12 painful truths all weekend and shift workers will know

Weekends and Bank Holidays: a time for us to down tools, stop working and do the things we really want.

Spend time with friends and family. Work on that side-hobby of yours. Generally take the load off. https://twitter.com/Chloe_GShore/status/736899383149637633 Unfortunately, for an unlucky section of us, weekends and Bank Holidays aren't time we can take off.  For those working in retail or the service industry (or furiously working away at desks to make content to keep you entertained - wink wink), weekends and Bank Holidays are just like any other week days. As in they are hellish visions where you perform a task for money. 1. Weekend workers know that Friday feels are nonexistent. There is no Rebecca Black song. No Saturday lie-in. No spontaneous nights out that happen from a few after work pints. Or, if there are, you'll be paying very heavily for it the next day. 2. In fact, working Bank Holidays and weekends ruins you entire concept of the weekend. Why get happy about the two days off when you have to work one of them? Everything is a lie and your world is pain. 3. Making plans with your regular working hour friends is difficult. When you do shifts and work weekends, trying to find space to celebrate a pal's house party is impossible. Your mate better tell you a month in advance when they plan going out, so you can make a rota request. 4. That's not to mention the guilt you'll get over not spending time with your family. You haven't seen your mam in nearly two months because you rarely get a Saturday and Sunday off to go visit. Oh the shame of it all. 5. So there you are, away from family and friends toiling away at work. Wondering just want amazing adventures everyone else is getting up to. 6. And then you see it on social media. The gigs, the parties and all the good times that happened so you could do a stock take. Oh lord. 7. When you work weekends and Bank Holidays, everything turns into a big sludge. Your body clock gets broken from doing late shifts, and your eating plan becomes a mess of takeaways. 8. Then there's how you forget what day of the week it is. It's normal people's Friday, but you started the week on Saturday before, so your brain thinks it is Sunday. What is life? 9. Then the anger sets in. At the customers that just take you for granted at giving up your time to help them out. 10. And your boss who is miraculously absent for weekend shifts. Weird how they always find time to leave it just to a few members of staff, but when you want time off "everybody needs to pitch in"... 11. But it's not all bad. One of the perks of doing weekend and shift work is the ability to get the odd weekday free. There's a quiet joy in being able to go to your favourite place and not have to deal with weekend queues. 12. Finally, weird shift work builds character. You can handle graveyard shifts. You can handle Bank Holiday rushes. You can even handle those weird days when no one is in and you're running the entire business. If you can handle shift work you can survive anything in the "normal" office life. Just try not to laugh so hard when you hear someone complain at having to wake up before 8am. Plus it's good to have a job in these troubled times, isn't it? *This article first appeared on JOE.co.uk*