Working on a morning show, I would try to sleep in four-hour shifts — afternoons and midnight-4am.  And I would sleep in on weekends.

Wow, those answers are interesting. And very different! I guess there is no one way to handle what is essentially a disruption to any normal routine. 

In thinking back, I realize I faced this dilemma just once. I remember now that I once worked a 3 month overnight shift at a newsroom a very long time ago. I stayed up all night on my weekends, mainly because I wanted to get into a pattern. But staying awake was a challenge. I remember how lonely those days off were in the pre-computer/Internet era. There was no one you could call at 3 in the morning and nowhere you could really go. It was very isolating.

This was long before Sunday shopping was given the green light in Ontario. I remember coming out of the building at 6 am on a summer weekend to a completely dead downtown Toronto. There were very few cars, there was almost no noise and you could hear the sound of trees swaying in the breeze. Hardly the way you'd think of the big city today. It was almost surreal.

Also, I recall now the question of what to eat when you got home from your shift at 7 in the morning, not long before going to bed. Was it breakfast or dinner? It's amazing how your world gets turned upside down by being on the wrong end of the clock.

But John Donabie is right - until you're on a different schedule, you never get over the fatigue.

Mike Cleaver wrote:

  
 
 I still automatically wake up at 3:30 every morning but go right back to sleep again.
   

Me too!!

Only difference being I gotta' get up and take a leak

As rough as the morning drive sked can be, at least you have a small window at a normal life - even if you have to be in bed by say 8 or 9 PM. It's the long term overnight people I always felt sorry for. Everybody's heading to work just as they're going home, presumably exhausted from being up all night. They have to sleep when it's light out, which is especially hard during the summer months and their schedule is always just a little bit off.  

Still, some people are made for what I used to call the 'vampire' shift. It's one of the reasons veteran newsman Bill Marshall was popular at The Canadian Press - he wanted to work the all-nighters and did so for years, until his recent retirement. If he was there, someone else didn't have to be.(And there was the bonus of never being there when management came to work.) I'm betting they were all sorry to see him go!

Of course, with automation and cutbacks, there are a lot fewer overnight positions around now than there used to be.

At my favourite job, I was 20 and had to be at work at 5:00 a.m. on Saturdays, 6:45 a.m. on Sundays, 4:15 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays, and 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  I didn't get paid for Monday and Tuesday, and left just after I got off the air at 6:00 p.m.

It just didn't make sense to get up at 3:45 a.m. every other morning just because I had to on Saturdays.