Hard day’s night: Students juggle jobs, school

Kimberly Bader spends most of her waking hours on weekends serving tables at The Cheesecake Factory in SouthSide Works.

Because Bader, a junior rehabilitation sciences major, closes the restaurant on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, then comes back to open the restaurant the next morning, she works what’s called a “clopening” shift. Although Bader strives to maintain a healthy sleep regimen, some employees who work clopening shifts find it difficult to balance a demanding work schedule with a healthy amount of sleep. 

“I push myself to work that much so that I can pay for my rent and be as independent as I can be,” Bader said, adding that she chose her schedule and loves her position as a hostess at the dining hotspot.

Bader’s weekend work schedule frees up a significant amount of time for her during the week, which she fills with volunteer work and catching Z’s when she’s not in class. 

“Sleep banking,” a term commonly used by students with schedules like Bader’s , means staying awake for a long period of time and then catching up on sleep later. 

Sleep banking does work to a small extent, according to Charles Atwood, an associate professor of medicine and director of the UPMC Sleep Medicine Fellowship.  

“Sleep debt is a real concept,” Atwood said. “Making up sleep on weekends is part of how many people live their lives.” 

Regardless of the amount that students sleep during weekends, it would be optimal, Atwood said, to get enough sleep on a nightly basis.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, the recommended optimal sleep time for young adults is seven to nine hours per night.

Bader said she has become much better at prioritizing and budgeting her time, but, she said, “unfortunately the one piece of the puzzle that I’ve lost along the way is my social life.”

Long weekend nights and early Sunday morning shifts makes going out with friends not an option.

Mike Jason, Bader’s manager at The Cheesecake Factory, declined to comment and referred all queries on scheduling to the corporate office.

Jenny Burke, a spokeswoman for The Cheesecake Factory, declined to comment.

Although Bader hadn’t heard the term clopening before, it has been cropping up in the news lately.

Some companies, including Starbucks, have responded to public criticism for the hours employees have been required to work. 

A New York Times article from last August reported that a Starbucks employee named Jannette Navarro worked the clopening shift and other long, difficult hours while also raising a son on her own. In response, Starbucks Group regional president Cliff Burrows issued a statement to all U.S. partners immediately after the article was published.

In the statement, which Starbucks spokeswoman Laurel Harper forwarded to The Pitt News, Burrows said, “Jannette’s experience is just one example of where we can’t rest on status quo and must rise up to our mission and values to be a different kind of company that consistently leads through the lens of humanity.” 

Burrows listed steps the company takes to address scheduling issues, including working with district managers to ensure that partners are never required to work opening and closing shifts back-to-back.

“District managers are having ongoing conversations with our store managers to ensure the scheduling policy is consistently applied,” Harper said. 

The manager of the Starbucks on Forbes Avenue, Janice Roberts, referred all comment to corporate officials, but a shift supervisor who would not provide his  name said employees will not find a clopening shift on their regular schedules, though some students end up with clopening shifts when they switch shifts with other workers. 

Abby Bouslough, a sophomore elementary and special education major, is familiar with the necessity of squeezing in shifts back-to-back. 

Bouslough worked a weekend clopening shift last summer for Sauce Boss Pizzeria at DelGrosso’s Amusement Park in Tipton, Pa. She closed the restaurant at 10 p.m., leaving at roughly 11 p.m., and then returned the next morning to open back up at 9 a.m. 

Bouslough operated on this schedule because she was one of two assistant managers at the pizzeria and needed to save money for school and rent. Her management position and a second job at a daycare, she said, carried sleep loss that exhausted her physically and mentally.

“I try to hang out with friends, but usually I fall asleep wherever we go,” Bouslough said.  

Bouslough’s manager at the pizzeria, Margaret Miller, schedules shifts, but works jointly with her assistant managers to navigate their schedules. 

“I usually try to rotate so that if Abby was there at night, I would come in the next morning,” Miller said, but she added that Bouslough chose her own back-to-back shift on the weekends to fit her schedule.   

Mike Miduri, director of food services for DelGrosso’s, said closing and opening times at the park’s food stands allow for nine hours between opening and closing shifts.

“We just rely on our department managers and team leaders to be considerate and work on those schedules as a whole,” Miduri said in an email.

Bouslough’s lack of sleep from working two jobs intensified her migraines, originally caused by stress and other factors. Her doctor prescribed her medication to deal with the persistent headaches.

Sleep is a key remedy for migraines, according to Daniel Buysse, the UPMC Endowed Chair in Sleep Medicine and a professor at Pitt’s School of Medicine.

He said that, in the short term, losing sleep can negatively affect attention span, alertness, judgment and problem-solving skills, as well as mood. 

Bouslough now works 15 hours per week at the ticketing office in the Petersen Events Center and said time management has become a priority.

“It takes a lot of planning things out,” Bouslough said. “I keep a monthly, weekly and daily planner.” 

Now that’s she’s not filling a managerial position, Bouslough can give her managers her class schedule and get a shift schedule that works accordingly.

Managers understand the plight of their employees, too. 

Matt Lemme, a manager at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Forbes Avenue, is sympathetic to his employees. 

Lemme said he never schedules employees, many of whom are also students, for clopenings at Dunkin’, which opens at 5 a.m. and closes at 12 a.m. 

“We try to give employees eight to 10 hours between shifts,” Lemme said. 

Darice Nagy, a spokeswoman for Dunkin’ Donuts Pittsburgh, said each Dunkin’ is owned by an individual franchisee who is solely responsible for complying with state, federal and local laws regarding shifts and hourly wages.  

Across the street, a manager at Panera Bread on Forbes Avenue rolled his eyes when he said he knew what it felt like to be clopened.

He declined to provide his name and referred all official comment to the corporate office, but he said he’s never heard of a company policy restricting employees from working late and long hours. When he assigns a clopening to an employee, however, he’s apologetic.

Natalie Mikula, marketing coordinator for Panera Bread and Covelli Enterprises, said employees at Panera have a “flexible [work] schedule,” especially student workers.

But, flexible or not, long hours can cause adverse medical effects, according to Atwood. 

Atwood said the long-term effects of sleep loss can lead to weight gain and metabolic problems including insulin resistance — the first step toward type two diabetes mellitus.

The problem for most people, especially those who work hectic schedules, Buysse agreed, is that small amounts of sleep loss are often piled on top of chronic sleep restriction.

“Some people say, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’” Buysse said. “Problem is, short-changing your sleep could get you there faster.”