The graveyard shifts.
A quiet but busy world.
Five nights a week, from 10 P.M. until 7 A.M., Andrew Smith, 42, works beneath fluorescent lights at a Wal-Mart center in Beckley.
The blue-clad technician toils intently at stocking and stamping and itemizing and counting the canned goods in the aisles of the lush supermarket/hardware facility.
Smith stocks a medley of items, from saltine crackers to bottled water. He keeps the racks packed for night-owl patrons who prefer to shop when the store is free of the hubbub of regular business hours.
The New York native is among some 60 nighttime employees at the Wal-Mart store, a well-lighted all-purpose center where an estimated 90 percent of all after midnight buyers come to purchase their household goods and groceries.
Smith spends the otherwise quiet hours of the night stocking the shelf before morning unleashes a new flock of shoppers.
He is part of the graveyard shift, the dark-to-dawn crew, the city’s vast work force of nurses, janitors, truckers, security guards, patrolmen, mail sorters, motel desk clerks, watchmen and waitresses who take over the town long after its tweed-and-silk-clad office inhabitants have departed.
They make up less than 10 percent of the total labor pool, but to a large extent they are the cogs that keep essential services running, from 24-hour health care to all-night police protection.
Laboring in the dark calm with no traffic jams or impatient customers, this scarcely visible work force lives in a reverse world. They drink their first cups of coffee while most others drift off to sleep; punch out as “Good Morning America” airs on TV.
“I pay it no mind that I’m going to work when most people are going to bed,” explained Brenda Sue Hall, 27, who works 11 P.M. to 7 A.M. mopping and vacuuming floors and emptying waste baskets at two different office buildings on Harper Road. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Relatively little information is kept on how many people work the midnight shift or in what capacities. The U.S. Labor Department’s last count estimated that 3 percent of employees nationwide work nights, though others who study shift workers think the figure is higher.
Beckley’s nighttime employees paint a picture that is more casual and blue-denim than its daytime image, but also one where the night side routine can be just as stimulating as the 9-to-5 experience.
“The graveyard shift can be pretty lively around here, which is why a lot of people like it,” explained Jodi McCormick, 37, a head waitress at a local late-night eatery. “I like it because of the people. It took some adjusting, but I’ve been doing it for four years and I wouldn’t change…”
Others also prefer the graveyard shift to the daytime schedule. The reasons are varied but often boil down to one word: freedom.
Freedom from bosses, freedom from traffic, freedom from daytime stress and interruptions.
Beckley’s prime nighttime employers appear to be its hospitals. Amid the bright lights and busy workers in the lobbies, it is virtually impossible to tell that it is night. Doctors and nurses stand by for emergencies, supervisors in dress shirts pass through the aisles, carts beep and wheelchairs whiz by full of would-be patients.
And whether they’re caring for the sick, sorting mail, stocking canned goods, buffing floors, or cleaning office buildings, the guardians of the night seem to share a distinct self-satisfaction.
“A lot of people take for granted that their floor is vacuumed or that their desk is clean when they show up in the morning,” chimed Louise Lynn Vanover, who on most nights can be seen cleaning offices at various locations. “The work doesn’t get done by itself.”
Even so, some complain that they seldom get a full night’s rest, that their stomachs are constantly rebelling and that their marriages, if still intact, have had to weather their share of emotional storms.
There are times when some couples don’t see each other for days.
Hall, for instance, only sees her husband about every two weeks. “He drives a tractor-trailer rig across country, and he’s hardly ever home. But it hasn’t hurt our marriage any. If anything, it makes us appreciate each other when we’re together. He comes to see me at work the minute he rolls into town…”
Others, however, complain they hardly knew which end was up when they worked the night shift.
After working the shift for seven years, Kerry Hatcher finally switched to day side. “It was hard to sleep during the day. The sun comes up, and your instinct is to be in the sunshine. At about 10 A.M., you wake up, even though you’ve only been in bed for a couple of hours. It was tough.”
The former security guard added, “Eating was another problem. I ate all the time since I didn’t know when to eat. I ate breakfast when everyone else was eating supper.”
Grim as it might sound, though, some workers seem to prefer the graveyard shift, speaking fondly of its virtues.
Timothy Tyree said he is well adjusted to the night schedule. “I’ve worked midnights since 1997,” he said, “and I have no problem coping with it. I just set my clock and get on with it. I have dark shades for my windows when I’m at home…”
For others, it’s more of a mission than a choice. “The reason I like it is simple,” said Steven Robert Browning of Bradley. “I work with my wife, Phyllis,on the night shift doing maintenance chores, and it allows us to spend time together that we ordinarily wouldn’t have. We take our lunch breaks together, chitchat, catch up on gossip, play music—it all seems to work out well…”
And yet, after several years of this schedule, some still have not convinced their bodies that day is night and night is day.
“I’m a believer that nights are designed for sleeping,” Hatcher said. “No matter what you do to try and change your body clock, you can’t change it. I learned to cope, but I never really adjusted.”
In other words, a human body really doesn’t want to stay up all night. That’s according to the majority of those who work the hoot-owl shift, the graveyard crews who toil from midnight to 8 A.M.
Still, there are those who enjoy the midnight shift. “I don’t have any trouble sleeping during the day,” offered Wanda Sue Albright of Lester. I’m single and I don’t have any distractions.”
Albright is among a squad of workers who stock the racks and shelves with all kinds of goodies at a variety of local retail centers that depend on nighttime personnel being available during the wee hours when most people are catching “Z’s.”
“We work as a team, jump in and get the work done, so the store will be ready and look presentable in the morning,” the woman explained. “The nightshift is the backbone of our store. Workers make sure all the boxes and crates are unloaded, and the goods are stacked where they belong.”
She concluded, “With some 150,000 square feet of floor space, we stay busing making sure that all aisles are restocked every night with everything from health and beauty aids to soap and toothpaste.
“We want the place to be ready and waiting when the first customers arrive in the morning.”
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Top o’ the morning!