My first two years of college, I attended an expensive private school, which meant I had to work three jobs to pay for the tuition not covered by loans and grants and scholarships. Yes that’s right. Loans, grants, scholarships AND three jobs. It was an expensive school. One of my jobs was at the front desk of the hall in which I lived… you know, sort mail, answer the phone, exchange pool cues for student IDs. Mostly socialize with passerby and do homework. Unfortunately though, I came late to the front desk job. First I worked in the fieldhouse where I walked around with a whistle and felt like an ass. Quit that after a month and went to the desk, but because of the late coming, I got stuck with some pretty crappy shifts.

For a whole semester, two nights a week I would work from about 9pm to midnight, then go up to my dorm and get a few hours of sleep only to get up again and work 3-7am. Then go to class. Then come home and crash in the afternoon. It wasn’t really fun, but I’m amazed at how easy it was back then. I could never do that now.

So one night that semester, it was Fall, it happened to be the end of Daylight Savings. Or the beginning, or whatever, I’ve never understand the damn thing. So there I am at midnight, ready to end my shift, and nobody came. 12:10. Still nobody. Finally it hits me that at midnight, all the magic clocks moved themselves back to 11pm, and I still had another hour to work. Which kind of sucked because I was tired and I had to get up again at 3:00 to work another four hours. That hour, from midnight part 1 to midnight part 2, was a very long hour in my life. And then when midnight part 2 finally rolled around, I struggled with how to fill out my time card.

Nine to midnight wasn’t right, that’s only three hours.
Nine to one? No, my shift can’t overlap the next person’s who will surely indicate that they started at midnight.
Nine to midnight part 2? Would anyone know what I meant?

I don’t know what I settled on, but I do know that I learned an important lesson that night folks. Never before had I considered what this time change means for people who work third shift. I had always slept comfortably through the ”falling back” of time. Or maybe, some years, I gained an extra hour to study (you possibly thought I was going to say party, as it falls on a Saturday night, but please know I was very lame until about six years ago).

I’d like to say that this past Saturday night I had a respectful moment of silence for all those people working an extra hour because of Daylight Savings. But instead I completely forgot about it until about 3:00, nay 2:00, the next day.