Longest day working

[vi edit]

The summer before I started college I would regularly get up at 4:30-5:00AM and run 4 to 8 miles then go to work for a civil engineering firm doing a whole host of horrible landscaping and manual labor jobs outside for 8-10 hours. Then come home and bike another 15 miles.

My college cross country coach had us effectively competing against each other for summer training programs to see who could put in the most miles. Between running and biking I was averaging 120 miles a week. Plus working 40+ hours outside in between.

I've had numerous weekends and PTO days since being out of school where I'll start working outside on something at 6:00AM and finish up at 9:00PM when it gets dark.

My longest day ever clocked in around 40 hours. Got up at 5:00AM drove from Cedar Rapids IA to Des Moines IA and planned then to go to Omaha. Worked for a couple hours. Got a call at 10:00AM that a server blew up in Tucson, AZ. Booked tickets that day and flew from Des Moines to Tucson at 4:00PM without even so much as a change of clothes. Got to Tucson around 8:00PM local time. Worked through the night. Then through the day. Then through the next night. And the next day. And finally got the server back online and all the database items straightened out. I woke up on a Thursday morning and never got to sleep until sometime on a Saturday night. That sucked.

 

[nutxo]

Lol. Sun up to sundown in the summer time for years and years. As soon as it was light enough to see wed start and we would work will it was dark again.

Indoors many 14 hour days.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: skyking
You need to adjust the poll a bit.
The most recent shift was an unplanned 16 hour on I-5 operating an excavator in a closure. That one was tough, it was a night shift that started at 7PM and I was having a heck of a time at 11AM. I did not make it home, fell asleep for an hour or so in a rest area.
longest run without a day off = 100 days. Rotating shifts, 2 weeks day, 2 weeks swing, 2 weeks graveyard.

I H-A-T-E rotating shifts. Had to do it a couple of times over the years...It seemed like I couldn't find a different job fast enough...

Originally posted by: nutxo
Lol. Sun up to sundown in the summer time for years and years. As soon as it was light enough to see wed start and we would work will it was dark again.

Indoors many 14 hour days.

"Can't see to Can't see." Done lots of days like that. When I was an apprentice, I got sent out to a paving contractor. We worked from first light to last light. Maybe 1979...building the 4 lane I-82 (?) from Benton City to Yakima.
I was glad to get laid off from that job. (I H-A-T-E paving)

 

[shortylickens]

In the Navy when we were dropping Tomahawks on Kosovo. I worked for 36 hours straight. Am lucky I didnt get myself killed while messing with the RHIB. Most of the sleep I got on that deployment was in 2 hour increments. You know that point you find in the middle of sleep exhaustion, where you're hysterical and your brain plays tricks on you? I was there on and off for about 6 months. Thought I would throw myself overboard in a fit of insanity.
When we got back home and went on leave I slept for about two weeks. After that I vowed to never do another cruise in Deck Department. I struck for ET and worked on my ESWS during the ROH period. Never once looked back.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
In the Navy when we were dropping Tomahawks on Kosovo. I worked for 36 hours straight. Am lucky I didnt get myself killed while messing with the RHIB. Most of the sleep I got on that deployment was in 2 hour increments. You know that point you find in the middle of sleep exhaustion, where you're hysterical and your brain plays tricks on you? I was there on and off for about 6 months. Thought I would throw myself overboard in a fit of insanity.
When we got back home and went on leave I slept for about two weeks. After that I vowed to never do another cruise in Deck Department. I struck for ET and worked on my ESWS during the ROH period. Never once looked back.

My roommate in Iraq switched over from the Navy launching aircraft on a carrier. He always talked about the insane shifts that they worked, similar to what you're talking about. Not fun at all.

 

[DAGTA]

Outside... probably 10 hours

Inside, I did 21 hours straight back in April.

 

[RichUK]

Manual labour?

Don?t be silly, kid.

 

[Jadow]

>8 when I was building my house several times.

18+ working inside sitting at a computer. Many many 12 hour + days inside.

 

[murphy55d]

4am-630pm in a freezer. Thats my longest day. My job is inside manual labor (orderfilling @ grocery distribution warehouse)

Never had a desk job.

 

[IronWing]

16 hours outside work
21 hours inside work
22 hours driving (don't do this)

 

[zerocool84]

16+hrs worked at Home Depot and did a doulbe shift and then some to get some shit done. It's all physical labor there.

 

[Ronstang]

17 hours in terrible conditions. When I was in college I worked at the airport on the ramp loading/servicing planes. We were a contract outfit for the airlines that did not have enough flights a day to justify a ground crew of their own. One Saturday during Christmas break American Airlines contracted us to do the lavatory service on all their fights as their truck was broken. Even though I had enough seniority to not have to do lavs the bosses came to me and asked me if I would work overtime and do lavs the entire day. They said I was the only person on the ramp they could trust to do all our flights and remember to do all of AA's and dump the truck at the proper time. I worked in the freezing rain for 17 hours sucking shit water out of airplanes.

 

[alevasseur14]

Back when I was managing a convenience store, I found myself working 24 hour days (3 shifts straight) waaay too often. The sad thing is, it was usually easier than pleading, sometimes bribing, to get someone to come in and cover a no show...

That job killed a part of me that I'll never get back.

Outside, I put in a lot of 8 hour days running the lawncare business I had in my high school years. That was great. Listening to music and driving in circles. Doesn't get any better!

 

[ahenkel]

I worked as a CSR for Voicestream before they became t-mobile. Call volume was so high they started offering a 200.00 bonus for every 8 hours OT you worked, + time and a half for all your OT Wages. I worked 16 hours a day on my normal 4 ten shift then came in on one of my days off and worked another 16 hours for a couple months. Till they cracked down and limited it to 12 hour shifts only when scheduled

 

[Dr. Detroit]

US Army & Public Accountant.

Army - 24hrs+ outside in the backwoods of Missouri

Auditor - 22hrs + on a S3 filing

 

[zzuupp]

Inside: 15+ many times. On certain holidays it was time & a half at that job. I took the $$$.

 

[Alone]

My longest day was probably 32-40 hours in the field a few times a week during sleep deprivation.

But damn, was it ever fun.

 

[villageidiot111]

13hrs in a warehouse stacking pallets of 50lb bags of birdfeed by hand.

 

[RedCOMET]

I work on an oil rig. 12 hour shifts doing real time -monitoring (aka mud logging), sometimes 18 shifts when trying to get from nights to days, etc. 12 hour shifts outside catching samples for the mud logger. And its really out in the Gulf of mexico in the summer time.

Crazy time was I worked a night shift, 6p to 6 am, slept till about noon-ish, then got up and started "rigging down" our equipment, ie pulling wiring and sensors we had on the rig b/c the contract was over and we had to uninstall everything we setup. Didn't call it quits till about 3am (although did stop to eat dinner and midnight dinner). Showered, ate breakfast and slept from about 6-10am. Got on the helicopter, and drove the 2 hours back to the office to drop off the company car. That was a long ass day.

I worked in an office doing data entry at ETS, i got to correct AP exams.. really boring. but that was about 7.5 hours a day and lame.

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

23 hours. Got to work at 7 just like normal on a normal day, went through the morning fine, and about 2 or so we saw a huge cloud of the blackest smoke rising from the north side of the plant. We went in at about six and started ripping out conduit and burned wiring, did that until six, went home and slept a couple of hours, and was back at ten running new conduit.

Inside, the entire day as a line cook, so about 16 hours, but that really counts and manual labor.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Construction schedule was running tight. Worked on the framing crew from 6am to 4, then as I was leaving and the electrician showed up, he offered another 8 hours assisting him running conduit/cable. 18 hours is a long day.

 

[xanis]

I helped my uncle tear down and clear out debris from a house he was renovating. I think that was about 8 hours or so of hammering, lifting, prying, and dumping stuff. He gave me like $60... nothing special, but whatever, it was money. If I could find a job doing physical labor that I could work over 8 hours a day (and get paid reasonably well) I would take it in a heartbeat.

 

[somethingsketchy]

Outside: maybe 10 hours (as a kid on a family farm with cattle herding and other mundane tasks)
Inside: 13.5 hours (due to a technicality in the calendar week (during the Christmas 2008 season) I worked as a machine operator). That day sucked hardcore. Almost as soon as I got maybe 6 hours of sleep, it was back to work again...from then on I have great respect to those who work in the manufacturing industry.

 

[sash1]

i did landscaping back in HS for a summer, so it was very common to work 10+ hour shifts.

longest indoor was when i had to work doubles at crapplebees back in the day, and had to close as well, that would be around 15+ hours. not really "physical labor" but certainly never fun

 

[Soccerman06]

Does playing world of warcraft for 96 hours straight count as work?