Dec 3, 2014
For most of my life I have been a night owl. Many who have seen me early in the morning can attest to that. I remember one paramedic who was on modified duty that would come in shortly after I did for my 6:30am supervisor day shift. He would occasionally get up from his desk and check the volume of my 24oz coffee cup that came to work with me every morning. On most occasions he would not address me until it was at least half empty.
I am better now today than I have been in the past. I can’t seem to sleep past 8am on my days off. On mornings when I do have to be at work at 8am, I am usually up by 6:30 at the latest. Still though, I consider myself a night owl.
Before I got promoted, I worked for about four and a half years on overnights. I worked a lot during the day as well because I have always been a person who works a lot of overtime, but the core of my schedule involved me being at work while most of the work slept. There has always been something that is very appealing about overnights to me. Traffic is almost non-existent. Nurses at the ER’s seem to have a different sense of humor, and a different outlook all together on society. And let’s face it: the lack of administration and some of the extra red tape that comes along with day shifts just is not there.
It took a special person to work overnights on the ambulance as well. When you are street corner posting at 4am, your body fights you. It wants to sleep, and it wants to pass out but that is not always possible. I have always found that those who work exclusively on the overnight seem to respond better when they wake up for a run, or are asked to operate at long stand bys. They are not winning the fight against their body’s desire to sleep but they are doing better than most people do.
The big problem that I saw for years was the overnight crews were often forgotten. When it came time for holiday dinners most of them were met with scraps and leftovers when they came through the door for their shift. While not having administration around can be a plus, overnight crews do not get the positive face time with leadership that others might get.
All is not lost though. This is where shift leadership and middle management comes in. It is the responsibility of a crew’s direct supervisor to make sure that they are getting the attention that they need, especially when it comes to the largely under-represented overnight crews.
As the Christmas holiday approaches, make sure that your crews are taken care of. Make sure that they realized that their commitment to work a shift that his largely seen as undesirable is appreciated. Make sure that they have a warm plate of food when they come in to work for their late shift, and make sure that you say “thank you” to them for all that they do.
As a former supervisor, and a long time overnight medic and EMT, I would like to say thank you to all of those crews that are there for their community at 3am when someone needs them. Without your commitment, the citizens that you protect would be worse off.