The 8 am Regime

I hate getting up early. I’ve always been a late morning/late night guy. (i.e. In bed late night, out of bed late morning)

I’ve been having to be at work at 8 am last week and this week because I’m going through a training class to work on a different product, and we start bright and early at 8 am. There is one thing I’ve learned during the past week. The feeling of being in high school isn’t just the atmosphere, its the sleep deprivation.

Don’t get me wrong other periods are marked by sleep deprivation: exam week in college, show production weeks, moving to a new home, being sick, etc.. But the 8 am start time sleep deprivation feels different.

I’m a night rat, I admit that. I’m at my best when I wake up about 9 or 10 am and go to bed about 1 or 2 am. If given no structure I actually migrate to a third shift schedule. Its been years since I’ve done that voluntarily but I’m sure that if I didn’t have any commitments to meet I’d be going to bed about 6 am and waking up about 4 pm.

An evening schedule is natural for me. My habits, my mind, and my body are well adjusted for that schedule. They all balk at being forced into a morning schedule.

Here is the thing… Show me a high school that has classes starting at 11 am. I know you can do it in college or get a job where you start at 11 am, but find a regular high paying office job with an 11 am start time.. They don’t exist. (or are much rarer.)

Its a little wacky, but I believe it is discrimination to have such a rigid society built on the 8 am start time. I know I would’ve done better in high school with an 11 am start time. Thats just part of who I am. I know people who are “not morning people” who’ve been working the 8 am shift for a long time and it still wears them down really hard, so its not just a matter of getting into a routine.

Like any innate factor (race, sexual attraction, gender, height, etc) one group has declared itself superior and righteous and proceeded to establish a system where the lesser group is looked down upon for who they innately are, which is the definition of discrimination.

I know this sounds wacky, but if you accept that maximum societal productivity is a shared goal, then you would want every member functioning at their best; for that to happen The 8 am Regime needs to be defrocked.