h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Personally i would advocate a 'three on three off' twelve hour shift pattern for all encluding shops.

At the moment I work a five day week of four eight hour shifts and one ten hour shift on a permanemt night shift, no fun I can tell you!

five day week of four eight hour shifts and one ten hour shift on a permanemt night shift

Yuck!

You shouldn't even put things like that in print for fear that other bosses will see it and impose it upon their own workers...

My brother did 12 hour shifts for a while, 3 days on, 3 off, 3 nights on, 3 days off. Dreadful! Apart from the changing sleep patterns, impossible to do any leisure activities that involve regular meetings.

That sort of thing is criminal!

At a factory I worked in when I first got out of college I worked a rotating schedule of a week of day shifts 7am-3pm, then a week of middles 3-11pm and then a week of nights 11pm-7am...

It plays havoc with your body clock...

I can't imagine that after a few years that they get anything like fair production out of the workers.

I do 3 on, 1 off, 3 on, 3 off, 1 on 3 off.
7x12 hour nightshifts a fortnight.
Not everyones I know but it suits me. Only 7 working days a fortnight and if I take a day off I've got a week off.

Over here in The Netherlands, most people are on a 36-hour working week. This is usually performed in five 8-hour shifts, resulting in 4 hours overtime. This overtime is compensated time-for-time in many different ways. Some work 4 days in one week and 5 in the next. Some save up the overtime and take 5-week holidays in the summer.
Last year I changed my schedule to four 9-hour days (Mon-Thurs) with a lovely long weekend every week! for me, this is an almost perfect balance between work and spare-time. I really love it!

Terry

I like the sound of your working week, Terry. I'd love to be able to work four days and not five, but I don't fancy working two extra hours every day to achieve it. Ideally, I'd like to do a 30 hour week, but I can't afford it. Yet.
I work fairly ordinary office hours, 8:45 to 5:15 Monday to Thursday and 8:45 to 4:45 on a Friday and that suits me fine at the moment. They are trialing a flexible working system where I work, but I have opted not to join at this stage because tweaking my hours is of no benefit at present. I live only 15 minutes walk from my office and so don't need to work around rush hour traffic, I have no children so I don't need time off during the day and my partner works a different shift every week so I am not even going to try and fit in with him. Boring, standard office hours suit me, but it is nice to know that I could adjust my hours a bit if necessary.