Early birds

[Lace Neil Singer]

No, not everyone who leaps out of bed at 6am happy clappy. Just the people who try and force it on everyone who happens to not want to be up with the lark.

I'm a night owl. I much prefer staying up late, to getting up early. When I have to be up early for work, I need an alarm clock and a cup of coffee to ensure I can do it. I am also not at my best in the early morning; below is an approximation of what I'm like being woken early:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2379/...4b81793dbc.jpg

My main beef is with doorsteppers who ring doorbells at stupid o'clock, or people who do likewise with mobiles. I have to keep my mobile on at all times, due to not having a landline. If there was an emergency, I wouldn't grudge someone ringing me up. However, if it's not, then all hell will be let loose.

If someone rings my doorbell at say, seven o'clock in the morning like someone did once, I will go downstairs and blast them. These particular people were collecting for their church. Not only did they ring the doorbell once, but they basically kept ringing it til I was forced to get up, go downstairs and tell them to fuck off. Then they had the nerve to look upset. -.- Ring once, then I have a chance to get back to sleep after I've ignored it, dammit.

[blas87]

I feel for you. I'm slightly the opposite of you, but I totally understand where you're coming from.

I work night shift, and the first thing I want to do when I get home is relax and go to bed......

And it starts....the lawn mowers, the snow blowers, the leaf blowers, the cars and the bump bump stereos, the car alarms, my neighbors and their vaccuum cleaners and slamming and thumping doors and closets and cupboards......

[Fryk]

My wife's great grandmother is like this. She'll call the house at like 8:30-9:00, and can't even fathom that someone might not be awake at that hour. And what makes it worse is, she'll do the same thing 2 or 3 days later. You'd think that us always being in bed when she calls would be enough to establish a pattern, but NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!

[gremcint]

Ok that picture is pure awesome. I am a night owl currently living with two day people this leads to me reading quite a bit so as not to disturb them at night.

Honestly nighttime rocks.

[MaggieTheCat]

Reminds me of when my younger cousins were visiting my grandparents. My grandparents, especially my grandfather, get up EXTREMELY early. Like, between 4-5am. My cousins, who were all in their teens at the time of this visit, would of course sleep in, sometimes till 11:00am or later. My grandparents got PISSED at the, calling them lazy good-for-nothings. They went banging into the cousins' rooms in the morning, to "make sure they're still alive."

I'm a night owl too, but my husband has to be up around 6:30 to get ready for work. I usually get up with him, but if I stayed up later than he did or didn't sleep well, he doesn't care if I stay in bed for a while.

[BroomJockey]

And it starts....the lawn mowers, the snow blowers, the leaf blowers, the cars and the bump bump stereos, the car alarms, my neighbors and their vaccuum cleaners and slamming and thumping doors and closets and cupboards......

Trust me, from my night shifts, I know how annoying that can be, but by the same token, I also know that's not the same. You can be annoyed at, but you can't really begrudge the people around you doing daytime things. They can't schedule lawn mowing around your sleep schedule. I'm not sure what you have and haven't done, but there are a few things you can do to help minimize the sound intrusion from things like that. The best, though admittedly the most expensive option is getting a white noise generator and custom ear plugs. The white noise generator gets you acclimated to sound being at a certain level, so other sounds aren't as relativistically loud, and custom-fit ear plugs can nearly turn you deaf. Cheaper solutions involve getting good weather-stripping around doors, and covering windows, since those are generally the least sound-insulated.

If you go for the ear plugs, double-check if your alarm will still work with them in, or you'd have to get a flashing alarm clock to go with them.

[Boozy]

I use the regular old ear plugs you can buy in ten-packs at the drugstore, and I've found that if you jam them in just right, they block out nearly everything. I use them for Sunday afternoons when I want to nap on the sofa with my husband while he plays Call of Duty.

[Lace Neil Singer]

However, someone leaning on your doorbell IS an annoyance that you don't need. I've had people ring once then, when I don't answer, go away; but to my mind, ringing over and over at seven am is something that deserves the people responsible to get a beating. -.-

[protege]

My wife's great grandmother is like this. She'll call the house at like 8:30-9:00, and can't even fathom that someone might not be awake at that hour. And what makes it worse is, she'll do the same thing 2 or 3 days later.

It could be worse... My 93-year-old grandmother has Alzheimer's, and up until recently...would call my mother around 2am. Then she'd call back at 2:30am, 3am, 4... This went on for a bit, until her phone line was deactivated. My mother and I got tired of the calls when we're trying to sleep. For some reason, Grandma would call my mother, and then call me a few minutes later. She simply didn't realize that it was dark out, and most people sleep then

Of course then there's the other extreme. My lazy, unemployed brother, that is. He'll spend all day in bed, and usually gets upset when he's awakened. He actually bitched at me for closing the front door when I was last over there. My reaction? "It's noon. Get a job, you lazy piece of shit."

[BroomJockey]

is something that deserves the people responsible to get a beating. -.-

Agreed. And my dad would be there with you, too. He's been doing night shifts for something like a decade or more now. He hates when people ring the doorbell, thinks people who have the loud stereos are idiots, and just wishes the mowers would hurry the hell up. He's got a sweet pair of reusable ear plugs though (not custom, since the area isn't that loud).

[guywithashovel]

I'm working at home right now, so I've morphed into a bit of a night owl. Ironically, it often seems that people want to call here incessantly during the morning. It doesn't help that I hate the sound of phones ringing.

[BlaqueKatt]

my personal rule is unless prior permission for a one-time exception has been made, or it's an emergency-I will only phone or ring a doorbell between the hours of 11am-8pm-and I try between the hours of noon and 6pm.....

[Peppergirl]

As a die hard insomniac and a night owl, I feel your pain. I work an odd shift that makes my sleep patterns worse. :-(

My ex husband was one of those annoying morning people. Ugh.

And the visual of you blasting the church people off your step makes me giggle. And wanna high-five you.

[Fryk]

It could be worse... My 93-year-old grandmother has Alzheimer's, and up until recently...would call my mother around 2am. Then she'd call back at 2:30am, 3am, 4... This went on for a bit, until her phone line was deactivated. My mother and I got tired of the calls when we're trying to sleep. For some reason, Grandma would call my mother, and then call me a few minutes later. She simply didn't realize that it was dark out, and most people sleep then

At least I'd already be awake then.

[blas87]

Oh trust me Broom, I know there's minimal things I can do and I can't really be upset with day people, because night shift folks are a minority of sorts, and we can't have our own way when the majority are "normal" people.

But you've all read my posts about my neighbors, and how they demand dead silence after dark, but none of them make any attempt to prevent overly loud noise during the day. I can't do anything about city work or lawn mowers, but certainly it's not too much to ask that they don't slam their doors when they come home and go out, slam cupboards and stomp around like giants, because if I dare do that after dark, I hear about it the next day.

If we could just all find a way to work together and make each other happy, that'd be great.

I've always had an idea that it'd be great if there were rental properties or homes in certain neighborhoods that catered to "odd shift" people so that they could all live around one another (not necessarily JUST night shift, but anyone who works odd hours that drag into the night or way early morning or people who have to go to work extremely early like 2 or 3 am and work until 10 or 11 am....) and if they all had the same relative sleep schedules, there'd be a lot less conflict.

There isn't a single 3rd shifter I know that is loud, obnoxious, and crazy and disrespectful towards "normal" people.