I had the privilege of starting a being a new manager in a new department at the airport.
We were liaisons between the airline and the airport authority. The job meant keeping as constant a presence in their operations centre as possible.
We had a great boss. He allowed the 3 of us to create the schedule we wanted as long as we met certain criteria:
- All work the same amount of time
- 9 hour shifts
- Cover as much of the operating day as possible
- Everyone needed to work the same amount of days & evenings
Vacations would be covered with relief managers from other departments so we were only looking to great a schedule that suited a routine working week.
This flexibility was welcome, especially by me. As I was looking to create longer weekends to fly away more often and use my cool airline flight benefits.
The standard shift was a 6 & 3.
This was 6 morning shifts, then 3 days off, then 6 evening shifts, then 3 days off
The workweeks were exceptionally long with 6x 9 hour shifts in a row. But the 3 day weekends were supposed to make up for it.
The other issue was Days vs Evenings. Days at the airport were markedly easier than Evenings. Day shift always had the evening shift to relieve them. Whereas the evening shift stayed till things wer put to bed, often staying longer. This mean 6x 9 hour (OR LONGER) shifts in a row could be hell.
This also raises a common issue no matter the pattern. Short changeovers. Going from Days to the weekend to Eves felt like a extralong weekend. Whereas finishing at midnight on your last day on and starting at 5 am on your 1st day in was hell.
The solution to this was supposedly a 4&2. This shorted the workweek while also shortening the weekend. The psychologically trickery at play here was comparing a 4&2 to a usually 5&2. This made it feel like a steal compared to normies. However, looking closer more was going on. The 9 hour shifts meant it was more like a 4.5 & 2. Also, many had grown used to the 3 day weekends so travel was an option. Going from a evening to a day shift week was effectively only 1 day off.
This was the extent of what the company would do on our behalf. But we had other tricks up our sleeves: working doubles. Sure, an 18-hour shift was the edge of tolerable, but it bought a precious extra day off.
Double shifts were on the edge of acceptable, but the company couldn’t ban them as they counted on asking managers to work doubles to backfill last minute sick calls.
Using the 4&2 as a base, the natural extreme was working 2 doubles in a row to get 4 days. We called this the 2&4. It worked in a pinch, but working 2x 18 hour shifts in a row with 6 hours in between was OK for 24 year old me, but hella tough for my colleges in their 50s.
We could tweak it for more of a balance:
Introducing my invention - the 3-4-3-2.
Here is a typical cycle: You work 3 days - 2 mornings & a double. Then you get 4 days off. You come back to a double, but then you get a long sleep into 2 evening shifts. You get a short weekend into days, but by then you’re looking ahead at your next 4 day weekend.
The tweaks that made this work: Not working 2 doubles in a row. Not needing to go short on sleep into or out of a double.
And the best part: it allowed me to take 2-3 4 day trips a month. For an airline brat, this is ample time.
Europe & Asia, leave day 1, arrive day 2, sleep 2 nights, depart day 4.
South America usually left late at night, so sometimes I could sneak out (with permision) to take a flight the night of my double and sleep in a business class seat instead of my shared apartment with my parents
