Sleepless in Lawrence

By Courtney Hagen

Thursday, March 29, 2007

When the lights go out for the night and most Lawrence residents have sleepily crawled under the covers or drank their last sip at the bar and arranged a ride home, some individuals are starting their workdays.

Follow the steady blinking yellow of Lawrence stoplights, through the quiet streets and into libraries, coffee houses and bakeries and you will find them: the often unrecognized nocturnal crowd. They work the graveyard shift, baking bread, serving coffee, cataloguing books or cleaning up. They fight sleep deprivation, lack of motivation and the still, sullen loneliness of the night.

According to a 2005 Sleep in America study from the National Sleep Foundation, 71 percent of adults reported that they got less than eight hours of sleep on weekday nights. Lawrence’s bleary-eyed night shift workers are living reflections of this. On any given weeknight they can be found working and waiting for the sun to come up. These are just a few of their stories from one sleepless Lawrence night.

Midnight to 1 a.m. — Anschutz Library

Orielle Pauley, Kansas City, Mo., senior, runs back and forth behind the front desk on the first floor of Anschutz Library. She’s worked the same midnight–4 a.m. shift for two years now. She says she has just now gotten used to her odd nocturnal schedule. She relies on lulls at the library to get her own homework done while her fellow students are burning up the midnight oil studying. When she gets off work she tries to catch a few hours of sleep before she goes to class. To make up for everything, Pauley says she normally sleeps about 20 hours on the weekends. In spite of the long hours, she says she enjoys her job and the interesting stories she gathers from it.

1 to 2 a.m. — Pizza Shuttle

The smell of hot tomato sauce and melting cheese fills the air as Avery Brow, Lawrence sophomore, jumps in his car to deliver pizzas for Pizza Shuttle. He works from 5:30 p.m.–4 a.m. most weekdays and all night on Saturdays.

While free pizzas (thanks to employee goofs or unresponsive deliveries) are job perks, the shift still interferes with Brow’s sleeping schedule.

He has had to deal with some bizarre deliveries on the late-night job, including one instance where a group of children placed and order and then tried to jump in his car to grab the pizzas as soon as he pulled up, he says. Experiences like this sometimes make him regret that he doesn’t have a normal job. He also feels bad about missing out on quality social time.

“When I’m working a shift I can’t really go out after I get off work, and I know I’m missing out on some things during the week,” Brow says. He tries to make up for it by setting aside his Fridays to spend making memories with friends.

2 to 3 a.m. — Hashinger Hall

Lauren Eby, Topeka sophomore, kicks it at the sleek front desk of the newly renovated Hashinger Hall from 11 p.m.–3 a.m. She says the interesting people she meets each night keep her going until the wee morning hours.

Eby socializes with most people who walk through the door, which can sometimes be complicated for her when she needs to regulate behavior. “There’s always the problem when it’s your friend that’s breaking the rules, but usually people understand,” Eby says.

She’s scheduled herself for late morning classes each semester to accommodate her schedule, but says that sometimes she still misses out on sleep. She sometimes covers a shift until 6 a.m., so she doesn’t get to feel her head hit the pillow on those days.

3 to 4 a.m. — Muncher’s Bakery

A fine mist of powder and glaze floats in the air at Muncher’s Bakery, 925 Iowa St., as Damon Brooks kneads dough and fries donuts. Bathed in the yellow glow of neon lights, with the heavy smell of sugar and fresh pastries filling the air, Brooks, Kansas City, Kan., freshman, works from 2–7 a.m. Monday–Friday. When most people are shutting their eyes for a night of sleep, Brooks is waking up to head into work. He bakes, cleans and helps the occasional customer during his shift, “All the normal things someone would do in a food place, just during the middle of the night,” Brooks says. He says he’s stopped sleeping in one chunk and instead catches naps throughout the day whenever he has time. He tries to finish all of his homework before he goes into work and attempts to catch a quick nap before he heads to his first class. Even with the tiring schedule, Brooks says he still enjoys his job. He likes the occasional customers who wander in at two and three in the morning, even if most of them have been out at the bars. He says he’s seen most of Lawrence walk through Muncher’s doors while he’s been working. “I’ve met professors and business owners,” Brooks says. “Whenever I go out I see people that recognize me from Muncher’s.”

4 to 5 a.m. — Java Break

Sometimes work is so boring and slow in the last few hours of the dark night during her shift at Java Break, 17 E. 7th St., that Courtney Heston resorts to playing with her yo-yo or making grocery lists. The 18-year-old Lawrence resident works from midnight–8 a.m. making food, preparing drinks and brewing coffee behind the flier-and-sticker-plastered counter. She says that most of the time she works there are University of Kansas students also there studying and getting their caffeine fix to keep her company. Sometimes things can get out of hand that late at night though, like when a drunk customer came in around 5 a.m. and told Heston that he wanted to take her and duct tape her into a box to keep in his apartment. “I just kind of went and hid in the back until he left,” she says. Sometimes the faces of customers start to blur and the night gets so long that Heston sometimes forgets what day it is. She once tried to get some business transactions done for Java Break before she realized that it was a Saturday and things were closed for the weekend. She relies on sleeping the day away to keep her mind clear and stay rejuvenated for another day at work, but says it’s hard to find time to both sleep and get done everything she needs to do in the daylight hours. After all, by the time her workday is done, Lawrence is just waking up to start a new one.

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