After working the night shift for two years I was miserable. Toward the end of that long grueling trial I was willing to take almost any job I could get, including one where I would be on call essentially all hours of the day and night. I gave serious consideration to some very undesirable positions.
During that time I also made a written resolution to myself that I would not support night work, and would never adopt the attitude, “I did it, so why can’t they?” Thus I try to avoid shopping at grocery stores late at night; I avoid late-night food deliveries and even late check-ins at parks and hotels (admittedly this is easier because I have a normal schedule now).
However, I also order from Amazon a lot, and Amazon is opening a giant order fulfillment center in the region. I saw an ad for a hiring event where they specifically sought part-time overnight positions.
So supporting night shift work is difficult to avoid! The economy is so complex, and parts of it are so invisible, that it is impossible to make fully informed, deliberate choices about what you vote for with your money. This is true for both social and environmental considerations in one’s purchases. Being deliberate, a quality I prize, is hard. A friend – retail insider – confirmed that Amazon hires part-time in order to keep costs down.
Additionally when I worked overnights I had the slight comfort that it was in healthcare that I worked and that people needed those services regardless of the hour. But Amazon is about low-wage warehouse jobs, and it is totally frivolous to demand that I get my headphones/pocket knife/coffee beans in one day instead of in three, at the expense of someone’s health, family life, and so on.
I don’t have a solution, except to acknowledge that those considerations are partly accounted for in the price of the items. If people become increasingly aware of the damage and misery of night shift work, then they will demand higher wages for it, and the cost of one-day shipping and round-the-clock service will increase, and then demand for night work will go down.
But this is imperfect. Workers are not empowered to demand higher wages like they should be. And I only did the night shift because I felt trapped. So I think if the science advances enough to demonstrate the harm of night shift work, and those harms become widely understood, then comprehensive night worker protections should be detailed in the law.
pseudoisaac 