Oh good Gods...my life sucks so hard and I just need to vent...maybe someone can give me a little advice too. So I'm working a temp job at this plastics plant...it's a 12 hour shift, three 10 minute breaks and one 20 minute lunch. That's bad enough as it is. To make matters worse, I haven't slept in the past 16 hours...and if I go to bed now, I'll only have an hour, hour and a half tops to sleep. I don't think I'd ever be able to get myself up. I'm so pissed off right now...I only have two days left on this job (thank the GODS)...I wish I could find a way to flake out of work...like fake sick or something...but I already had a sick day earlier in the week. I don't really know what to do...anyone have suggestions? Even if it's just for how to stay awake, that'd be great.

Eat something whole grain (or, if you don't have any, a high-calorie fruit or vegetable, like avocado or banana), then lots of chocolate. Complex carbohydrates and theobromine should keep you moving, not to mention help you feel better about the whole deal. You also might want to consider leaving early and taking a 30 (not 90!) minute nap in your car. Too long of a nap and yes, you won't wake up.

As far as skipping out of work itself, that'd depend on your boss. You know him better than I do.

Do you have any No-Doz or such things?

Take one. Set your alarm. Go to sleep.

When your alarm goes off, you'll be raring to go.

You'll crash like the Hindenberg in about three hours, though.

I used to do this all the time in college when I'd be up until 5am and had class at 7.

EDIT: The X-man's advice is far healthier.

Bleh, she's a real bitch... I can't do power naps...I've come to find out that 2 hours is a power nap for me, 4 hours is a decent nap, and 12 hours is a good night's rest.

God I hate these smilies. >.O

Wow...yeah...I agree there, bro. Thanks anyway.

Just out of curiosity are you in the U.S., and do they make you clock out for the lunch? I'm not a lawyer so take this with a grain of salt, but my understand is that while your employer isn't required to give you a break at all, if they do, and they make you clock out, they have to give you at least 30 minutes. Anything less than that isn't considered long enough for personal use.

And I work at a coffee shop so I get free coffee/espresso. If I have enough caffeine it actually makes me happy. But even before I started drinking soda (wasn't allowed to drink caffeine until I was 16) caffeine did very little for me. So "enough" caffeine in my case is around a gram which is a 20 ounce cup of straight epsresso, or 10 of the little No-Doze caffeine pills. (Or is No-Doze the caffeine pill with 200 mg per?) The point of that being it'll keep you going and make you feel slightly better about your job, assuming you can move around. If you have to sit still it'll probably be hell.

On the other hand, I'm more liberal about chemicals than other people tend to be (although I don't do illegal drugs) so I wouldn't really recommend playing around with high doses of caffeine unless you're comfortable with the idea of possibly dying. Because that would be awkward.

Well, boned indeed I was. I went, nearly passed out, was forced to go home and had my assignment ended a day early. My dad is going to kill me even though I've been working my ass off to find a better job.