Napoleon’s observation that an army marches on its stomach today could include the army of tourists and early-risers in La Plata County who count on an early snack to get going.
People such as Durango Doughworks bakers Rafael Enriquez and Marco Arias, who see to it that early birds don’t go hungry, are among scores of employees in Durango who are on the job while almost everyone else snoozes.
Overnight clerks at hotels and convenience stores, hospital emergency-room personnel, bakers, waitresses, cooks, police patrol officers and La Plata Electric Association dispatcher/grid monitors aren’t familiar with 9-to-5 Monday through Friday.
Few statistics appear to be kept on how many people work nontraditional shifts, let alone graveyards. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in May 2004 that 30 percent of 36.4 million wage and salary employees worked “flexible” schedules; one-fifth worked other than a regular daytime shift; and a slightly smaller percentage worked Saturday, Sunday or both.
A spokesman for the Bureau of Labor Statistics said last week that the survey has not been updated.
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment doesn’t keep such statistics, either, spokesman Bill Thoenes said.
Whether they’re included in bureaucratic statistics or not, plenty of people in Durango work graveyard shifts.
Used to early starts
Enríquez and Arias, ex-fishermen from Cabeza de Toro, a Pacific Ocean port in the Mexican state of Chiapas, arrive at Doughworks at 2 a.m. to heat cooking oil and mix ingredients for the cinnamon rolls, bagels and 12 or 13 varieties of doughnuts that will be in great demand a few hours later.
They know about early starts because back home, they were on the ocean before dawn in search of fish and shrimp. But it’s not an easy shift as you get older, said Arias, who, at 44, now works days three times a week washing dishes. He’s been at Doughworks eight years, almost since it opened at another location.
Enríquez, at age 22, finds night work more tiring than the painting and construction he did before being hired by Doughworks four years ago.
“I find it more stressful, especially if you haven’t slept well,” he said. “You can’t miss work because you leave the other guy alone.”
Both said they tend to sleep a lot on their days off.
Late-night bites
Dylan Dougharty has something for the hungry all night.
Dougharty, who has cooked and waited tables on and off for a decade at 24-hour Denny’s on Camino del Rio, scanned the restaurant at midpoint in his 10 p.m.-to-6 a.m. shift Friday morning where four or five booths were occupied and a bearded transient sat alone at the counter.
“It’s usually dead Sunday night, then gets busy through the week, with Saturday real fast,” Dougharty said. “We get the bar crowd from Farmington, Cortez, Pagosa (Springs) as well as Durango.
“We have to call the cops about once a week,” he said. “But I get along with the drunks. They laugh at my jokes.”
One crowd doesn’t come around as much anymore, Dougharty said.
“Hunters used to come in during the season,” Dougharty said. “There’d be a room full of orange vests at 4 a.m. because they wanted to be out in the hills at sunrise, but not so much lately.”
Dougharty, 36, who has an associate’s degree in renewable energy from San Juan College in Farmington, plans eventually to get out of the kitchen.
Keeping the streets safe
John Ball, who spent 33 years with the Durango Police Department, retiring in April as a patrol sergeant, pulled many a graveyard shift.
“I actually enjoyed night patrol, especially in the summer when it’s cool compared with day temperatures, and there’s less traffic,” Ball said. “I also didn’t want to spend my life in a cage (office) Monday through Friday.”
It was easier to locate bad guys because law-abiding residents tend to be at home in bed, Ball said.
The graveyard shift had its downside, Ball said. Early on, his wife was caring for small children in addition to their own, Ball said, which created bedlam when he was trying to sleep.
Deputy district attorneys were a pain, too, Ball said. They often wanted him in court at 9 a.m., only to keep him sitting around for hours and finally putting off the hearing.
Ball said he was instrumental in getting shift rotation to move forward – day to swing to graveyard – instead of the reverse as was done when he joined the force.
“It’s easier to adapt,” Ball said.
Catch a nap
Anthony Todd begins his work day at 10 p.m. five times a week in Cortez, where Ballantine Communications has its presses. By the time he completes a series of duties, it’s past 1 a.m. and Todd loads his truck with copies of The Durango Herald and heads east, dropping copies of the newspaper at Hesperus for delivery to points south. He’s due back in Cortez at 6 a.m.
The only mishap on road in two years occurred when he hit an elk.
“I nap for an hour, then get out in the community to reach out to people,” said Todd, a chaplain with the Christian Motorcycle Association. “I sleep from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. then get ready for the next day. It’s an unusual schedule, but I’m happy where I’m at.”
‘It can be stressful’
Baker McKonly regularly works an unusual schedule.
McKonly is one of four LPEA dispatchers who work nights (6 p.m. to 6 a.m.) for a week, are off a week, work days for a week, take a week off and then repeat the cycle.
“It’s not a normal life,” McKonly said.
Dispatchers monitor six screens that keep them abreast of conditions across the entire LPEA grid. They also answer phone calls from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. when administrative offices are closed, keep a log of everything that occurs in the system and write reports.
“It can be stressful,” McKonly said. “You can be cruising along, and suddenly everything falls apart. You have to react fast.”
In an emergency, the dispatcher locates the troubled area, sends a crew to the scene and keeps track of what they do. It can be a plodding task or a quick fix such as occurred recently when a circuit breaker tripped in Bayfield about 10 p.m., cutting power to 10,000 customers. Service was restored in five minutes.
McKonly, a 12-year LPEA employee, was a lineman before moving to dispatch 2½ years ago.
“As you get older, the call-outs as a lineman wear you down,” McKonly said. “But when I work nights now, I end my week at 6 a.m. Saturday, but I don’t feel normal until Monday or Tuesday.”
Nighttime is the right time
On the flip side, Celeste Hanson-Weller is more of a night owl who feels at ease as an emergency-room nurse on the graveyard shift at Mercy Regional Medical Center.
She works 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. three days straight, gets a day off, reports for three more consecutive 12-hour days and then is off for a week.
“The day off allows me to decompress,” Hanson-Weller said.
Hanson-Weller’s entire career has centered on health care. She earned emergency medical technician certification and worked as a dialysis technician before studying nursing.
“I’ve worked nights since 2003,” she said. “The pace is always different – sometimes busy, sometimes moderately paced.
“But I like nights. It seems natural.”
daler@durangoherald.com
