I’ve worked 2nd (afternoon), swing (evening), and 3rd (overnight) shifts for the majority of my life. I recently moved into a training position where I’m Monday through Friday, 8am to ~5:30pm (I get OT while I’m cleaning up and writing reports).
As much as the 2nd/swing/3rd shifts screw with your life in other ways, the difficulty in scheduling any kind of life services outside of working hours is maddening. Doctor’s appointment? Nope. DMV? Maybe Saturday, if you’re lucky. Chaperone your kids field trip? Hahahhah no.
I don’t want to burn sick time for a doctor’s appointment (I need to save those for when my kid is actually sick), and I sure as hell don’t want to use up a “vacation” day for it. How tf are you supposed to get anything done?
2x20 sounds like a recipe for disaster, but I know 3x12 / paid for 40 is pretty common in a lot of fields.
I do 3x12s with a floating wednesday for the long weeks to hit 80 hours for the pay cycle. The only reason im not a basket case is that one of those days is a weekend and there is noone around to break anything. Thankfully the shift-dif and easy OT have not been ratcheted back. Otherwise im leaving at 80 and they can deal with the fallout.