Working The Night Shift Is Not What It's Cracked Up To Be

In the unlucky chronicle that is called my life, I recently had to work a six and a half hour shift night shift at on of the residence halls from 11:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. To say the least, it was an interesting experience. While everybody was out doing what normal people do on Friday nights — i.e. hanging with friends, going out, basically socializing in general — I was sitting behind a desk, swiping cards and handing out keys to people who get locked out of their rooms. This is my night.

Hour 1

I started off solid. I treated myself to a coffee and settled into the night. I was prepared to stave off the boredom. I brought numerous crafting supplies like paint, some canvases and a hot glue gun. I made a list of TV shows I missed throughout the week that I could watch throughout the night. The night was young and a few people came up to the desk but nothing major happened. A few people liked my paintings — I'm most definitely not a painter and can't draw anything beyond stick figures.

Hour 2

Things are going good. I finished my coffee very quickly and went through the first of my many shows. People are still coming up to the desk and talking to me.

Hours 3-6

These are literally the worst hours of my life. Everything went downhill. I was over-painting my paintings to the point where I just really had to give up on them. I started hot gluing things and burnt BOTH of my middle fingers. I don't know how but it's bad enough that two blisters have formed and one of them is partially under my nail — typing this article is like a little bolt of pain every keystroke. Because I was at the front desk, I couldn't leave — so what did I do? I yelped in pain and awkwardly stuck both my fingers in my nasty paint water. It felt super strange but so good at the same time. After that, things got rough. Nobody was coming in, I was fading quick. I could feel my eyes shutting and I'm pretty sure at one point I was asleep with my eyes closed. I literally could not wait until my head hit that pillow. Did it matter if it was the pillow on the couch or the pillow on my bed? Not at this point. Thankfully, the clock hit 6 and I was out of there.

In my six-and-a-half-hour shift, I found that even if you have the greatest intentions of staying awake, it's super hard after being awake for 22 hours. I have realized that I am never doing that again.