Your longest work "shift" awake?

My definite longest was a suicidal high school football/college football double-dip. I got to work on a Friday afternoon at 3 p.m., went out and covered a game at 7 p.m., helped on desk until 2 a.m., left straight from work and drove through the night/morning to Montgomery and got into Montgomery around 9:30 a.m., went to the hotel to check in, took a long, hot shower to try to freshen up/wake up and then drove to Auburn to cover LSU-Auburn at 2:30 p.m.

Got back to my hotel room at around 10 p.m. and crashed the minute my head hit the pillow. Was so exhausted that I actually slept through the alarm and the housekeeping lady had to come into the room to wake me up to go check out. Then I drove back home.

All told, I was up 31 consecutive hours, with roughly nine of those hours spent in a vehicle. It didn't really hit me until the drive back from Auburn to my room in Montgomery. I fell asleep at the wheel at least three times.

 

Most Tuesdays I work 10 a.m.-3 or 4 a.m. mainly because of the convenience of it; I lay out a paper in the morning, then try and catch up on old work, then go to a game, usually two, then come back and have to write 4-5 stories from the weekend and that day, then lay out more pages. I could go home, but I don't feel like driving 35 minutes home to sleep for four hours. I'd rather get home at 4 or 5, sleep until 2 the next day and then work a 4-4 shift.
We're a two man shop and six sections to put out and it is usually hell when one of us is on vacation.
One year when schieza was away, I worked from like noon on a Tuesday until 4 a.m. Thursday - 40 hours. I remember there was a golf tournament with a ton of locals; with differnet papers, I wrote stories for each paper instead of one massive story, which was a mistake. Then there was an all-night layout session for the three sections, then back to the golf course, back to the office to write and lay out two papers. I think I slept for like seven hours and went to my golf league and still wasn't right in the head.

 

I work two newspaper jobs (full time during the day, part time at night). Every Friday during the school year starts at at least 6 a.m. and runs until 2 a.m. or later, and that's after getting off work from Thursday's shift at 1 a.m. on Friday.

 

Back a couple moons ago when I worked at a p.m., I would regularly work my typical Friday shift during the day, go home for a few hours, then return for football Friday night and work from roughly 9 p.m. until the early morning, grab some incredibly fitful "sleep" on a couch in the office, get up around 7 a.m. and spend the next few hours putting the paper to bed before deadline.

 

Worked at an afternoon paper. Spent 6-10 a.m. putting out that day's paper. Went home until 2 p.m. Came back to the office, worked on a couple of advance pages until 3. Hopped in the car, drove three hours to a state basketball playoff game that local Podunk High was in. Arrived at 6 just as game was supposed to start, but previous game runs long and game doesn't begin until 6:30.

Cover game, get quotes, get out of there around 9:30. Drive back three hours to office, arrive at 12:30. Figure that since I would have had to get back in at 6, I might as well write my story and put out my section now and then sleep all morning. Finally get out at 4 a.m., leaving a note for my EE telling him where to find my stuff.

A 17-hour day.

 

Worked at a small three-man shop. I worked all night to get the first preview tab we had done out. After working all night, the assistant print guy was sick so I had to stay up and help get the press working. Then I had to stay and stuff weekly inserts into the paper and label subscriptions. I was at the shop for 32 hours before I could go home and sleep.

Thank the sweet baby Jesus for 5-hour energy.

 

Longest was 24 hours: 5 a.m.- 5a.m. Covered an Ironman Triathlon and then did a results tab that night.

I slept well.

Normally, when I have monster projects, I'll try to split up the shift if possible and take a nap. I'm (slightly) less cranky that way.