18 Things Only People Who Work Graveyard Shifts Understand

1. Naps are your lifeblood, and without them you would have died from exhaustion and lack of sleep years ago.

2. Glass of wine at 9am to unwind after a long night at work? Yes please.

3. You’ve experienced the dread of working during daylight savings time, and watching as 1:59am clicks over to 1:00am and you’re still off at 8am, regardless of the extra invisible hour that was just added to your shift.

4. But you’ve also experienced the unspeakable joy that comes with watching 1:59am click to 3:00am, so it evens out.

5. You live in a constant state of FOMO, and reviewing your friend’s Instagram after you get off a Friday night shift is something you always tell yourself you’re not going to do, and end up doing anyway.

6. Concerts? LOL. Unless The Wiggles are having a mid-afternoon sing-a-long in the park, you’re probably not going to be able to make it.

7. Even people that know you work night shifts still sound appalled when they call you at 1pm and you’re still sleeping. You always have to explain that you got off work four hours ago, and finally went to bed two hours ago, so they should really call back in six hours if they don’t want you to sound like a bitter zombie.

8. When you’re on your break and check social media, you can pretty much see a tumbleweed cross your newsfeed, because everyone else went to bed hours ago.

9. You’ve learned the skill of sleeping through anything as a matter of survival. If you didn’t figure out how to block out the sounds of civilization, you would never sleep. This has backfired on you several times, and resulted in you sleeping through important phone calls or fire alarms.

10. Being awake for 24+ hours isn’t unusual for you anymore, because if you have any errands or appointments, they’ll need to be done during the daytime hours when the rest of society is working. Work + errands = wut is sleep.

11. If you ever need to take a day off to go to an out-of-town wedding, you have to make sure to use two vacation days (read: nights) just to cover the one day.

12. Breakfast is at 6pm, lunch at midnight, snacks happen between 3 and 4 am, and you’ll sit down to dinner bright and early at 7am.

13. When friends want to hang out on your days off, they still don’t totally understand why you’re so tired all the time. Sure, you didn’t have to be up until 4am last night, but your body isn’t adjusted to regular people hours! Noon will forever feel like the dead of night to you, regardless of days off.

14. You’re on a first name basis with the late-night delivery guy that brings you lunch at 2am.

15. Whenever your friends want to go out for drinks after work, you always have to opt for a quick stop by before going to work. If you’re feeling crazy, you might help yourself to a small drink, but you’re heading to work, so you’re really just there as a formality to prove to your friends that you’re still alive.

16. One of the greatest perks of your job is hearing about the hordes of people your friends have to deal with at work, and knowing that you usually only have to deal with a fraction of that, because most people are asleep.

17. If your significant other works normal business hours, you can basically say “goodbye” to seeing them for an extended period of time that doesn’t include one of you wondering when you can go to sleep.

18. You get a sick satisfaction from walking home from work and overhearing everyone else complain about heading off to work. You’re just standing there thinking, “Suckers, I’m going to bed.”