three shift rotation

[Jadzia]

We often hear how the Federation ships have this system in place, but we rarely hear about the other shifts.

Almost always the episodes follow the shifts where the captain is active, but at that time, all of the senior officers seem to be active too. Meaning that the second and third shifts are going to be run with no senior staff

Is that normally what happens in the Navy? Or are the senior staff shared out between the 3 (or 4) shifts.

For example I'd expect the XO to oversee maybe the second shifts, not just hang around the shadow of his Captain.

 

[Chaos Descending]

The senior staff (Captain, XO, Department Heads) do not stand duty on shift work schedules.

They are on a "day shift" schedule, and get woken up during the night for anything important that they need to address.

 

[Atlas]

Unless you're in a Condition III steaming situation (war time) and then the department heads will be standing OOD and TAO on a rotating shift. It's possible that on big decks this isn't the case, but on small boys it certainly is.

 

[Timo]

...and get woken up during the night for anything important that they need to address.

And we should remember that we only meet our heroes when something important does happen. Nine times out of ten, the camera visits the bridge when the Important Thing of the Week is going on: the ship is entering orbit of the planet she intends to survey, or racing towards a vessel she intends to rescue, or looking around for the enemy that she has been sent to confront. At such a time, regardless of shifts, the top officers would be awake and in action.

When there are exceptions, we do catch Riker asleep in is sexy silken sheets (and the camera tastefully hides what, if anything, he is wearing), or Picard busy with PADDwork or enjoying his literary pursuits, as the summons to the bridge come.

All in all, I don't think Trek ever falls for the symptoms that plague many forms of fiction: "When do they sleep?" "How come they can go on this long without eating or peeing?" "There was no time for her to change clothes or do her hair!". TPTB were rather good with such things in all the shows...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Count Zero]

I have wondered recently how a three shift rotation works practically. As I understand it, each shift lasts 8 hours. That seems to me to be a pretty long time to go without any breaks (and a lack of concentration could pose much more danger on a war ship than at your regular retail job). So do people take breaks during their shifts?
I think that a four shift system might be better, at least in theory. Or am I totally wrong?

 

[Forbin]

I have wondered recently how a three shift rotation works practically. As I understand it, each shift lasts 8 hours. That seems to me to be a pretty long time to go without any breaks (and a lack of concentration could pose much more danger on a war ship than at your regular retail job). So do people take breaks during their shifts?
I think that a four shift system might be better, at least in theory. Or am I totally wrong?

Hm. Interesting point.

 

[Crewman47]

I work roughly an 8 hour work day, as I guess most people here might do, and I get two 15 min breaks plus an hours lunch so it could be a safe bet that the Crew of a Starship or Starfleet installation would have the same set up. I think that's why we see Crewman who show up to relieve our main cast when they leave there station. This could be the set up for most departments.

 

[John Picard]

We often hear how the Federation ships have this system in place, but we rarely hear about the other shifts.

Almost always the episodes follow the shifts where the captain is active, but at that time, all of the senior officers seem to be active too. Meaning that the second and third shifts are going to be run with no senior staff

Is that normally what happens in the Navy? Or are the senior staff shared out between the 3 (or 4) shifts.

For example I'd expect the XO to oversee maybe the second shifts, not just hang around the shadow of his Captain.

The XO works dayshift as well. Everyone else, Department Heads on down, all have watchstanding duties aboard US Navy vessels. The typical rotation is dayshift, mid-shift, and nights. If manpower allows, there is also a dog-watch, meaning that the night watchstanding is broken up to allow for meal breaks.

However, when at sea, the dayshift works 12-hours (maybe longer if battle drills are conducted) and the night shift works 12-hours. Watchstanding is still broken up. It's not uncommon to work a 12-hour day, sleep for a few hours, and then have the 00:00 - 0:400 watch (which really sucks).

 

[Count Zero]

So, if you work 12 hours, you do have breaks, haven't you? How is this organised?

 

[T'Cal]

I work roughly an 8 hour work day, as I guess most people here might do, and I get two 15 min breaks plus an hours lunch so it could be a safe bet that the Crew of a Starship or Starfleet installation would have the same set up. I think that's why we see Crewman who show up to relieve our main cast when they leave there station. This could be the set up for most departments.

That's pretty much how many police departments work as well. The Chief and senior staff (Deputy Chiefs, Capts, Cmdrs) are on regular business hours with firstline supervisors (Sgts and Lts usually) and officers working around the clock on 8-hour shifts. Each shift is staffed with enough people to allow for vacations, training, and sick time use. The senior staff is called in during emergencies that occur during off hours.

Never having served in the military, I've always wondered do the soldiers/marines/sailors/airmen (or in Trek's case, officers and crewman) get regular days off every week or so? I'm not refering to those in battle of course, but those who have other assignments.

 

[wew]

When I was in the Air Force, my unit had a three shift set up. However, two other shift existed; the day shift normal which consisted of personnol who almost exclusively worked days and a fourth rotating shift.

We had a 3-1-3-1-3-2 shift: with the following rotations for shift A, B, C, & D

So one shift was always able to have the two days off; the other three shifts did rotated through the schedule and after they worked 3 days, they had their days off and the 4th shift started on second shift.

We went 3 swings; 1 day off, 3 mids, 1 day off, 3 days, 2 days off. Also during the shifts people were available to cover lunch,etc.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

So, if you work 12 hours, you do have breaks, haven't you? How is this organised?

If it's like RL on the ships I've been on -- each shift is 4 hours, so the "three" shift notation means 3 shifts within each 12 hours (0000-0400, 0400-0800, 0800-1200).

It's also called/referred to as "1-in-3". A "1-in-4" rotation would mean that you stand one watch (again, 4 hours long) in every 4 watches, and so on.

If you're really good (i.e. able to have enough fully-qualified watchstanders), I've seen rotations up to 1-in-9 or 1-in-10. But, that's not very often, and is probably getting rarer given the smaller crews that are becoming more common.

As someone mentioned above, sometimes you see a "dog" watch added to both break up the rotation and to account for meals/watch relief. These are usually done/stuck in to split up the 1600-2000 watch, so that it becomes 1600-1730, and then 1730-2000.

Does that help?

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[Chaos Descending]

Different ships do different things.

When I was on the Nimitz, reactor department was on a five hour watch schedule, with a four hour shift thrown in. 0200-0700, 0700-1200, 1200-1700, 1700-2200, and 2200-0200.

Also, on that big flattop, Department Heads did not stand watch.

 

[Count Zero]

Does that help?

It does. Thanks for all the RL examples. It does sound like you wouldn't get much sleep, though.

 

[clint g]

I work roughly an 8 hour work day, as I guess most people here might do, and I get two 15 min breaks plus an hours lunch so it could be a safe bet that the Crew of a Starship or Starfleet installation would have the same set up. I think that's why we see Crewman who show up to relieve our main cast when they leave there station. This could be the set up for most departments.

That's pretty much how many police departments work as well. The Chief and senior staff (Deputy Chiefs, Capts, Cmdrs) are on regular business hours with firstline supervisors (Sgts and Lts usually) and officers working around the clock on 8-hour shifts. Each shift is staffed with enough people to allow for vacations, training, and sick time use. The senior staff is called in during emergencies that occur during off hours.

Never having served in the military, I've always wondered do the soldiers/marines/sailors/airmen (or in Trek's case, officers and crewman) get regular days off every week or so? I'm not refering to those in battle of course, but those who have other assignments.

Dont know about other branches but in the US Army, the way it usually works is that there is a 0600 to 1700 work day. In practice however its usually 0600 to mission complete, meaning that you work till your tasks are done. If you finish early ( a rare event) the company commander and first sgt might let everyone off early. You also have weekends unless some task needs to be completed or there are training events, in which case you loose your weekends. There are also things called staff duty and CQ. CQ is a rotating duty shift among enlisted in which they watch over the barracks. Staff duty is sort of similar except it is a rotating duty shift in charge of watching battalion (or higher) in which there are several enlisted on watch, a Staff duty NCO and a staff duty officer (yes, even officers get roped into night shifts lol)

It is important to note (and sort of obvious) that due to the nature of watching over a building as opposed to a massive ship that there are probably fewer people involved in CQ and staff duty shifts than are involved in the duty shifts of a Navy ship

 

[John Picard]

So, if you work 12 hours, you do have breaks, haven't you? How is this organised?

Breaks?

Different ships do different things.

When I was on the Nimitz, reactor department was on a five hour watch schedule, with a four hour shift thrown in. 0200-0700, 0700-1200, 1200-1700, 1700-2200, and 2200-0200.

Also, on that big flattop, Department Heads did not stand watch.

Reactor Department is a different animal. On Carl Vinson, our nukes worked "Five and Dimes". 5 hours on, 10 hours off, 10 hours on, 5 hours off. Their shifts were both monitoring the reactors and training. That's all they did.

Your department heads didn't stand watch? That doesn't sound right, because they are mostly senior officers (Commander, Lt Commander) whose duties are usually watchstanding on the Bridge (Conning officer, for example).

 

[nx1701g]

We've seen indications that Riker may man the bridge in TNG during the Beta Watch. It's been established that Data commands the ship during Nightwatch.

It seems that Senior Staff members work Alpha Shift in Star Trek then have the option of remaining on duty for the others. Voyager has shown episodes where officers have worked two different shifts (Harry Kim worked both Alpha and Night in Voyager; B'Elanna complained in a season two episode because she was working both Alpha and Nightwatch in Engineering).

 

[The Wormhole]

"How come they can go on this long without eating or peeing?"

Actually, in Trek's 42 year history, we've only seen two toilets (in the brig in Trek V, and in the decon chamber in Enterprise) and toilets have only been mentioned directly in dialogue once, in Voyager when a number of them went offline. This was problematic for the Bolian crewmembers.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Does that help?

It does. Thanks for all the RL examples. It does sound like you wouldn't get much sleep, though.

^You're welcome. As for the sleep, eh... You got used to it. After 60+ days underway, you can sleep anywhere, anytime, and it's not a problem.

Btw, as a Department Head (I was Chief Engineer), I didn't stand watch either. Unless I wanted to do so, which I did once in a blue moon just for the heck of it.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[Count Zero]

^You're welcome. As for the sleep, eh... You got used to it. After 60+ days underway, you can sleep anywhere, anytime, and it's not a problem.

Sounds like an excavation, except that there, you get that ability after a few days.