Stress and OT

[Helen]

I just did a 29 hour stretch at work over the weekend. We upgraded our financial systems. We were down to two people trying to get the system upgrade to work and had two hours before the deadline when we got the last piece to work. Otherwise, we would have had to revert back to the old system and throw away hundreds of hours of work.

On one hand it was a thrill since it turned out ok - we were heros. On the other hand, I won't miss this **** at all when I retire. The hardest part is having to return to work and continue to focus when I'm exhausted. We are prepping for the next upgrade and fine tuning the bugs in the new system.

At one point, I turned to the woman I was working with around 5am and said, "Do you ever dream of retirement ?" She looked at me with an exhausted look and said, "All the time."

I'm turning 50 this year and all nighters take a heavier toll than they use to. I'm so glad I won't be doing this when I'm in my 60's.

Anyone else pull long shifts under intense stress ?

 

[crazy connie]

Oh I remember them well!!! I worked in telco and we did massive client cutovers all the time. Many times from Friday at 5pm right thru till Sunday. Moving a Data Center for a Bank or Brokerage House was just too much fun. I also retired within weeks of being eligible.

 

[SC]

Anyone else pull long shifts under intense stress ?

Yes, the job required 80+ hour work weeks, for two or three months at a time, about once a year. Plus the occasional weekend like you had.

Like you said, it was sometimes rewarding to be the hero, but it took a toll. It's been over a year since I quit and I still feel burned out from the experience. I'd rather stock shelves than do that again.

I'm not sure which is the more amazing to me: that highly skilled people are expected to work those extra hours (usually unpaid!), or that they go along with it!

 

[CyclingInvestor]

I did as many as I could back in aerospace when we aere paid OT for
them. Once the OT went away, I was generally unavailable.

 

[Leonidas]

Anyone else pull long shifts under intense stress ?

It was a way of life. The longest continuous time I ever worked was 56 hours, and the most I ever worked in a week was around 130 hours.

Our pension system sent out an email just the other day reminding us that depending on overtime was dangerous...

Having the ability to tap into overtime pay can be a wonderful thing. When the unexpected happens, it's there to provide additional cash flow. It can help keep credit card balances under control, and pay for nice vacations. But while it can be the solution to a variety of life's challenges, it can create a few problems of its own.

I spent a lot of time away from the family (that I'm making up for now) but all the overtime allowed us to pay for a nice house and it boosted my pension tremendously.

 

[Outtahere]

I remember those all nighters trying to get an upgrade to work or changing equipment that didn't want to cooperate. I refuse to do those things now, if I have to pull the system down it's done during daylight/normal hours and people just have to get a grip and deal with it.

 

[Moemg]

As a nurse i routinely worked twelve or more hours and lots of allnighters . It's definitely an adrenalin rush to spend all night in an operating room saving lives . Exciting ,yes ,Stressful .Oh yes !!

 

[Nords]

Operational Reactor Safeguards Exams run for the benefit of naval nuclear safety and those helpful guys enjoying their "shore duty" tour at the Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board.

Submarines would practice their nuclear-engineering skills every weekday morning year-round and crank it up a notch in the couple weeks before the day of the big inspection. Hopefully you got through your preps checklist with minimal damage (both material and personnel). Maybe the squadron would deem a particular crew was in need of a little more supervision or "extra" time to prepare (more hours per day, not a postponement). Usually the material/troubleshooting costs of "working up the plant", contending with "supervisory assistance", and last-minute cleaning would guarantee that you'd greet the big day already about 24 hours in the sleep hole.

Surface at 3 AM and station the maneuvering watch. Go to the channel entrance, pick up the team at 7 AM, and go back out to sea. Start the record reviews over breakfast and wrap them up by lunch. Discuss the afternoon's plans over gourmet cheeseburgers. Brief the drills at 12:30, hopefully kick them off by 1:30, and end with the plant in total disarray its expected condition by 4:30. Demonstrate that the watchstanders know how to operate in an abnormal condition to see if you can really screw things up for a while, then recover the plant by dinner. While that's happening back aft, up forward you're administering written level-of-knowledge exams and addressing whatever issues cropped up during the record reviews. Reflect on a successful day while sharing surf & turf and witty conversation with the NPEB. On the evening watch you're recovering from an unexpected reactor scram as the NPEB looks on with interest finishing up LOK interviews or accidentally spraying reactor coolant on an inspector demonstrating a routine evolution and discussing the last of the record reviews. Even the galley team helps by whipping up tempting concoctions designed to put the NPEB in a carb coma good mood, and the logistics guys demonstrate their skills at searching frantically showing the NPEB where they keep the nuclear left-handed widgets in ready storage to repair the plant or to replace a vital part. Whatever can be found or fixed overnight won't be a recorded deficiency in the final report, so the midwatch performance pressure is pretty high. The next morning you conclude the interviews, go over the LOK exam results with the CO and the NPEB, and do the final outbrief. Get 'em off the boat at the channel entrance and return to the pier covered in glory.

Gumby is laughing his assets off by now at my optimistic assessment of the way life should have been. The reality is that the record reviews are only 30% finished by lunch, the drill brief goes until 3 PM, the plant is usually broke hard by 4 PM so the drills have to be canceled pending troubleshooting/repairs, and the NPEB spends the evening going back over your records with a microscope to see if you're really as screwed up as your drill briefs & plant performance seem to indicate. If you're in the engineering department then you're doing administrative damage control (hopefully not the real thing with fire extinguishers or flooding repair kits) all night. If you're not in the engineering department then you're "supporting the crew" by standing their watches all night while they're scrambling to save their careers. It's not unusual to be running the last of the drills at 9 PM and hoping to demonstrate your plant-recovery skills the next morning. The written exams can always be "taken care of on the midwatch".

By the next afternoon you'd have been up for at least 48 hours, trying to stay awake during the exam outbrief while the NPEB grudgingly admitted that maybe you didn't quite fail this time but that they'd be keeping an eye on you while the squadron staff glared at you with clenched jaws. OK, see you all next year! Liberty, anyone?

I thought the exam process was designed to make us look forward to combat. At least then you could kill people and break things for pay & rewards, not "pending corrective action".

I used to hate what the NPEB would "do" to our lives-- a very adversarial relationship. As I became more senior and actually got to know some of the guys who'd had an NPEB tour I realized that their life sucked even worse than ours. Sub crews only had to go through that upheaval about once a year, but the NPEB did 30-40 ORSEs a year with at least one inspection failure to hand out and endless pressure to "keep up the standards". (During one ORSE evolution at my training command we heard something fall at the back of the room and turned around to see the inspector sleeping soundly on his notepad.) I'm sure that today's ORSE drills make mine look like naptime at Romper Room.

Five years after my last ORSE I'm still surprised by my ability to tolerate highly caffeinated beverages chronic & acute fatigue. But now I can appreciate the price I'll pay for it.

 

[DRiP Guy]

"I thought the exam process was designed to make us look forward to combat. At least then you could kill people and break things for pay & rewards, not "pending corrective action"."

 

[USK Coastie]

I feel for you Nords. My last assignmet was Engineering Team Leader Afloat Training Group Pacific. As a Coastie I usually ran CART teams on Coast Guard Cutters on the West Coast. As a reservist It was not full time but several team members were regular Navy. I can relate to the pressures from above to ensure that we were not letting anything slide by. A ship showing up at REFTRA in SD or Hawaii unprepared was seen as we were not being as acurate in our reports as we should be. The regulars traved one week on, one weel in SD for training and BUPERS review to see what had changed in the regs.
Several CART's ran very close to your discription
Before meeting team at ship, put in 9-10m hours at work , go to airport catch airplane to ship's home port. Arrive 1800-2200. Get to hotel look up team members make sure all are there that should be, assign tasks for CART do preCART paperwork review BUPERS changes, Hit rack 0200 or so.
Day 1: Show up and in brief at 0700. Document review 0800-1200, underway 1300 meet with training team to brief their drills. 1400 - ? conduct and grade engineeering, navigation, gunnery, man overboad drills. ?- O dark thiry write up first day and try to get something to eat before everything is closed up.
Day 2: 0600 over the brow for breakfast with ships trainers discuss previous day. Underway 0730. 0800 - ? Engineering drills cascading to Main Space fire and abandon ship. As well as additional Nav, gunnery drills etc. etc. ? - 0 dark thiry write up reports verify conclusions of report with team members.
Day 3: Over the brow at 0800 for out brief, depart vessel at 1200 try to catch your flight back home. Get home 0 dark thiry, up at 0500 to go to civilian job. Get flack from coworkers about my"vacation".
Yea, yea lots o fun. Knowing your reports could/would/ did end carreers of some individuals not so much fun unless it was deserved.

 

[Nords]

My last assignmet was Engineering Team Leader Afloat Training Group Pacific.

My final tour was at NSTCP's Ford Island Engineering Department, right next door to ATG's building. Their XO and I had a great time solving all the Navy's training issues... and we each felt very lucky not to have the other guy's job.