I remember those diaries we had to keep about 5 years ago. Doing them again now would be interesting.
I think its a case of horses for courses. I absolutely hate nights. They knock me for six every time. I do, however, cope much better with my preferred cycle of MMAA-MM---
Its a lot of mornings, with usually one starting at 6 or 6.30. The traffic is much heavier on mornings than nights, you only get 3 days off together as opposed to sleep and 3, but the after-effects of a busy cycle are much more quickly overcome.
I worked a 4 and 2 roster for a while and that was just the pits. It was pre SRATCOH and was either AAMM--or DDNNS-
It was absolutely dreadful. Now you'd have to work MMAA-- which reduces your time off considerably. I'm no SRATCOH expert but I think that a 4 and 2 with nights probably doesn't comply. Individual rosters (a la NavCanada's Shift (fuzzy) Logic, now there's a different kettle of fish!
[ 07 July 2001: Message edited by: cossack ]