Up and About All Night Long

The call center agent position can be aptly defined as an all-nighter job rather than a day job. It only makes sense since most call canters here operate at night to accommodate clientele in the US, whose daytime happens to be our nighttime. If you are not a born night owl like me, adjusting your body's natural system to be productive during the graveyard shift can prove quite troublesome—especially during the first one or two months.

To be a “call center agent”...

As if the time adjustment is not challenging enough, being a job—the security blanket that makes survival in the material world possible, I have to be on my toes all the time, as staying productive is a must if I were to remain in this game. At first, I thought chugging countless cups of coffee each night would cut it—and I was gravely mistaken.

Yes, the caffeine keeps you up during the first few nights. After a few weeks, however, your system gets immune to its effects that it wasn't long before I found myself struggling to stay awake and attentive. Should sleepiness strike during the peak hours of your shift as you are attending to a barrage of calls, believe me, the experience is very far from comfortable.

Forcing oneself to stay awake is not the only main objective call center agents or wanna-be call center agents must strive for. Keeping a close eye on the state of our health is likewise mandatory. From a logical standpoint, it does make sense. After all, how can you expect to continuously burn the midnight oil when your oiler is busted?

Practical and Healthy Stay-Up Advice

Cutting to the chase, I googled informative articles about practical ways to stay up and healthy while thriving in the graveyard shift. Below, I have compiled a few important and definitely doable health-wise pointers.

• Keep your system running by making sure that your body is well-fueled.

  By this, you should never let yourself go hungry. Eat at the right time. Be wary of your food choices though. Piling on the junk food may sustain your energy needs for a time, but the excess salt and additives command a higher price in the long run: unwanted health complications. Stay on the healthy side by eating nutritious balanced meals.

• No match for the sandman? Fight drowsiness by taking short walks.

  Get outside the office for a few minutes and inhale some fresh—pretend it is; never mind the fact that we live in a polluted city—night air. The walking would do your body good, for it shakes up those stiffening muscles. Plus, the change of scenery helps de-stress you, even just a bit.

• Take power-naps.

  Power-naps are short naps lasting no more than half an hour to a full hour at a time. For hardworking call center minions like us, the short amount of time we spend in dreamland suffices to recharge our system and spirits. In taking them, however, we only have to make sure it is during our break time or else...