Random LJ hit. I hope you don't mind my butting in, but I sometimes browse other Maryland journals in the middle of the night, and you had the icon that said, "most likely not to be an annoying teenager". So, I just wanted to comment that in the network/computer industry, it seems that the world is geared towards people who can operate on *any* sleep schedule, 24 hours a day, 76 days a week, whether they are responsible for carrying a pager, or covering a graveyard shift (my particular hell). The only other group of people I can think of that have to put up with this are medical personnel. In this field, it seems like the more sleep-deprived you can make yourself, the more you can impress the people in control. I know people whose schedules change every quarter, people whose schedules never change, and people who are called at 3am on a sunday morning to make sure procedure is followed and technical escalations are dealt with.
All that said, I don't think I disagree with you at all; workplaces can, I feel, afford to be more flexible to accomodate their employees. Strictly speaking, I am willing to bet that we could all ratchet ourselves down to 30 hour weeks if things were orchestrated correctly. And I do NOT think that people have respect for the sanctity of a healthy sleep schedule.
Sorry to rant *back* at you, but you touched on a subject close to my heart for the past year. I'll go back to propping my eyelids open with toothpicks now. :)
Don't mind your butting in (at least I know somebody read it!), and in fact you brought up some points I should incorporate into that essay ifwhen I get around to finishing and posting it. Yes, before fibromyalgia put the brakes on, I did my share of all-nighters, and *sometimes* the only way to avoid getting the "so why isn't he in on time anyhow?" was to make sure I was still there when everyone else showed up so I could say, "Hi, I pulled an all-nighter, I'm going home now." Except that even then, it was often, "Well since you're still here, do this one 'small' thing before you go..."
(I'm in computers. The sleep deprivation in the medical professsion and its effect on quality of care I'm aware of only through reading about it. But that's enough to be rather scary.)
BTW, I like the picture you used on your followup. MD RenFest, I presume? (I haven't performed there in the past couple years, but you might have seen me with Thrir Venstri Foetr (Three Left Feet) (http://www.radix.net/~dglenn/bands/tvf.html) before then -- usually in between the information kiosk and the glassblower.
(no subject)
All that said, I don't think I disagree with you at all; workplaces can, I feel, afford to be more flexible to accomodate their employees. Strictly speaking, I am willing to bet that we could all ratchet ourselves down to 30 hour weeks if things were orchestrated correctly. And I do NOT think that people have respect for the sanctity of a healthy sleep schedule.
Sorry to rant *back* at you, but you touched on a subject close to my heart for the past year. I'll go back to propping my eyelids open with toothpicks now. :)
(no subject)
(I'm in computers. The sleep deprivation in the medical professsion and its effect on quality of care I'm aware of only through reading about it. But that's enough to be rather scary.)
BTW, I like the picture you used on your followup. MD RenFest, I presume? (I haven't performed there in the past couple years, but you might have seen me with Thrir Venstri Foetr (Three Left Feet) (http://www.radix.net/~dglenn/bands/tvf.html) before then -- usually in between the information kiosk and the glassblower.