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When some people are sleeping in the middle of the night, Emily Sorgenfrei is wide awake watching them.
For the past eight years, the night-sleep technician at the Sleep Disorder Center at St. Joseph Hospital has monitored sleeping patients from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., looking for symptoms of nearly 90 sleep disorders.
When her shift ends and patients head to work, it’s time for Sorgenfrei, 29, to get some sleep. But no one is around to monitor her sleep.
According to 2004 figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 3 million Americans working “graveyard hours.” An additional 4 million people work evening shifts after 6 p.m.
The labor bureau classifies graveyard hours as 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
“When I started, it was difficult getting used to working the hours since I had been working on a day-shift job,” says Sorgenfrei, adding that her shift fits her lifestyle because she is single and doesn’t have children.
“It took me about three months to get used to it. What I like about it is, during the day, I can schedule appointments and get things done without taking days off from work. The down side is my friends and family have to sometimes work around my schedule. When they’re sleep, I am at work. When they’re at work, I am home asleep. It’s not easy for someone to do.”
Some workers are classified as night owls (those who can function until 3 a.m. to 4 a.m.) or larks (those who rise early, around 5 a.m.), says Andrew Moore-Ede of Circadian Technologies Inc., a Massachusetts-based consulting and research firm that studies businesses that operate 24/7. Moore-Ede, director of publications, says that about 20 percent of businesses offer instruction or training when it comes to placing employees on an evening or graveyard shift.
“You have to offer shift-work-specific training, otherwise you will have employees showing up looking like zombies,” Moore-Ede says during a phone interview. “The fastest-growing population of employers are 24/7 businesses. It’s time to embrace the idea.
“For an employee to do well, you have to match their shift with their sleep personality. Taking someone from morning to night is a difficult transition. You have to ease their body into the routine. The challenge is daytime sleep. You are sleeping when your body says you should be awake, and you are awake when your body says you should be sleeping. You have to educate employees to the lifestyle of a third-shift employee. It would be a great investment for a company to make.”
Labor statistics indicate that many employees who are working graveyard/evening shifts are employed in blue-collar work – protective services, food services, cleaning services and factory work.
One Fort Wayne woman saw a need among late-night workers and responded by establishing a childcare center.
This year, after finding many parents were working jobs outside the traditional 9-to-5 shift, Brenda M. White started White’s Tykes at the White’s School of the Arts, 2700 E. Maple Grove Ave.
The school is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
“This is my dream. There was nothing like this in Fort Wayne, and I knew it was needed,” says White, adding that the same curriculum and activities children receive in the day hours are offered in the evening.
“This is great for a lot of parents who don’t work first shift,” says Kimmey DeFord, whose daughter attends the child-care center. “I don’t know how many other places do this, but I know it can help out a lot of parents needing child care.”
“So far, we have been running very smooth,” White says. “I found the biggest need (for child care) to be on the second shift, holidays and when schools have their breaks.”
White has 24 employees prepared to work any shift needed.
One city employment agency says filling two of her three shifts is not a problem.
Nancy Steigmeyer, regional manager for Time Services, says her agency’s “biggest challenge is finding workers to fill second shift. That is the hardest shift to fill, especially for people with families. That shift takes time away from families. We don’t have problems filling first and third shift. I’ve found people like the third shift because they work Sunday through Thursday and get a full weekend off. They use that time to their advantage.”
Although working an evening or late-night shift might be an advantage, it can also pose some medical risks.
In 2001, Dr. Scott Davis, a member of the Fred Hutchinson Center’s Public Health Services Division in Seattle, completed a study showing that women working the graveyard shift had a 60 percent increased risk of getting breast cancer compared with women who worked daytime hours.
The study of 800 Seattle-area women investigated the relationship between breast-cancer risk and exposure to light at night determined by sleep habits, bedroom lighting and graveyard-shift workers, says Davis during a telephone interview.
Davis says the cancer risk increases for graveyard-shift workers because they are “exposed to light at night while the other women are being exposed to dark. It is a topic that has generated great interest on night-shift workers.”
Davis and his colleagues have completed a two-year study focusing on third-shift female workers. This study compares what happens to the hormone levels of women who work at night with the levels of day-timers.
He also is planning a prostate cancer study of third-shift male workers.
But for Keri Leslie, the only health issue she has had while working third shift is shoveling snow.
Leslie, operations assistant at the Best Western Auburn Inn, says that when she works third shift “there are not a lot of problems. We are doing the night audit, express checkout and baking for breakfast.”
Although she works days as well, when Leslie works third shift she notices “the phone does not ring off the hook, and it’s such a slower pace. You could go the whole shift and not see anyone the entire shift.”
Leslie also trains employees to work the graveyard shift. Some employees prefer the late hours if their husbands work the same hours at a local factory, she says. And some people prefer it because they “don’t like being around people. But, that’s not me at all. I love being around people.”
Just not snow.
“We get a lot of business travelers in here,” Leslie says. “I would have to say summer and weekends are busy for us with running the hotel and guest services.
“But winter? When it snows? It’s no fun going out there at 3 a.m. to shovel snow – no fun at all. Then, I would rather be on first shift.”
kjackson@jg.net
