and inside out, and only put makeup on one eye. Another time, a woman stopped me because it looked like I had a “weird stain” on my pants- my infant daughter had spit up on me just before I left the house and the “stain” was the ENTIRE length of my left leg. My pants were black. I hadn’t noticed!”
Laura recalls the time that she pulled up to a stop sign and sat there waiting for it to turn green. She waited so long, in fact, that she fell asleep (with her foot on the break thank god!). A police officer then proceeded to pull up and perform a field sobriety test on her. While she balanced on one foot in the freezing cold she respectfully responded, “Officer, could I please perform a breathalyzer instead … I really don’t think I’m going to pass this test and I assure you I am sober. I’m just really, really tired.”
Joe submitted a photo of a metal handicap door button with this story: “At my corporate headquarters I went to the rest room. In an attempt to leave, I was trying to figure out why swiping my badge wasn’t opening the door. I stood there so long I decided to take a picture of the button”. You mean those things don’t also have a badge swipe?
Beth remembers her overnight shifts in the military often involved going to the bathroom to take a ” mini power nap” in the bathroom stall in an effort to survive the night and remembers that she drove home every morning but often had no memory of her drive.
Rosemary recalls her days with a young infant. “I was trying to get her to fall asleep and she kept fussing every time I’d take my hand off of her. My legs were tired of standing there waiting for her to drift off to sleep. So, I climbed into the crib with her. I woke up hours later … wondering why I was sleeping in the baby’s crib.”
For everyone out there who is trying to be productive while fighting a daily state of exhaustion, you’re not alone! But be careful! Don’t be afraid to ask for help. It takes a village, if you don’t have one, form one. When I first moved to my neighborhood, I knew no one within a 20 mile radius. So I made friends at the preschool and hung out at the playground everyday, getting to know other parents and building relationships. Some of my best and most reliable friends came from that playground. And they have saved my butt more times than I can count. It’s those friends, who know when they receive an incoherent text message from ‘Amanda’ that it’s probably because I worked last night and can’t seem to wake myself up enough to text coherently, much less drive. And without further explanation, they will bring my children home to me. And on my days off, I return the favor. While I’d like to think that I’m super-woman and can do it all alone, we all have our limits and an injury (or worse) isn’t worth your pride. For every one of these funny stories, there’s another story that’s not so funny. So, be safe. And then, once you are safe, look for the silver lining and learn to laugh at your struggles. If you can’t, who else will?!
Further more, don’t forget that life is about balance. Anyone who knows me, knows that while I work hard, I also play just as hard. Stop saving your vacation hours, use them! My response to people when they say “You guys are going on vacation again?!” is always “Every chance I get.”
I guess the motto here is : “Work Hard, Play Hard, and no matter what you’re doing … keep finding reasons to laugh.”
