0162C: Living In the Nation of Night Shift

Tobie is on a new work schedule ever since things stepped up over at his game developer job at Indigo Entertainment. That means less time for us to be together at home, but I can't really complain since there are couples who have even less quality time than we do. The main difference is that Tobie was a predominantly work-from-home kind of guy up until recently and now he's actually reporting for work at his Makati office now. It sort of stresses the fact that we operate on different time zones - he works in the day while I work at night. But through the wonders of technology and some good old-fashioned hard work, we're able to keep things in balance without going with crazy.

Admittedly my new HTC One is proving to be most handy. Having so many communication options like Google Hangouts working pretty well on my phone alongside Facebook and basic call and text functions is a good deal indeed. Yay for the amazing power of current smartphones.

When you make that decision to take a night shift job like with a call center, at times it feels like you've moved to a different plane of existence - like an alien planet or at least another country. Scheduling activities together is hard as heck since you're either asleep or still at work when folks want to go out. A lot of things tend to happen on Saturdays and the only reasonable way for one to join such activities would be to not get any sleep right after shift and to stay away as long as you can.

There's no concept of catching a drink after work since for you that's before lunchtime and for their work it'll be your breakfast time. At least there's social media that allows you to talk and keep updated but arranging a meet-up is next to impossible since everyone else is working on a different time table. The few times that you do make that sacrifice and turn your schedule upside to return to the normal world, you'll end up struggling to get back on the proper night shift alignment come the next Monday shift.

And people don't always understand how that works. Instead all they can think of is how you never show up at their meet-ups and hangouts and why it's so darned important when you do extend invites of your own in the hopes of find a middle ground.

Living in the Nation of Night shift is never easy and you tend to seek solace and company from fellow night shift dwellers. At least they can understand what you're going through and they're past thinking that it's weird to have a few beers as the high noon sun blazes overhead. This is why the main social activities that Tobie and I get into are tabletop RPG sessions and nights at O Bar. Hardcore gamers are prepared to game through the night while the club scene is naturally most active at night - which is like your daytime.

I wish things were different, but it's not easy to escape the Nation of the Night Shift. Jobs pay a lot better there compared to the daytime world and it's hard to say no to money in this economy. Every day as I walk home I see lines and lines of people queued at placement offices hoping for a job. So who am I to say no to that? Thus we convince ourselves that given enough time, we'll earn enough money to live comfortably back in the daytime world.

One day.