Originally Posted by
GotTheTshirt
yellowtriumph,
You are on an aviation forum and many posters have declared their profession (along with their professional concerns.) It would be interesting to know your profession !! Are you a Daily Mail reporter perhaps!!
I don't think it would be appropriate to divulge my profession before I retired as it is a small industry. It was a very high tech industry involving detailed technical problem solving often under tight deadlines. But if the problem wasn't solved no lives would be lost.
I can tell you though that I was not/am not a reporter for any publication! I do read the DM (for some of the puzzles in the centre section), but then again I read more than one publication.
My work did involve nearly 35 years of irregular late/early shift work with no real pattern to it. It would be be very appropriate to say the pattern often led to fatigue on my part and some of the colleagues I worked with. As I lived 50 miles from my place of work and often worked outside of normal public transport hours I routinely had to drive to work and back.
I posted in another thread that one day driving home from work I was convinced I was barely a few miles from a lay-by where I could pull over, as I often did, and have a nap as I was feeling tired.
In reality I was asleep at the wheel.
Somewhere deep, deep down in my thoughts I realised what as happening and somewhat incredulously I 'came to' to find the car heading for the central barrier of the A3. I regained control, drove on for those few miles and pulled over. I sat there and cried and cried over what had nearly happened. The next day I went and saw my boss, and said I simply couldn't go on. He was a decent man, very sympathetic and there and then told me that from that day on if I was feeling tired I should simply go home whilst I was fit to do so.
It was only when I retired that I realised what damage all those years of irregular shift work did to me. Retirement very quickly brought on a new sense of mental well being and alertness (no stress), a sense of physical well being (no 16 hours days including travelling). I am refreshed.
Some here think that I am trying to make an issue about alcohol alone, that somehow I should be concentrating more on fatigue. Judging what you aviation professionals are posting it seems fatigue is more of an issue. But that was not what this thread was about and that is why I, for one, am not posting about it, well until now if you see what I mean. I was lucky, I had a decent boss who had actually done my job by my side for years before. I well understand that your industry is different, it is world wide, cosy personal arrangements don't work and could not possibly work. What is the solution to your fatigue issues? I don't know.
My posts are well intentioned, perhaps though they aren't hitting the right mark and fellow posters are taking them in the wrong spirit. Thats the danger of www I guess.
Edit to add: Just seen 4468's post. What doing you want me to reply? I come to Prune precisely to be informed, educated and often entertained a bit like the BBC I suppose. The forum appears to me to be largely resident to a large number of intelligent and 'life aware' souls. I am often enriched by what I read and I hope in return I can return some of that on occasion. The fact that it is a pilots website is not really pertinent, it is the kind of people who occupy it that is the point, it could be any site. Although of course I obviously accept that most of the sub-forums are absolutely related to aviation content where I tend not to go.