Blogs by night shift workers?

March 16, 2006 7:35 PM

I am looking for blogs written by low-wage, night-shift employees (such as convenience store clerks) who use their blogs to chronicle interesting experiences from their working lives. Any suggestions?
posted by jayder to Work & Money (20 answers total)

This woman who drive a NYC cab is pretty good.

My all time favorite was a cab driver who used to write for SFgate. I believe he stopped driving, but night cabbie's archives are still on the web.
posted by bim at 7:58 PM on March 16, 2006

A bunch of employees at a Vancouver coffee shop recently quit their jobs and posted a Dear John letter in the window. It created quite a stir in the local blogging community for a few moments.
posted by acoutu at 8:45 PM on March 16, 2006

A waiter
posted by Airhen at 8:47 PM on March 16, 2006

not quite [mid]night-shift... but i wrote this last summer working at a rehab clinic after graduating college. It's short. I'd start from the beginning.
posted by trinarian at 8:57 PM on March 16, 2006

i no longer do that for a living ... but i did for a total of 15 or 16 years

you are absolutely right that night shift workers have very interesting experiences ... anything from hilarious to horrifying

hmmm ... maybe i should write something about that ...
posted by pyramid termite at 9:28 PM on March 16, 2006

True Porn Clerk Stories made the rounds a couple of years ago but is still worth a look and has some night shift stuff.
posted by mediareport at 9:53 PM on March 16, 2006

A couple of years ago, jonmc had the greatest domain name idea evar! for a site that woulda aggregate stories like those: nametagnation.

Nothing came of it, sadly, but I thought that it was brilliant. Here's an amusingly circular link (it references MeFi and that phrase) that has some resources and an old MeFi thread started by jonmc.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:14 PM on March 16, 2006

Convenience store.
posted by tellurian at 10:20 PM on March 16, 2006

People who hate their jobs. You should be able to find a few blogs after searching for 'night shift' here.
posted by tellurian at 10:47 PM on March 16, 2006

Oh, also: not blogs, but the SA forums have frequent, often hilariously funny threads where goons tell their stories about their McJobs. I don't know if you can read the GBS forum there without paying for membership these days, but if so, it's worth a look.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:50 PM on March 16, 2006

Well, it's not quite what you described, but the Acts of Gord describe the interesting events of a video game store owner.
posted by fvox13 at 11:59 PM on March 16, 2006

When I saw 11 answers, I was sure I was too late, but to my surprise, no one has mentioned the very popular customers_suck, bbv_drones (Blockbuster Video employees), and coworkers_suck communities on LiveJournal. The people who post there do like to complain, and a lot of entries are just normal bitching about work, but there are a few gems now and then.
posted by jedrek at 1:14 AM on March 17, 2006

Of course, after waking up and re-reading the title of this post, please disregard the BBV link in my previous answer -- the rest of links are still good though.
posted by jedrek at 1:16 AM on March 17, 2006

Nee Naw and Random Acts of Reality (both London Ambulance Service & found here on mefi) are decent - they describe a whole section of society I'll never see. Definitely read the Porn Clerk Diaries linked above too.
posted by polyglot at 4:07 AM on March 17, 2006

Airhen's mention of "Waiter"made me think of "Bitter Waitress." It's not exactly a full out blog, but it IS interesting.

And I love the shitty tipper database and such.
posted by bim at 4:51 AM on March 17, 2006

I didn't blog about it but I used to be a third shift Waffle House waitress...oh the stories I can tell!
posted by konolia at 5:02 AM on March 17, 2006

No longer written, but the hilarious archives are still there: Operators Standing By, by a night-shift answering service employee.
posted by JanetLand at 6:14 AM on March 17, 2006

Clublife is a blog written by a bouncer at a New York nightclub.
posted by KathyK at 6:47 AM on March 17, 2006

Again not a blog, but one of the most interestingly weird books I've ever read is the self-published "11 Years, 9 Months, 5 Days," so titled because that's how long its author worked at a fast-food place he calls "The Burger Store." Seriously, it's like "JIm's Journal" in book form. So bizarrely awesome!
posted by GaelFC at 8:34 AM on March 17, 2006

These are some really interesting blogs.
posted by bigmusic at 9:41 PM on March 17, 2006