So they had 48 hrs off in LAX before doing a JFk leg, then 48hrs off before RTN LAX then 24 hrs off before BNE. Sounds pretty cruzy. 1 on 2 off 1 on 2 off 1 on 1 off 1 on then multiple days off. And a sleep during most work days. A lot of shift workers would love a roster like that.
Especially after arriving SYD/BNE - LAX basically the previous day, LAX - JFK is one of THE worst sectors you could do. I'd have to check an old roster, but I seem to recall shorter layovers than 48 in LAX on the way over. Regardless, getting up to go to work for a long and complex day when your body clock is telling you it is midnight to my mind makes that particular sector an example of all things wrong with long haul flying and human body clocks. The difficulty comes when the uninitiated look at it and say 'most shift workers would love a roster like that'. NO THEY WOULDN'T!!!
Think about it. You get up at say 7am to go to work for what is usually a 16 hour day. You arrive at LAX at (say) 6am when your body tells you it's midnight. You're OK, long day, but thats fine. Get to the hotel and likely asleep by 10am LAX. And you likely sleep to 7/8pm unless you force yourself awake earlier for a 6pm crew meeting. All good so far, but this is when it gets a bit weird. You've just had a monster day and a fitful but probably reasonable sleep. No chance you will sleep through the night. Not a hope in hell. Say you get back to the room at midnight and manage to sleep a few hours. Which I normally did. I'd then be awake at 3am LA time. Here's the issue. No more sleep until guess when? around midnight - 2am SYD time which is about 6+am. Then I'd sleep like a baby until about 2pm, sometimes later. Go for a walk, buy stuff I don't need, play on the net and then go out for dinner feeling a million dollars around 6-7pm. Generally I would get back to the pub around 10pm LA time which is around 4-5pm (daylight savings here and there) and have a sleep. If you've been awake for 6 or 7 hours and try to sleep when your body tells you it's 5pm what happens? In my case, I'd sleep a few hours and be awake at 2-3am LA time/9-10pm SYD time. Then I would _really_ struggle to sleep, knowing I had to but simply couldn't. Try to have a 4 hour nap at 6pm and then wake up and try to sleep when you've already had 8 odd hours that day. It doesn't (for me) work. Call time is (from memory) 4:30/5am ish. Or around midnight SYD time. Try to imagine how you feel? The sound of the LA phone for that sector is embedded in my brain. I would often be going to work for that sector with my body telling me it's 1-2am and I hadn't slept anything like properly in at least 12 hours with at least 12 hours of never straightforward flying to go.
It's possible I've felt worse going to work, but I can't recall any standing out more than that offhand.
DM: Took me a while to write that. I'm on your side, I think I started first.... I wanted to explain carefully why it's so awful. I hope I sort of painted the right picture for people. Here's another thing. EVERYONE is different. If you've just come back from leave it's not so bad. I've you've just done 3 of them back to back you want to vomit.