What's the longest continuous stint you've done at work?

[dogbone]

I used to do plenty of all nighters in the old days but on one occasion I did 3 complete 24 hour days. It was pretty strange, everyone went home and it was like "bye" next morning they're all back and I think I'm nearly finished, "yeah, I'll be going soon", but that dragged on through the night, and again the next day and night. Didn't (seem to) do me any harm but I spoke to someone who did similar and he was convinced he suffered some sort of brain damage.

I'll wager there's some good horror stories out there.

 

[sushi]

FWIW, what will happen after prolonged hours awake, is the individual will time out/freeze for brief periods of time, say 10-15 seconds. Those watching will see it. However, the person it happens to, will have no recollection of it happening. They will continue as if nothing happened. Kind of funny to see it happen.

 

[yetanotherdave]

I used to have a job doing 16 hour shifts, 16:00-0800, 5 days a week, plus 12 hour shifts at the weekend, making 104 hours a week. I did that for three months. Never again.
I saw one guy do a holiday weekend shift, from 16:00 friday till 0800 Tuesday. 88 straight hours. He turned up (it was a security job) with laptop, mini tv, cd player etc. It was a new building site with nothing more on it than a gas heater in a shed and a gas stove for cooking. He was not happy.

 

[jamesarm97]

I worked 72 hours straight on one job that we ran into problems with. Once you get past the first day you a second wind and just keep going.

 

[decksnap]

I did about 36 hours straight,glued to my LCDs. After which my eyeballs were flourescent red. One of my eyes has not been the same since to be honest.

 

[OutThere]

I've done a few all nighters, but I don't seem to do so well after like 20ish hours awake. Once I decided to stay up for the full 24 hours...I went to eat lunch right around the 24 hour point, promptly threw up, and went to bed, slept for 17 hours.

 

[ATD]

I did 3 complete 24 hour days.

I worked 72 hours straight on one job that we ran into problems with. Once you get past the first day you a second wind and just keep going.

Can't say I have ever done that.

When I first started in design I worked at a design studio that was open 22 hours a day. Some weeks my OT checks made my regular checks look like pocket change. 60 to 70 hours was the norm, some weeks over 100. I worked there for almost 5 years at that pace. This year I did 3 sets of 5 back to back 18 hour days, I'm getting too old for that.

 

[puckhead193]

any horror stories from someone trying to edit something under a deadline...I can see this in my future

 

[Blue Velvet]

I've done some horrible stints at home while working on work... but what I tend to do, regardless of how tight the deadline, is try to get a few 30min naps here and there if it's going to be a marathon.

You can't produce useful work if your eyeballs are hanging out, and that's when you're bound to make some technical error as well, like forgetting to convert your images to CMYK or something equally stoopid.

 

[leekohler]

I've done some horrible stints at home while working on work... but what I tend to do, regardless of how tight the deadline, is try to get a few 30min naps here and there if it's going to be a marathon.

You can't produce useful work if your eyeballs are hanging out, and that's when you're bound to make some technical error as well, like forgetting to convert your images to CMYK or something equally stoopid.

Or misspelling a word in a headline for a pitch. I did that once during an all-nighter. We still got the account.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Or misspelling a word in a headline for a pitch. I did that once during an all-nighter. We still got the account.

Many years ago, a friend of mine inadvertently left a slide in a long and boring presentation saying 'Who gives a f*** anyway'... they didn't get the job, he got the sack. He went onto much better and brighter things. We laugh about it now...

 

[Queso]

Only 28 hours here. At the end of a normal 8 hour day I did a server migration that was supposed to take 3 hours. Hah!! After struggling to get a full backup for nearly four hours then rebuilding the box with the new disk and SCSI hardware, the sodding motherboard on the server blew during the restore at around 4 a.m. and I had to wait for HP to deliver a replacement, which arrived at around 8. Fitted that, restored all the data and finally went home during lunchtime.

 

[eluk]

Between 25 & 26 hours. This was a removing three high-level heaters from a workshop and it was a physically tiring job even though I was a lot younger then.

 

[MacDonaldsd]

I don't know how you do it, im one of these people that needs 8 hours of sleep a day and end up being tired and not with it, if I don't get it.

3 days straight is insane

 

[dogbone]

Many years ago, a friend of mine inadvertently left a slide in a long and boring presentation saying 'Who gives a f*** anyway'... they didn't get the job, he got the sack. He went onto much better and brighter things. We laugh about it now...

I did a similar thing, with a slide in a carousel tray for a multi screen projection. Can't remember what it said exactly, it was very embarrassing but I didn't get sacked, however neither did I go on to brighter things, there's a lesson their somewhere.

I've done some horrible stints at home while working on work... but what I tend to do, regardless of how tight the deadline, is try to get a few 30min naps here and there if it's going to be a marathon.

I installed "Time Out" to help me but I'd find myself pressing the 'postpone' button even for the 10 second 'mini break', I ended up chucking it out. All I ever did with the program was continuously press the postpone button. You women are so practical, I don't know how you do it.

 

[ToddW]

during final exams one year at school i didn't sleep for roughly four days. i had way to many tests and projects all due at the same time. that wasn't that fun to say the least. when i was done i slept for two days.

late last year we had a big "thing" that was coming due and schedule was pretty hectic. i'm talking billions of dollars riding on it. we had a few issues in our system and i worked 38 hours straight. somewhere after hour 20 i was staring at a blank screen and had no idea where i was for a few minutes. i came to and went right back to work. it was like my brain rebooted.

 

[iBlue]

god!

I think I did about 17 hours solid once. It was a busy job though, can't rest or sit down at all in that time-frame sort though. I could barely walk near the end of it. Who've thought chemistry could take it out of you like that?

A lot of doctors in their residencies can rival these figures but they get to nod off for a bit in the on-call room usually.

 

[mattscott306]

Well I felt pretty good about my 20 hour days I did when opening restaurants (opened Chick-fil-a's), but reading this thread I feel like it's not quite as big of a job...

 

[odinsride]

My max is 12 hours. After that, I'll go home. There's no point in working insane hours...life is too short.

 

[mactastic]

Well let's see... I stayed up for almost 72 hours a couple of times at school - two nights and the better part of three days - getting ready for crits. Dumbest thing I did was probably using the tablesaw on the morning of the third day because I discovered that I'd come late to the supply of display tables so I had to fabricate my own in under 30 minutes.

As for real life, I've done a couple of long shifts. I once worked security for the Fiesta bowl following a New Years Eve party in downtown Phoenix. That "work day" came out to around 55 hours.

I've also done a 70-hour stint of CAD work prior to presenting a project to a client. Went from nothing to full schematic design in that time period with a couple other people helping me on and off (meaning they got to go home for the nights).

Of course I've never done what one of my professors told me he and his buddies used to do - stay up all night getting ready for crits, then after crits go donate blood, then head to the pub for a pint before crashing for two days.

(Oh and for anyone wanting to see what people look like under these conditions, watch "Hands on a Hardbody". It's a documentary about a competition where people have to keep their hand on a Nissan Hardbody truck for the longest.)