I am at the stage of job searching where I'm going "help? Advice???" So, I have two potential offers right now. One is 12 hour day shifts, with 3 weeks in a row working and two weeks off. It will give me experience in a corner of the industry I don't already have experience in yet. The other is also 12 hour shifts, but it's 1 week night shifts, day off, 1 week day shifts, then two weeks off. It is in a corner of the industry I already know I like. I know from experience that I can handle 12 hour day shifts. Which would you recommend?
I haven't had any personal experience with rotating shifts like the second one, but I've heard from a friend who has that they can be absolute murder if you can't shift sleep schedules fast enough.
The 3 weeks day, 2 weeks off one sounds better on paper, especially since it doesn't require you live on backwards time at all. It depends entirely on which you find harder, early mornings or shifting your sleep pattern regularly (a week is a very forgiving time to shift over even going from night to day, tbh). It's a good thing that the one that is more regular is the one where you would be in a new situation. ... Unless you're one of the few people who naturally lives on backwards time (like me) who find getting up early just fucking impossible in general. Edit: oh wait I misread that. Yeah no going from night to day with just one day buffer is really fucking hard unless you've worked alternating shifts for a good long while. The long day shift one is just flatly better.
Do no under estimate the impact of working such long days for such a long time in a row. I know for me personally it would not be pretty if I had to work 21 days in one go without any time off, and there's good reason that that is illegal in a lot of the world.
Unfortunately with entry level geology jobs right now... There's plenty, but they all have Something up with them. (Or alternatively hire someone else...)
