“I didn’t actually plan for the night shift,” Grizzard said. “When they called me, they were like, ‘we have a position open for a night shift stocker,’ and I was so excited because I needed a job that I took it. I didn’t really think about it at first.” Kellen Jenkins/ The Bulletin

While scanning over her zoology notes, Jennette Grizzard, freshman biology and pre-veterinary major, is interrupted by a text message from her mother. Grizzard is on her lunch break at 2 a.m. at Walmart, where she has worked the night shift stocking shelves in the grocery section for seven months.

“I didn’t actually plan for the night shift,” Grizzard said. “When they called me, they were like, ‘we have a position open for a night shift stocker,’ and I was so excited because I needed a job that I took it. I didn’t really think about it at first.”
Grizzard’s mother, Karla, has worked the night shift for 12 years and currently works as a nurse at Burlington Community Hospital. She said getting used to the night shift took her a couple of years.

“Night shift is a different lifestyle,” Karla Grizzard said. “You’re not awake when everyone else is, that’s your sleep time, so just doing normal things like calling up the electric company or whatever, you have to stay up late to do that. You lose sleep to do your everyday business.”

In addition to texting her daughter while they are both on break, the Grizzard family plans meals at times when everyone, including her father and aunt who are on a daytime schedule, will be awake.
“We try to plan dinner times so that we all can eat and it’s usually later, like around seven because that’s when I’m getting up and getting ready to go to work and she’s getting ready to go to work, so we try to do that so at least we see each other,” Jennette Grizzard said.

Grizzard said that their matching schedules allowed them to form a stronger relationship.

“Working the night shift has made me and my mom closer because we can relate to each other,” Grizzard said. “When we’re both tired and crabby at the same time, that’s kind of nice because we’re like ‘oh, we’re tired, it’s okay.’”
The night shift pays a dollar more an hour, and Grizzard thought rearranging her schedule might allow more time for school work.

“I guess I figured with my school schedule it’d be hard to go to school and then still have time to do homework after work, so I figured the night shift would be easier,” Grizzard said. “I was wrong. It’s just as hard if not harder.”
Along with taking time from her school work, Grizzard’s new schedule deeply cut into her social life.

“I have no social life,” Grizzard said. “I really don’t. The only friends that I have now work the night shift with me because the friends that I had before I started working the night shift, they all work either during the day or they go to school or they don’t work, and I try to match up their schedules with mine and we’re all too busy so I don’t really have time for anybody.”

Tanner Monroe, senior crime and delinquency studies major, who has worked the night shift at Chase County Detention Center for three months, has also noticed a drawback in his social life.

“A lot of times I don’t get weekends off,” Monroe said. “I get weekends off about every three to four weeks and so I don’t get to go out with my friends or anything.”
However, he still holds the position of vice president of Sigma Phi Epsilon and is able to continue to spend time with his girlfriend.

“I get to see my girlfriend still, and I try to keep doing those things that I like to do but I don’t get to go home as much,” Monroe said. “I like to go home and see my family but I usually see them about every two months now.”

Monroe said that while at work he “pretty much baby-sits inmates” and is able to find a couple hours where he can work on homework. He will continue working nights until he is finished with school.

“The other two shifts conflicted with my class schedule, so I choose the night shift so that I could go to all of my classes during the day,” Monroe said. “I’ll keep working nights as long as I have afternoon classes, which will probably be until I graduate, hopefully next December. I was hoping I’d graduate in May, but this job cut down the number of classes I could take this semester.”

But both Grizzard and Monroe said one thing is certain – that since they’ve started working the night shift, they don’t sleep as much.

“Sleeping is a good hobby,” Grizzard said. “I try to catch every little wink of sleep I can get.”

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