Artesia, New Mexico is proudly lauded as “The City of Champions.”
While this is mainly to do with success on the football field, this heart-of-a-champion mindset also bleeds into the community as a whole. Artesia is a city that demands, and often produces, excellence, regardless of the field — the food industry, first responders, customer service, sales, the school system, and the oil industry.
In most cases, consistency and excellence require sacrifice. This sacrifice often manifests in the form of irregular work schedules. For many first responders, their sacrifice is being available at all hours of the night. In the case of oilfield workers, it is long, arduous hours on location or traveling to wherever the job requires, most of the time working through the night and sleeping through the day.
Shiftwork is a beast in and of itself, but many people in the oil and gas industry work an alternating shiftwork schedule known as a “swing shift.” Typically, a swing shift employee works a set number of days in one interval (days: 5 am-5 pm), is off for a number of days, and then works their next days in the opposite interval (nights: 5 pm-5 am). It is incredibly difficult to undertake, let alone sustain, and yet there are hundreds of people in Artesia who do just that.
There are numerous health issues that also arise when putting the human body through such a tumultuous sleep schedule. Many regular night shift workers face numerous health issues, such as insomnia, gastrointestinal dysfunction, higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and cancer (Better Health). But with an alternating schedule like a swing shift, these health risks amplify due to the body constantly adapting to work and sleep hours in one interval, then completely readjusting to a new interval.
According to Better Health, it takes the average human body as many as ten days to adjust to a nightshift schedule alone. The difficulty in an alternating shift work schedule is the constant re-adjustment. The worker’s body becomes accustomed to the night shift schedule, then has to readjust to the daytime schedule on days off. The next shift takes place during the daytime hours, which is helpful. But then they return to nights, forcing their bodies to re-adjust again.
Just typing it out is exhausting; I honestly could not imagine working under those extremes. Yet so many in our small town do. I have family members who have worked the swing shift for years, and the effects were substantial; the most immediate, obviously, was the fatigue. Workers lose not only sleep but also miss out on normal, everyday activities with family and friends. The sacrifice is real, and the toll is substantial. I still remember when an officer came to speak to my junior high English class about career choices. He mentioned jobs that require swing shifts, like some police and fire departments along with jobs in oil and gas. The last thing he told us has always stuck with me: the number of years you work a swing shift impacts your body the same way as chain smoking for that same number of years.
This, of course, is my own personal paraphrase of the lecture. But this statement bears weight. According to Emergency Physicians Monthly, “…the [rotating] shift work schedule confers an approximate 40% increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease. That is a risk nearly the equivalent of smoking one pack of cigarettes a day.”
Despite the bodily harm that can result from this type of schedule, there is not a very feasible way to abolish the swing shift in any industry. Many companies have found ways to mitigate the effects in the most optimal ways. An operator for a local oil company mentioned the lengths his company goes to in order to protect employees working swing schedules.
Among the protections, he mentioned that “…employees cannot work more than a 14-hour shift unless a variance form is filled out and approved…employees must take 8 hours off following a shift… when transitioning from night shift to day shift, employees must take a 36-hour break for fatigue mitigation.”
Many other companies offer the same assistance paired with educational training to ensure employees are doing all they can to maintain good health. The implementation of these regulations undoubtedly aids in the immediate effects of these difficult schedules.
Most Artesians carry a certain level of reverence for oilfield workers; I know I always have. In understanding the difficulty of undertaking the swing shift and how many people in our community do so with integrity and without complaint, my respect and admiration have substantially grown.
If you know anyone who works a swing shift schedule, let them know you see and appreciate their sacrifice. They are the backbone of our community and should be treated as such.
Photos Provided by HF Sinclair
Sources
- Better Health Channel . “Shiftwork.” www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au, 2021, www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/shiftwork#. Accessed 23 July 2023.
- “Is Shift Work Killing You? | Emergency Physicians Monthly.” Emergency Physicians Monthly, 4 Aug. 2010, epmonthly.com/article/is-shift-work-killing-you/. Accessed 23 July 2023.
Zeke Montoya
I am a husband to an amazing wife, JD, and the father of three wonderful children — Sawyer, Davis, and Giannis. I am an Associate Pastor at Harvest Fellowship in Artesia, and I am passionate about serving the people of Eddy County, which I’ve called home since I was 11. I enjoy reading, writing, and singing in my free time.
