What is a “graveyard shift”? And what Hours is it usually?

What hours would you consider “3rd shift” at a job? Or if your job was “24 hours always open”: What hours would be the “graveyard shift”? Or the late hours? I hear people say like 10pm-6am? Or like 12am-8am? Or maybe like 11pm-7am? What hours on clock would you say is “FOR SURE” marked as “graveyard shift” working hours? Thanks

 

11pm - 7am is typical 3rd shift. But today, who knows....we just hope somebody shows up.

I think the grave yard shift may have come out of the 1918 pandemic.....my grandmother said so many people were dying then, they had graveside funerals at night just to be able to handle the volume.

 

Night shift work is associated with increased mortality, particularly in male white-collar workers.
"Graveyard shift" indeed.
Night work, mortality, and the link to occupational group and sex

 

i like odd shifts and odd days off that come with them. midnight to 8 am is usually what graveyard used to mean anyway.
they're inconvenient if you like being around a lot of friends or want to, but for someone like me, who's social inclinations more closely resemble those of a cat, for me it was just fine.
you get to be home when all your neighbors are at work and its mostly quiet.

if we want there to be infrastructure 24/7, somebody has to work those hours.
little things, like electric power at the wall outlet. hvac. running water and so on.

 

In theory I see graveyard shifts as oddly romantic--they sound like the sort of shifts vampires would work. But yes, in reality most humans are not wired to work that sort of shift. I can definitely see the appeal for mega night-owls though (or vampires!)

 

Worked an ambulance 1700-0500 Friday through Tuesday. I'd be OK if I could get to bed before sunrise; If I had a late call and came home in daylight, I couldn't get to sleep, no matter how much tinfoil was taped up to my windows.

 

I can't remember the last time I listened to broadcast radio...just being bombarded with non stop commercials and yacking....nope.

 

Or they'd play the long "album version" of a song.....that's when we figured the DJ was a bathroom break.....nope, I'm done with broadcast radio and network tv...and with the build up to the 2024 election, it will be non stop screaming smear ads.

 

As a shift, it is normally associated with the emergency services, hospitals and utilities companies, who work rotating shifts.
Other industries, such as theaters, work odd hours, but not on rotating shifts. 24 hour shops, normally have specific night staff.

 

I worked third shift in the resataurant industry once from 9 p.m to 9 a.m. late night shift is usually from 5 pm to 2 am and you might see it for the closing shift in a bar.

If i owned a business that needed to operate 24 hours I would schedule third shift from midnight to 8 am. But that would mean second shift would last until midnight.

 

in industry with a good union, where a job requires someone there around the clock, the day is devided into 8-4 (day shift), 4-midnight (swing shift), and midnight to 8a (graveyard)
often there is an additional shift that works everybody else's days off, so the everyone can have two consecutive days of them, just not the same two as each other.
this still leaves one shift unfilled per week. they used solve this by having a travelling releaf and have those left over days be on different days at different sites.

i worked an 11p to 7a shift in a cassino once in the early 70s. another interesting one, when i was helper on a mineral core sample drill rig was we worked 4 12houe shifts per week and had 3 days off every week, plus having not just 40 hours in, but 48! we worked, there were two of us, each 12 hour shift opposite each other. this left two days sitting idle. but this was one that didn't have to be continus as long as the steel got pulled so it woundn't jam. that was the one where i communed with the wildlife while filling the water truck.