About a year and a half ago I made the move to day shift after working night shift for 5 years. There were a number of factors that played into the decision, the biggest of which were the following:

1. On nightshift, almost everybody you deal with is a dirtbag. When you do that every night for year after year, you start to develop a very negative view of humanity. I was starting to get concerned about my attitude and view of people. I thought going to days and dealing with “normal people” might improve my outlook a bit.

2. We’re a small agency and only staffed for solo shifts, so to get time off you have to find coverage. It’s a real pain to find coverage for night shift so you can take time off, especially mid-week.

3. I had recently been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and was dealing with a new diet, exercise routine, and insulin regimen. This required a pretty strict meal and shot schedule, which was hard to maintain. Night shift is fine if you can maintain your schedule, but dayshifters (i.e. Admin) can’t be bothered to do anything at night so they’re constantly jacking with your sleep schedule for training, meetings, vehicle maintenance, court, etc.

4. Somewhat as a result of the above, I was tired all the time. I’d sit down at home in the evening and just fall asleep wherever I was.

5. Going to days allows me to be home with my family every evening, and more awake and engaged on my days off. I figured it would also allow me to be more productive as I wouldn’t be sleeping half the day away and spending nights off alone reloading in the basement after everybody else went to sleep.

After a year and a half on days, I’ve found the following:

1. “Normal people,” at least the ones we hear from, are worse than the druggies and drunks on nights. They’re entitled and whine about stupid and insignificant things, constantly. Some of these things are part of the job (ordinance enforcement), but others are just ludicrous, like their neighbor is parking his car on the public street in “their” space. And when they don’t get their way, because the thing they are complaining about is not illegal nor enforceable, they’ll definitely call and complain.

2. Getting time off is a little easier, but still kind of a pain on days.

3. I don’t have to wake up in the middle of my “night” for court, vehicle maintenance, training, meetings, etc. It’s also usually easier to schedule this stuff during the work day, which means more time at home.

4. I am stuck in the car for a lot more of the time on days. At night I made a habit to regularly get out and walk the commercial areas doing building checks and looking for open doors. It was a good way to get my exercise in to help keep the insulin working, while doing something productive during the slow hours of the morning. Can’t really go around pulling on door handles during the middle of the day, though, and I have to stay close to the car in case I get a call.

5. I get up at 4:30am, so I’m still tired and fall asleep everywhere.

6. It’s nice to be home in the evenings, but my kids are homeschooled, so they’re around in the afternoons, too. The family also never really adjusted to my day shift schedule, so they’re all still up and awake now when I’m ready to go to bed at 9:30. And we work 12s so it’s dark by the time I get home from work, so I get nothing done on work days outside of work.

7. Dayshift work is soul-sucking drudgery of parking complaints, title checks, car accidents, custody complaints, and the like. Traffic is horrible, and nobody pays attention to what is going on around them. Night shift has all the fun stuff like drunks, bar fights, and domestics. There’s no traffic and it’s easy to get around.

8. On nights we had a pretty tight crew between the multiple agencies in the county, and we all interacted and worked together well. Day shift everybody is busy with their own trivial things, so there’s a lot less cooperation. Admin is also on, and while I do my utmost to avoid becoming involved in the politics myself, it’s still all around me and I have to see it.

The past two weeks I got put on nights to cover for a guy who was off. I’d forgotten how much fun it was to do real police work. I got a DUI and a couple of other traffic related misdemeanors, assisted some other agencies on some drug calls and domestics, and had a great time working with the night shift crew again. After the first couple of days I got pretty good sleep, and enjoyed being home in the afternoons. I was able to get some stuff done, even on work days.

I have the seniority to pick my shift, and I’m seriously contemplating going back to nights. My wife hasn’t really been any help…she just told me she’s ok with whatever I want to do. I don’t want to make a hasty or emotional decision, and want to be sure I’m considering all the ramifications. I’m sure there are others here who have been through this in the past. Any advice or experience you can share would be awesome.

I can't comment on your specific job descriptions and situations, but I know I worked nights for many years. It finally came to the point where I could not get enough sleep during the day no matter how hard I tried. I went to days and never looked back. Yes, there were often more difficult situations to deal with, but my health came first and I had to stop working nights.

Unfortunately, that's when my IDPA participation dropped way off. Still, had to do it.

18+ years on Midnites. I am a night person. Way less BS complaints than other shifts. And I got to hunt burglars, car thieves and the occasional armed robber. No traffic to maneuver through. Tighter crew, too. Shift differential pay too. My staffing was different than yours and it was shift preference by seniority.
Down side:
With court, training and instructing there were days where I got little sleep. And Midnites may have contributed to my divorces since I was not home much. All part of the hidden fun of police work! I would go back to Midnites again in a second. I miss the action and the guys I worked with.

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Going to days allows me to be home with my family every evening, and more awake and engaged on my days off

From my +100,000' view that seems like a MAJOR lifetime plus. Since I'm close to retirement wife, kids, and grandkids are invaluable, non replaceable, those are the best things that ever happened in my lifetime.

We are a 40-50k per year call for service agency. Days are catch all shifts. Collisions, theft reports, admin honey-doo list calls. Afternoons you run your dick in the dirt. You call 10-8 and immediately get dispatched to a holding day shift call. And you run call to call for 10 hours. Nights stay busy till about midnight.

I liked working afternoons when I was on the road. The shifts went by super quick. I got off at 10 or NLT midnight most nights. Given the choice of only days or nights, I’d pick days.

Sound good sleep is a thing that makes you live longer. Sleeping good one or two days a week will kill you early.

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Sound good sleep is a thing that makes you live longer. Sleeping good one or two days a week will kill you early.

Definitely a consideration. I could sleep ok on a night shift schedule if the rest of the world would just leave me alone in the morning and let me...but they won't.

We have an absolute blast on day shift round here. Things have changed a lot here in the last 18 years. Nights used to be where all the action was.
We’re just as active now during the day. Used to never have daytime shootings now we’re about 50/50.
The Hyundai/KIA simple to steal craze has driven our stolen cars through the roof and they are all over the place all day and night.
Not a chance I’d go back to nights but it’s also been 12 years since I worked nights. Had no kid and the wife worked nights too.
My only gripe is traffic during the day takes a lot longer to get places. Get a lot more dead people too though. People who passed on in their sleep and family wakes up to find them. Those are simple though just time consuming hanging out with the family until coroner arrived. Had very few of those on night shift.
At times I do miss working nights and in the dark. The radio just has a whole different sound to it in the dead of night.

You say you don’t get out of the car much during the day because there are no doors to check.
Why not get out and go into the businesses when they are open and get to know the folks that work in the businesses in your area?
I am in and out of stores, banks, restaurants, apartment complex management offices all day long. Have a good relationship with lots of folks. Apartment manager connections are some of the best especially at the trouble spots.
Those folks know a bit about everyone there.
Same with the seedy extended stay motels.

We generally have over 200,000 calls for service a year and over 60,000 officer initiated investigations a year.
So we are pretty busy.

Not even a second of debate for me... I'm absolutely not wired for overnight shifts.

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You say you don’t get out of the car much during the day because there are no doors to check.
Why not get out and go into the businesses when they are open and get to know the folks that work in the businesses in your area?
I am in and out of stores, banks, restaurants, apartment complex management offices all day long. Have a good relationship with lots of folks. Apartment manager connections are some of the best especially at the trouble spots.

I do a lot of that, but it doesn't put the foot miles on that walking businesses does. I spend a lot of time at the school and the college in particular during the day. I'm also on a first-name basis with the manager of the trailer park, but that was the same on nights because that's where about half of our crime happens.

We are a tiny town and not very busy. I personally take about 100 reports a year. I guess I should be grateful for that, but I often feel like I'm getting rusty and complacent dealing with all the Mayberry stuff day in and day out. At night it was easier to get around and I got to stay in practice by helping out the city and county on calls, but during the day it takes so long to get places in traffic that unless it's something really hot that you can run lights and sirens to, it's over before I get there.

Reading the original post, you nailed it. Nights is when all the fun stuff happens. If you're working 12s you still get a three day weekend every other weekend.

As long as your family is good with it, go back. JM2c after 19 years.

Despite lots of effort I never found the quality of my sleeping and ultimately my health was better at night. Even though I am nominally a night person. All else being equal I'd choose days.

Go back to nights for a year. Re-bid for days if you need it afterwards.

I loved nights, until my body stopped letting me sleep during the day. Did many years there as a grunt and as a boss. Loved it.

My unsolicited advice…consider switching to a larger agency that will pay a little more and give you the ability to take vacation easier.

But if that’s out of the question, swap to nights for a year.

You gotta do what's best for your body AND your mental health.

I had enough seniority to go to dayshift this year and be the #2 guy (I've been picking nights for the past 6 years once we went to permanent 8s).

Well, that didn't happen because we decided to finally go back to 12 hour shifts this year, so I had my choice of senior guy on either dayshift platoon. So I was finally going to dayshift (I could've retired last year).

Then fall came and we picked our shifts for this year then I was ordered to accept a promotion (I half-assed the last test, didn't bother to read anything and still scored in the top 3). So now I am junior sgt on a night shift platoon.

Oh well.

But I have a good crew and we kick ass. It's sad that all four on my shift are younger than my oldest child. I have 26 years, my shift combined has 14 years experience.

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My unsolicited advice…consider switching to a larger agency that will pay a little more and give you the ability to take vacation easier.

Our pay is on par with pretty much anywhere else in the county. There's less upwards promotion potential where I'm at, but that's not really a huge deal to me. Getting time off easier would be nice, though.

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But I have a good crew and we kick ass

That's really the crux of it. I miss that, got a taste of it these past two weeks, and now I want it back. But is job satisfaction at work worth the personal toll of night shift?

I'm not LEO, so maybe a little different comparison...
I prefer midnights for a bunch of the reasons you mentioned. I can avoid the admin bullshit as I only have one boss on shift instead of 4 or 5, I get to do basically what I want as long as my tasks are completed and I don't have to get up at 0'dark thirty every day. I also only have to stay up for meetings about once a month, so...

I'm also single, no kids and don't really like people all that much. Being asleep when everyone else is awake is a benefit in my mind. And I sleep better during the day, weird as that may sound. I've always been a night owl though.

Dispatcher here, so not exactly the same problems but I'm much happier on night shift than I am on days. Too much drama, too much administrative bullshit and too many entitled callers during the day. Too many chiefs around too. I've got 5 years left, and wouldn't go to days unless I was absolutely forced into it.

It really depends on how your shift cycles work.

How often can you rotate?

I did graveyards form 2006 to 2015, very close to ten years straight, with a few swingshifts thrown in. I loved it at the time and made 8% extra in shift differential, but I don't think I could do that again.

I think if/when I went back to the street I would do graveyard in the summer and days or swingshift in the winter. We rotate every four months.

We do bids for three shifts per year. I am senior so I get first choice and always grab graveyard for the summer months. Just so I don’t have to deal with the 90 degree weather in uniform and vest.

But that said, it’s also just so much… fun. Even here in western WA we still get to do some version of cop stuff, and late night is the best time for proactive police work.

It resets my attitude for the whole year.

Bill R

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It really depends on how your shift cycles work.

How often can you rotate?

We don't. We work 12s....6a-6p and vice versa. 2 days on, two days off, 3 days on, two days off, two days on, three days off...so every other weekend is a three day weekend. I love the schedule. Shift selection is based on seniority, with no pay differential for night shift. Traditionally we don't really switch around unless somebody leaves, but if I wanted to they would probably make it happen.

The night shift guy on my rotation is our K9 handler, and he's been told that he's pretty much on nights as long as he has the dog. Plus he likes it and has more seniority than me, so I couldn't bump him if I wanted to. I was originally on the other night shift but switched to my current day shift rotation when that guy left and we brought a new guy on.

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Originally posted by jljones:
Sound good sleep is a thing that makes you live longer. Sleeping good one or two days a week will kill you early.

^^^^^^^^
This
It is a subtle thing, but if you are not sleeping well, any doctor will tell you to plan on an early expiration date.
Your kids are counting on you.
You are defined by more than what your work is.