"you must be so tired" the one thing ive heard the most since  I quit my office job and started working nights at a supermarket. 

why? because my last job was awful.It was mind numbing and toxic, I didn't even work my notice, I told them  on the Thursday i wasn't coming back and left friday. In the mean time I bagged myself a nights job at a supermarket as a merchandiser. I'm basically that person that moves stuff once you've got used to where it is because someone in head office thinks it will make you buy it... Since starting i've been thinking about merchandising alot more, ie in the fashion industry. imagine being the merchandiser for Selfridges or something like that, making products look nice on a shelf purely because of the way its placed. 

I worked in an office since i was 17. I needed something different and i love it but it is hard. i function on about 3 hours sleep a day, and i live for Thursday nights where i can sleep like a normal person. I don't have much energy to do stuff with mason but i have to make an effort, and extra effort than most people. I'm very lucky hes a game/tv addict,  

Here's what you need to know about night shifts. 

- you need to be prepared for the crazy people that do their weekly shop at 2.20am. like clock work every week. 

- you need to try and understand all the foreign people you work with, as someone who has to pay extra attention when a Scottish person is speaking, i fail at this one. alot of the time i just smile and say yeah, but the funniest bit is when they all try to speak to each other. its hilarious to listen too at 4 in the morning when your sleep deprived. 

- i work 4 nights in a row, so 4 nights a week i eat a full blown meal at 1am. which means for the other 3 nights in the week, my body needs a meal at 1am. Its all very confusing and i end up waking up STARVING. 

- customers have no regards that you've just spent 3 hours tidying and coordinating the Christmas aisle and ruin it within 0.231568 seconds all for you to spent another 3 hours doing the same thing later on that day.  

-working in a supermarket over Christmas will make you hate mince pies, wrapping paper, glitter and turkeys. honest i got sick of the sight of it all, then come the second week in January i was making room for Easter eggs!!!

- there's always one person who wants to watch the bloody casino channel at 1.30am in the staff room. like why? Your're not even playing? You like to watch other people win money. It's strange! 

- you develop OCD. when placing all the original source shower gels out in the colours of the rainbow it makes your heart feel content. 

- you eat! and i mean, you have a whole shop to choose from all night, and unless you have amazing will power.. which i don't, prepared to get fat!

-between 3 and 4am you will hit the wall. your mind will stop working and you will make every single little mistake you possibly could make. get through to 5 and your on the home stretch! 

- The people that fill the shelves are VERY protective over 4 sided cadges. once ones down their aisle don't touch it, don't put stuff in, don't even look at it. honest some one them are crackers. 

- if you have a child to look after in the day, train them! leave them kid reachable snacks and pop on the tv. cat napping will be your best friend, and if you can train you little darling to get himself a baby bell or where the fruit shoots are, it will make your life 1000 times easier. 

-night managers will ALWAYS ask you if you want over time. i made the mistake of saying yes to 1 extra nights work and i was paying for it for about 2 weeks after. so unless you really need the money or you don't like sleep...say no.

- lastly coffee. It will be your best friend, im pretty sure i have at least 30% coffee running through my veins at any given time!

Working nights isn't all bad, i no longer have to pay for childcare, im no longer in a job i hate, and no one night is the same. Any one else work nights with kids? 

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