On Fri, 3 Oct 1997, Selina F. Priestley wrote:
Something that worked pretty well in our NOC back in the day was a 10 hour work day, three week schedule that went something like this:
6 days of work 2 days off 2 days of work 1 day off 4 days of work 6 days off
Selina, I came in shortly after you went to eng. At that point the schedule must have changed and was: (CAPS on, lowercase off) WTFSsMTwTFsSMTWtfssmt o first 4 dats were a breeze (you just got back from 6days off) o then take off a weekend day for a rest o next Monday & Tuesday (the busiest phone days of the wk) o then take a Wednesday off o and coast through a less busy Thursday & Friday o followed by a weekend day off o the uphill 4 starts with a lazy Sunday (you've started loosing momentum, luckily it's Sun) Followed by Mon, Tue, Wed - each which are only bearable because you are looking forward to your... o 6 days off. Seriously, the psychological advantages were unmistakable. And yes, people did not want to leave the NOC. After we changed the schedule to it's current rotation, work seemed to never end and the days you seemed to get off were always lame t-w or w-th blocks. It is not just how many days, but which days you get off when you are in the thick. I never minded the 10 hours - I would have ended up putting it in 5 days a week anyway :-). There were a few sticking points: 1. Students - we got around their schedules with employee managed shift swaps. People were always taking mini vacations and happy to trade. We also had a floater and if all else failed, shift managers or OT. 2. Weekend coverage was half staffed - if you need more weekend staff you'll need a less desirable rotation or OT. I'd give this rotation a thumbs up as well. That's about it. Matthew R. Meyer ANS Network Engineering