Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 11, 2019

Working different hours to the majority of people means you live by a different set of rules.

In the past year I’ve joined the army of shift workers who keep things ticking along while everyone else enjoys eating dinner at a normal time.

There are many are many positives that come with the unusual hours which I have come to depend upon. I mean, I get to go grocery shopping when most people are at work, which means I never have to elbow anyone out of the way to get at the good strawberries. My non-rush-hour public transport commute means I never have to deal with the uncomfortable proximity to other people one dreads in an enclosed space of a sticky Brisbane afternoon.

I have much to be thankful for.

But I have also come to realise that shift work – namely working late shifts – enables some of your worst traits.

Because your hours are different to the normal nine-to-five, it’s like none of the other rules of life apply either. And you have the added bonus of horrified sympathy from those nine-to-fivers who couldn’t fathom functioning beyond 10pm, you practically get a free pass for being a deadbeat. It’s the ultimate excuse for not actively trying not to be the wretched person you are deep down.

While I’m in the midst of a queen-of-the-night stint and am somewhat unable to coax enough intelligible thoughts from my brain to string together a coherent composition, I’ve decided to put together some bullet points detailing some of the behaviours you can get away with when you’re on night shift.

Eating far too much food: I work the same hours when start before dawn as I do when I walk past people enjoying a round of after work drinks on my way to the office. And yet, I still feel the need to have extra food on hand for those late nights strapped to the beast. I always have a handbag full of plastic containers of snackery, as if I were going on a bushwalk and fully expecting to get lost. I regularly find myself having a progressive dinner involving various courses arranged on Tupperware container lid platters. You eat lollies at 11pm. You have second dinners. You order a standard serving of fried chicken as a side dish for your already large meal. You can be reasonable about your approach to food but if let your self-control slip just a little, you find yourself eating like a 12-year-old who has the house to themselves for the weekend for the first time. It’s a slippery slope.

Being terrible at replying to messages: I am genuinely shithouse at responding to messages, but if I’m on a stretch of late shifts, I may as well be texting from the moon. It’s not that I don’t love good chinwag, it’s just that I find typing on smartphones so tiresome. Usually the social norms that dictate the length of time you can leave someone on read without responding pull me into line within a few hours, but night shifts absolve me of those restrictions. Because I can just tell people “sorry, I was on a late shift – am all over the shop!” and suddenly you’re not a lousy mate but a sleepy kitten who just needs a nap. This is especially true if you message people back at the time you finish work.

Being a bit much: Today I decided that we should start calling mangoes “mangs” and sent out a memo advising people to change their behaviour. It was late, so people will be inclined to thing it was late-night delirium instead of a reflection of my true self. I also can get away with repeatedly singing the same line of Kris Jenner’s classic banger I Love My Friends for much longer when I’m on a run of nights. It’s not that I am in any way more tolerable, but people somehow tend to tolerate more of me when they know I’ve been working late.

Dressing like a slob: I think my style could accurately be described as yeah-she’s-definitely-dressing-for-herself, but over the years that self I’m dressing more tends to value comfort over much else. And never is that more evident than when I’m shuffling around in a shawl with a mess bun and a pair of offensively-loud “office socks” on with my sandals. “I’m a creature of the night,” I tell myself, “I am free to be my daggiest self in the shadows”.

Being forgetful: I’ve been let off the hook for forgetting important details of my friends’ lives divulged during in-depth conversations and how to reverse out of a carpark simply because of my “late shift brain”. Somehow, I’ve managed to escape looking like a terrible friend or incompetent human being and am instead seen as a charming hard worker who just needs a little lie down.

It’s not that I’m telling you how to live your lives, but my theory is that, if you want to be an unreliable or ridiculous person, you can get away with much more if you work late shifts.

At least I’m hoping that theory is correct because I’m filing this column at 3.44am and I’d really like to get away with being deemed unreliable and ridiculous, thank you very much.