Denise Patricolo, the night manager at the World Golf Village Renaissance Resort, checks in guest Pete West from Columbia, S.C. Patricolo is working the overnight shift in hopes of landing a promotion. -- Bob Self/staff

For those considering pulling all-nighters...
Beware of the consequences

  See also Working all night

By Mark Gordon
Times-Union business writer

Denise Patricolo isn't an insomniac, yet she hasn't caught a wink on a Friday or Saturday night since December.

She can't sleep those nights because she is working -- from 9 at night to 7 the next morning. Patricolo is the night manager at the World Golf Village Renaissance Resort. She is the only supervisor working during that time and is responsible for running the entire operation while most guests are sound asleep.

The shifts are dreadfully boring, Patricolo said, and she keeps her sanity by puffing away on cigarettes as the minutes drag by.

"I hate it," Patricolo said. "It's horrible. It's the worst shift you could possibly have."

For Patricolo and other First Coast employees, though, the night shift is more then cigarettes, catnaps and caffeine. It's a time laced with opportunity: a chance for a promotion, maybe a raise. Or, at the minimum, it sends a signal to the company that this is a worker who will take one for the team.

And career experts say working the night shift is no longer a head-first dive into a career black hole, like it was 10 or 20 years ago. Businesses like hotels, factories and call centers need to stay open around the clock, and they need qualified workers, from service reps to managers, to keep the operation running smoothly.

Several Web sites are devoted to helping night-shift workers cope with the stress and problems brought on by working while most people are under their covers, sound asleep. Here are few: www.circadian.com: Taken from the word circadian -- the rhythms of sleep. The site has information about the programs and services offered at Circadian Technologies Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., shift-work consulting firm. www.workingnights.com Site has tips, stories, and cartoons for the overnight worker. Sells several books, catalogues and pamphlets on night-shift work. Run by Circadian Technologies Inc. www.shiftworking.com: A message board for the night-shift working community.

"A willingness to spend time on the night shift could help," said Jack Connolly, president of Shiftwork Consultants Inc., a Long Island, N.Y., firm that works with companies and rank-and-file employees on how to improve life on the night shift, "because it's tough to find the people who will do that."

Ed Coburn, a vice-president at Circadian Technologies Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., shift-work consulting firm, said that companies themselves are starting to see the advantages of having good late night workers, too. Employers, from 24-hour credit card operations to call centers for cable TV shopping outlets, are beginning to push employees to take on these less-desirable shifts.

"The carrot, or the motivation, is the company is saying, 'Look, work this shift, and when you're done with it, you'll be further along with your career,'" Coburn said. "There are lots of companies using this now as a lever to get people to work these shifts."

Job satisfaction

Home Depot, an Atlanta-based chain of do-it-yourself home improvement stores -- some are open 24 hours a day -- doesn't have a specific program geared toward rewarding employees for working a night shift, but it has used financial incentives to lure certain employees into switching over.

Like for Karl Fiebelkorn, an assistant manager at the Home Depot near Regency Square mall, which became a 24-hour operation about two years ago. Fiebelkorn was approached about becoming an "overnight sales associate," but having worked day shifts for the past 10 years at various retail outlets, the Minnesota native balked at first.

But the company waved some extra money to entice him, and he decided to give it a shot. Two years later, Fiebelkorn has worked his way up to being the second in command during the overnights, and he has earned a companywide reputation as a top employee.

"Karl is certainly one of our top performers," said Katherine Lacey, one of several night supervisors at the Regency Home Depot and Fiebelkorn's boss. "He could take any department if he wants it."

Fiebelkorn, who normally works from about 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., Sundays through Thursdays, said he has grown into the shift, and now he prefers it to working days. The money is still better than other shifts, he said. Plus, there is the added bonus of having both a set schedule and Fridays and Saturdays off -- a rarity in the retail field.

Fiebelkorn also likes the solitude of the shift. There are moments of chaos when the store gets busy -- normally around midnight, when other night-shift workers come in to shop, like cops, nurses and janitors -- but in general, he has enough time to work in silence. He spends a lot of time loading and unloading shelves, and organizing the store for the next flow of customers.

"Working overnight I get a lot more done," Fiebelkorn said, "so I get a lot more job satisfaction this way."

Patricolo, too, gets some job satisfaction from her night shift responsibilities at the World Golf Village hotel where she spends her Friday and Saturday nights, but unlike Fiebelkorn, she is not looking to stay with the shift.

She wasn't told directly by her supervisors that a promotion would be forthcoming for working nights, but she took the attitude that by doing a good job, she would prove her worth to the company and good things would follow. A native of Jacksonville, Patricolo has worked at other resort-style hotels, including one in West Palm Beach before coming back to Jacksonville a few years ago.

Her current weekend assignment has been the most grueling one. It's longer than normal day shifts, and the people who approach a hotel desk at 3 a.m., she said, are much different than those who stop by at 3 p.m. Patricolo said she has seen people stumble in to the hotel drunk, as well as other guests coming and going at odd hours with some odd-looking people.

"Anybody that's up at 3 or 4 in the morning," she said, "has got to be weird."

An army of one

Besides reaching into her pack of cigarettes for a smoke, Patricolo will sometimes talk to the only other overnight employee at the hotel, the night security guard. They chat about their families, movies, whatever they can to pass the time.

"I try and keep a quick pace," Patricolo said, "but it's difficult to keep your brains about you."

At Home Depot, too, night-shift workers have formed a bond. Fiebelkorn and his night-time boss, Lacey, both said it's a privilege to work the night shift.

Coburn, at the Massachusetts shift-work consultants firm, said it's common for late night and overnight workers to form those kinds of bonds: They sometimes feel isolated from their day-side brethren, so they form a type of army together, albeit a tired one.

"There is an us-against-them kind of thing, [where] you feel like you are part of a club," Coburn said. "They tend to feel undervalued by society and the company itself. Night-shift workers in a way feel like they are invisible, so they try to develop their own culture."

Coburn said everyone reacts in a different way to working the night-shift. Some, like Fiebelkorn and Lacey, embrace it as a good time to buckle down and get work done. Others count the minutes down until its time to go home and they can snuggle under their covers.

There are several tricks and techniques people can use to try and improve life on the night shift, workplace experts said. For example, night-shift employees should take extra care to eat healthily and not munch on fatty foods that zap energy.

Also, after working consecutive night shifts, employees should plan for a full recovery day, so they can readjust to daytime living.

Still, some people are just not physiologically cut out for the work, Coburn said. Connolly, who runs the New York shift-work firm, has counseled dozens of workers who have burned out from working night-time shifts.

One of the most obvious difficulties, experienced by even those who like working at nights, is the loss of sleep. Coburn said if you don't sleep well at night to begin with, then working nights and trying to sleep days could be even more troublesome.

Lacey, who has been working an overnight weekend shift at Home Depot for about a year and a half, has a built-in solution to the sleep problem.

"I have three little kids," Lacey said, "so I'm used to not getting much sleep."

Nighty night

Gordon

Give it up for the Getting Ahead Guy

Florida Times-Union business reporter Mark Gordon, who has written about trade and transportation for the newspaper since 1999, has begun a new assignment. He will now write primarily for the Sunday business section, called Getting Ahead. Among his responsibilities will be writing stories that focus on men and women in their 20s, 30s and 40s and the kinds of things they are doing to get ahead in their careers, their finances or their use of technology. Gordon will profile local sucess stories, and write "how-to" stories from the perspective of local entrepreneurs, business professionals and others.

If you think you know someone who is "getting ahead," or have suggestions about issues or stories that should be covered, call Mark at (904) 359-4103 or e-mail him at mgordon@jacksonville.com.