Hey.

I am working nightshift since a few years and the place I work at has absolutely nothing to do for me at night. I also work alone.

I haven’t even told my wife, friends or anyone this yet and I plan not to do so, cause it might be used against me if for any reason I lose friendship or if my wife breaks up with me for any reason in the future.

I do 1 hour of work. I prepare medication for the next day and clean the storage place for medication. After that I do nothing. I even bought a laptop where I use my hotspot (mobile) to play video games from 10 - 5.

I only play games if I can’t sleep. I am not allowed to sleep, but I did it a few times already and no one noticed. My wife leaves for work when I get home, so I have breakfast with her and then I “lay down in bed” but when she is gone I get back up and go to the gym. I don’t want her to know I am awake every morning.

I clean the house while she is at work, I go to gym, etc. and when she is home we do something together and she always says: “you don’t have to clean after your nightshift, you need rest.”

Well I don’t. I rest enough…

I feel bad. Doing this since 4 years and don’t know if I should tell anyone, but I figure I ask here first what your opinions on this is.

Is this somehow cheating? I feel like a cheater for not atleast telling this my wife, but imagine if we break up horrible for whatever reason in 10 years and she runs to my work place?

She knows I don’t have to do too much so I just tell her I only need 4-5 hours sleep after my shift and that it’s enough for me.

Edit:

I even have a different account on discord where I play with my “american friends” who are online while I am online at night. I don’t want my friends to know, cause 1 of my friends is a friend of a coworker of mine who works dayshift. He shouldn’t know about this.

So basically I have a kind of double life. The life and friends in day time and the friends I see if I can’t sleep during my nightshift that I play with. My american friends know about this, but they have no idea where I live in europe. I told them england, cause it’s the only country I can fake the language properly without accent cause I grew up in america.

I am probably putting too much energy in this but since a few years it’s fine. I sometimes think I atleast should tell this my wife.

I also can’t quit this job. It’s really good paying (nightshift bonus) + I can do what I want. I love it…

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
    20·
    3 days ago

    I have a very similar job, overnight shift at a hotel. On an average 8 hour shift I do about 1 hour of work. For the rest of the night, I’m not there to DO stuff, I’m there to be AVAILABLE to do stuff. I can handle just about any task that could need doing, and if I can’t do it I know who can. That’s what the job is, to make sure everything is covered overnight.

    And when inevitably things ARE covered, and nothing is demanding my attention, how I choose to fill the dead time is up to me. In my case, I have a gaming laptop. I don’t feel any kind of guilt, because they’re not paying me to find busy work, I’m not shorting them on the suffering they intend to convert into money, I’m performing the function for which I was hired.

    That said, I do draw the line at sleeping on the job. If my function is to be ready and available if needed, sleeping does not fulfill that requirement.