How early do you start your day?

[bean]

Since I moved to overnights - specifically, my schedule is 12:00 am to 8:00 am (occasionally 11:30 pm to 7:30 am) - I realized just how early a lot of people in my store start their days.

The most obvious is the meat dept manager. He shows up just a little before 3:00 am. First he pulls expired product (or not expired yet not looking so fresh) out of the self service coolers. Then starts pulling leftovers from the night before for the display case and loading them up. Then I hear the horrible high pitched screech of the cutters they use to cut steaks. By 6:00 there's about 10 people working behind the counter.. and the store hasn't even opened yet.

Produce? They start coming in between 3:30 and 4:00. Most of those folks come in to unpack the morning delivery (which shows up around midnight), some come in to cut fruit for prepack. Yes, we have an entire prepack section in produce of cut fruits and veggies - marked up quite a bit over the raw, uncut product. For those too lazy to pick up a knife.

Deli/Prepared Foods (my former department) used to start at 4:30 to 5:00. Their sales have tanked thanks to a massive remodel that's going on right now (they're down to a little over half of their normal sales), which means their labor budget is blown to hell. They start coming in at 6-7 now, and midshifts have been pretty much eliminated. Even with me out of my subteam now (and into grocery), one of my former coworkers is on long term loan to another store. Everybody else in pizza, except for 1 person, is down to 30-32 hours. No wonder they bumped my move up by a week.

Even some of the admin folks come in at 5. HR/benefits person comes in around 6, IT and signs people come in around 5-6. Receiving shows up at 6.

The only people who get a late start is frontend - frontend supervisors show up around 7:30. First cashier (aside from guest service) gets a drawer at 7:45, so that employees can buy breakfast. The doors are unlocked at 8:00 am on the dot, and there's usually a handful of people already waiting outside.

Basically, the only time someone isn't in my store is on Christmas Day - and that's because we close early Christmas Eve, don't get any deliveries between Dec 23 and Dec 25, and we're closed Christmas Day. If someone actually does work on Christmas Day, they get 2x normal pay (i.e. if I clock in that day I get $22/hour to stock shelves). I also believe that's the only day in the entire year they actually use the burglar alarm. I flat out asked 2 of the store assistant managers if they knew the code for the alarm, and their response was "There's an alarm?". The keypad is 1 door down from the manager office.

So - how early do you start your day? Or how early do your coworkers start? Admittedly, my store is definitely the exception even within the company, since we're one of the busiest in the entire company. A lot of them don't have anybody working overnight.

[KellyHabersham]

At the moment, the earliest people come in at the library is 8 am, this being on the days when we open at 9 am. But when we're closed in a few weeks for remodeling, some of us are coming in at 7 am, and our branch manager is scheduled to come in at 6.

[TNT]

I'm on a very corporate schedule these days: I start at 8AM and work until 5. I've also worked 2nd and 3rd shifts at the same company, third shift being 8pm to 7AM four days a week.

Our earliest arrivals are 5:30AM, except for one supervisor who has a shift that seems unusual for even a 24/7 call center: 3AM to noon. I said to her, "I'll bet you had a lot of competition for that one." She replied, basically, "F you." (She got it because she's the newest supervisor and had last pick.)

[Rahmota]

Being self-employed and a farmer I have different times on days. Sometimes I'm up before the crack o dawn to after midnight and other days I get the luxury of sleeping until oh say 0900 or 1000.

back when I worked SPCS I started the day aroud 0700 and work around 1000.

When I worked security. I think I worked every shift imaginable including some 18 and 24 hour straight ones. The hardest where 8 on and 8 off IMO. Not really enough time to get any really good sleep or do anythign else when you have a 30 minute drive from home to the worksite and they dont want you sacking out on the site.

[TNT]

Now the oddest shift I've ever worked was when I worked in a group home. 17.5 hours Monday -- Thursday and 24 hour shifts Saturdays and Sundays. At that home where we worked three days in a row (followed by six days off), it was possible to go in Friday afternoon and not leave until Monday morning. My house mostly worked two day shifts (with four days off).

Because our week work started on Saturday, some weeks I'd have my 40 hours in by 9AM Monday morning. It was always funny when I'd hear people say, "Ugh, Monday morning." I'm like, "What do I know? I got my 40 hours in already."

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I work on the stock crew and currently, I start at 5 am and work until 1:30. Starting next week I move to third shift probably--10 pm to 6:30 am.

Corporate approved us to have an overnight team because we are one of the busiest stores in the company. I don't think it's going to work out too well, unless we can continue to have electronics work their own freight in the mornings and the receiving clerk can continue to backstock HBA and grocery.

Department specialists can work any shift but generally work mornings, coming in anytime from 5 to 9 am.

Front end monitor starts at 7 or 7:30 to get all the registers set up and stocked with cash to start the day. Cash office specialist starts anytime from 5 to 7. So does price management.

The opening manager generally doesn't come in until 7 or shortly thereafter; that will change when we go to overnights. A manager would need to be in no later than 6:30 to let us out in the morning.

[ZeoViolet]

On most workdays I am at the Deli before five to prepare for the breakfast shift. It takes that long to set everything up in general.

[Sliceanddice]

i wake up at one 1:30 am, and stay awake until 5 pm....

[tacohuman]

my deli is officially open 7am-8pm. i usually schedule one person to come in and start cooking/making sandwiches and salads around 6am, with another following at 7:30. myself, i typically come in between 6 & 7, sometimes earlier if i have any special projects i'm working on. i come in, pull out-of-dates, check closing conditions, work backstock, downstack any pallets that may have come in the previous night, and place any orders that need to be placed by 10am. i leave whenever i have time, which depending on how busy we are and what time i came in, can be anywhere between 2 and 5. of course, with the holidays coming that'll probably be more like between 5 and 7.

[AKWalMartCartGuy]

I work 6-10 PM with 10A-2P on weekends, I'm usually pretty grumpy till I get my break at noon since i'm used to sleeping til 5-6 hours after I have to be at work

openers come in at 6 AM, and we don't have any specially hard departments, overnights are (I think) 10P-6:30A, the second shift unloaders usually finish their truck around 9:30 and pull pallets then so it's ready for the stockers, we have a lot of 8-5s and 9-6s and 2-11 and 3-12 are common too. and there are other popular shifts too

[Becks]

Not knowing a lot about some departments, some of the produce guys come in as early as 3 am.

The earliest shift I've had started at 6 am.

Inventory time, however, is a different matter.

[BookstoreEscapee]

My alarm goes off at 6am, I get up anywhere between then and 6:30, and I work 8-4:30. Two of the people in my office get in at about 6:45 (because then they leave at 3:15 before the warehouse shift lets out and the parking lot gets crazy), a couple come in at 7, and one other guy also comes in at 8. The warehouse shifts are 7-3:30 and (I think) 3:30-12 and overnight starts at 10pm. I used to go in at 7 but I got tired of getting up so early and also of the crazy traffic in the parking lot at those times.

When I was in the store (since my last department change, anyway), I used to work 7am-3:30 on Tues/Wed, 3-11:30pm Thurs/Fri, and Saturday I would usually be 3-11:30 but sometimes I worked midshift (which could start 8, 9, 10, 11 or noon, but usually not before 10 since I closed Friday nights), and off on Sunday and Monday. That was my usual schedule but was subject to change at any time. Officially, we didn't have set schedules, but since I was the one who did new releases, I always had to work Tuesday mornings, since that's when all the new books come out, and every other week all the new release tables changed over, which was a huge project that basically took all day, especially since I usually didn't have much help.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

With my current position, I'm usually there anywhere between 7 - 8 am every day except Wednesdays. Latest I'll work is usually around 4 or maybe 4:30 p.m.

On Wednesdays, I'm usually there at 5 am, along with the Scanning Person. She likes to get a head start on the week's ad changes, and coming in at 5 gives us enough time to get a good start before we open and customers start coming in.

On the Wednesdays she doesn't have the hours for me to help her, I still go in at 5 anyways and work on either backstock or finish putting up the last HBA truck (if I'm on the Tue-Sat schedule.)

This Wed, we have a big ad (first of the month starts Thurs) so I get to work 9 hours on price changes. I don't order another HBA truck until Thursday, so it works out fine. If my Tues. truck isn't finished before I leave on Tuesday, I can finish it Thursday morning before I order. Either way, I'm there at 5 on Wed and can get a lot done in a couple of hours - and even with the DSD Girl not coming in until 6:45 or 7 and I get the first 2 or 3 vendors checked in.

I work every other Sunday, when I have a Tues-Sat delivery week . . I'll usually then go in around 7-8 and work until 12 or 1 at the latest. That's my cleanup/run shippers/double check backstock/order day.

I like my schedule . . . I can also work with it if something comes up, which will probably be next week when DSD Girl takes yet another vacation . . . meaning I'll work on Thursday and take off Saturday.

[Banrion]

I get up at 4:00am get on the train at 5:29 am, and officially start work at 6:40am. I get out of work at 3:30pm, get on the train home at 4:30pm, and officially arrive home at 5:45pm. Just in time for me to make dinner and go to bed.

[Mr. Rager!]

I like to start my day as late as possible. Usually anytime after 11am is good... later is better though.

There have been a few times where I've stayed up until like 4 or 5 am, only to have to be up at 9am. Those days are tough, but, I love naps.

Generally, I'd be happiest if I had a job that had me work 7pm-2am. That would be ideal... I'll never find that job though.