Dawn approaches
Aug. 12th, 2005 04:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvisI'm at the office still, coming slowly to the end of my first of three night shifts.
Overall, it was uneventful: I patched the OS on seven servers, Upgraded the Veritas volume & file system packages on four, rebooted four firewalls, re-racked a disk array and created a handful of file systems. I was hoping to have some extra time to catch up on some reports, but that didn't materialize. The work orders for tomorrow night seem hefty but the third night looks like it will have plenty of slack time.
I like some aspects of working nights. Primarily, it's quiet. Well, the fire alarm testing periodically through the night wasn't but that's only for tonight. The general background noise of people in their cubes is missing; I haven't had any telephone calls or pages. Because significant system changes only happen at nights or on weekends, this is also the first time in months I've had a chance to get my hands dirty on active systems; most of my day shift time is spent writing work orders for the night crew, shepherding projects through the maze of required approvals and occasionally building new servers in the burn-in room for later installation in the data center by the night guys. It has been all to easy to forget the simple pleasures of replacing failed disks, upgrading applications and configuring networks.
I think I'd be a happier person, career-wise anyway, if I worked the night shift rather than day. I wouldn't have to attend the often-pointless meetings or deal with clueless people quite as often. I could spend my time working directly with the systems, the aspect of my job I find most enjoyable. And our night crew gets a 15% pay bonus above the day crew.
The downsides are numerous, of course. There isn't a restaurant open within miles so I can only eat what I care to pack & carry in. My current reverse commute would suddenly coincide with the mass of people driving into DC every morning. If I need feedback or managerial approval for some action, it has to wait for the day shift. Working nights would mean much of my social life would grind to a halt, especially if it meant working weekends too. I couldn't travel as much: the loss of a single systems administrator among many during the daylight shift for a day is no big deal but it's a significant portion of lost manpower during the sparse night shifts. And Kent would have a fit: if he kept his current hours, we'd overlap about 4 hours in the evening and perhaps 1 hour in the morning as our paths periodically crossed.
At the moment, I don't see how I could make it work, but it does remain a pleasant daydream.
Overall, it was uneventful: I patched the OS on seven servers, Upgraded the Veritas volume & file system packages on four, rebooted four firewalls, re-racked a disk array and created a handful of file systems. I was hoping to have some extra time to catch up on some reports, but that didn't materialize. The work orders for tomorrow night seem hefty but the third night looks like it will have plenty of slack time.
I like some aspects of working nights. Primarily, it's quiet. Well, the fire alarm testing periodically through the night wasn't but that's only for tonight. The general background noise of people in their cubes is missing; I haven't had any telephone calls or pages. Because significant system changes only happen at nights or on weekends, this is also the first time in months I've had a chance to get my hands dirty on active systems; most of my day shift time is spent writing work orders for the night crew, shepherding projects through the maze of required approvals and occasionally building new servers in the burn-in room for later installation in the data center by the night guys. It has been all to easy to forget the simple pleasures of replacing failed disks, upgrading applications and configuring networks.
I think I'd be a happier person, career-wise anyway, if I worked the night shift rather than day. I wouldn't have to attend the often-pointless meetings or deal with clueless people quite as often. I could spend my time working directly with the systems, the aspect of my job I find most enjoyable. And our night crew gets a 15% pay bonus above the day crew.
The downsides are numerous, of course. There isn't a restaurant open within miles so I can only eat what I care to pack & carry in. My current reverse commute would suddenly coincide with the mass of people driving into DC every morning. If I need feedback or managerial approval for some action, it has to wait for the day shift. Working nights would mean much of my social life would grind to a halt, especially if it meant working weekends too. I couldn't travel as much: the loss of a single systems administrator among many during the daylight shift for a day is no big deal but it's a significant portion of lost manpower during the sparse night shifts. And Kent would have a fit: if he kept his current hours, we'd overlap about 4 hours in the evening and perhaps 1 hour in the morning as our paths periodically crossed.
At the moment, I don't see how I could make it work, but it does remain a pleasant daydream.
