Worklife - What it means to work at the docks

Hey there, Zak here from Cape Town, South Africa. I have been on this project since the last week of February.

I have been managing to get most weekends off, but this is not normal work times for me. Usually, most of us that are working in the HVAC industry start at their workshops/site for the day/callout loaction at 8am and they knock off at 4:30pm and go home.

After hours and weekends are paid at 1.5x and Sundays/Public Holidays at 2x, but are relatively rare.

At the docks... you work 7am till 7pm. 12 hours. Most companies and workers work from Monday till Sunday right through. They give their workers a day off here and there through a 2-3 month project but the site never shuts down.

I have been managing to have weekends off mostly, but even then, after 5-6 weeks of doing this, the effects start to pile up on you.

Some of the people that I play Warhammer 40k with do not seem to understand the implications of working 12 hours on site. That is half the 24hrs. Now include the time you are awake in the morning to get ready and get through traffic. Include the commute back home. Now take off 5 hours to sleep, which is average for me. Then take away the 1 hour I get to spend with my family eating dinner - at 8-9pm.

You are left with about 3 hours of the day in the evening. With only 5 hours sleep daily for 5-6 weeks, you do not have the energy to sit and do hobby stuff.

My wife also wants to spend time with me and the rest of the time... well I write blogs on Hive! A lot of people working 9-5 jobs tell me that they do not have time for blogging and this is where I might want to point out that it is indeed possible!

The implications of working at the docks is that you do not have time for yourself and you spend more time working than you do anything else.

Perhaps that has made me appreciate time better and give me better time management skills.

What it has NOT given me is time to do hobby stuff and my gripe there is that the guys seem to think that I play PC games instead of painting. Really? I don't have time for games. At all.

Well, I got to rush. Otherwise I will be late for work... yes, I blog in that morning bit as well.

Cheers!
@zakludick

Hive South Africa