How to get jet lag without getting on a jet
I do not have the statistics to back up this hypothesis, but I suspect that at least half of all lost mobile phones, personal digital assistants, personal music players, cameras, laptops and netbooks belong to people who work on the night shift.
They report to their call center after sundown and work through the night. In the morning they emerge into the sunlight and make their way home. Even if they have trained themselves to sleep through the day and stay awake at night, they live in a state of artificial jet lag.
Human beings do need to see sunlight, and to shut down for a complete systems check when it gets dark. Quite simply, their circadian rhythms are shot.
Lack of sleep leads to diminished alertness, slowness, and poor memory. You’re trying to function normally, but your body just wants to shut down. It is in this physical state that you are likely to forget, misplace, or drop your gadgetry, or get mugged.
The Limbo of Lost Gadgets in Emotional Weather Report, yesterday in the Star.
My sister manages a call center. She’s been part of the Jet Lag Set for five years, although she does get to take the jet once in a while (to a place where, she gleefully reports, people shoot deer.) I worry about the lifestyle. Obviously her sleep patterns are shot. Then there’s the matter of nutrition. In my observation, call center employees live on a diet of fast food grease and things nuked in convenience stores. I myself subsist on cholesterol, caffeine, and sugar, and when I start worrying about nutrition you know the situation is dire.
Many call centers pride themselves on their medical coverage and benefits. How about making sure that your employees have proper meals? Set up cafeterias that serve healthier food to the staff, or at least things that won’t corrode their systems by age 25. You turn them into vampires (and not the fun kind that live forever), at least feed them right.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
September 14th, 2009 at 13:42
I’m appalled by how unhealthy these call center people are. I know agents who had to take maintenance medicines, or have surgery, because of unhealthy call center lifestyle… and they’re under 25.
September 14th, 2009 at 19:24
At least twice a month my sched changes, either 10pm-7am or 8am-5pm. I take three types of supplements, 1 multivitamin, 1 vit C, and lecithin. My sleeping pattern is so messed up I can go on 24 hrs without sleeping, and I just need to take in a lot of caffeine. Someone argued, Orbit, if you require 8 hours of sleep a day, that means when you reach 60 you’ve slept 20 years of your life already! I answered, So? if I have to sleep half my life, that’s even better!
September 14th, 2009 at 21:15
Sa halos limang taon sa industriya, nakahanp nman ako ng account na pangumaga, normal or sa mga lingo ng panggabe (mga anak ng diyos).
haizt, can’t imagine myself on an other job toher than this…