Shift Worker Sick of 'Forest with Bears' Questions

This time, the hero of our regular column «Fed Up» is a shift worker. In recent years, he has been traveling thousands of kilometers from the Rostov region. The worker told 161.RU what irritates and pleases him there.

It annoys me that many people think you work somewhere in the tundra. That shift work necessarily means no civilization. It«s not always and not everywhere like that. I work near a city. We live, however, on a designated territory and work in an assigned place. Everything is there: pharmacies, hospitals, shops, Wildberries, Ozon. Everything is accessible. But still, when you say you work shifts, everyone imagines: »O-oh, is that what, somewhere in the forest, with bears?« That»s not the case.

I work far from home. Because of this, the time difference, the time zones, annoys me. It«s 6 hours. That is, I go to sleep, and my wife is still at work at that time. Your workday isn»t even over yet here. And when I wake up for work, it happens that my wife hasn«t even gone to bed yet.

Since I work in the construction sector, there are often problems with salary payments. Some delays. But on many construction sites in different companies, this is a common thing. Of course, I don«t like it. It annoys me that I can»t properly plan the financial part of life. You always have to be ready that they won«t pay the salary on time and that you should have some stash.

Buying tickets is often a problem. They buy tickets for arrival at the site and departure from the site at the wrong time. Accordingly, you can«t plan your personal time properly. Not always, but it happens.

Living conditions vary. There are trailer homes, there are dormitories, there are also rented apartments. There can be hotels and motels. Sometimes it happened that the conditions are so-so. So far, I«m fine with this. But there is a fear that everything will be bad: you»ll live in some terrible place, and have to run to the shower in another trailer in winter at -40°C (-40°F). The probability of that is very not very. For example, my comrade has a situation where he lives in one trailer home, and the bathroom and showers are in another. And he needs to move back and forth on the street.

Since I live in a dormitory, the daily life of dormitory neighbors annoys me, but not those I live with in the room. I mean the condition of toilets, showers. It happens that they don«t flush and don»t clean up after themselves. Even after shaving or brushing teeth, a quiet horror remains. Adults, but they behave like pigs. It«s very irritating.

The absence of internet is very irritating. Due to the situation in the world, on construction sites they often jam the internet. And mobile communication in general. Therefore, there is no way to call through or send something. Hope only on Wi-Fi in the office and on wired internet.

Due to the high density of residents, diseases spread quickly. If someone gets sick, the virus goes in circles. You recover, someone gets sick, the body doesn«t have time to recover properly, again the virus — and everything starts over.

Language barrier. Often, employees from other countries work — from neighboring countries, from Asia in general. And not everyone speaks Russian. For some, it«s all fine: there is basic knowledge or even professional. And some simply don»t reach basic communication — it«s unclear who says what.

There are continuous optimizations. The higher management sees everything from their side. They need to earn more with less expense. That«s understandable. But, perhaps, not fully immersed in the situation, making sharp decisions — is not always good. But this is a common thing here. And it doesn»t please, because you might be the one to fall under optimization.

Let me tell about brazen communication. They send you an application. It lacks documents or they are not the right ones. You communicate with the person who sent it to you. You explain what you need, in what form and for what. But the person is outraged: «Why should I do this?! You should do it. Because when I worked there, it was like this. I won»t do it.« My position on this is: »Well then, nothing will be done in principle. I know my duties, completing this task is not included in them. Figure it out yourself. Telling who should do what will be done by your boss.« It happens that there is no conflict, but the person doesn»t understand where to find what. And you«ve already explained a hundred thousand times. Such people usually don»t stay long. Department heads usually see and communicate with colleagues from other departments, and feedback comes from everywhere.

On the plus side — many people of different ethnicities, religions, from different points on the planet. Accordingly, you learn a lot new about ethnic groups, cultures, religions. Often people are open. They talk about these topics calmly, share, joke, reason. Sometimes they can argue — even in raised tones. But often these are kind conversations.