As most KU students sleep the night away with visions of Calculus dancing in their heads, some students are up all night...working
By Kim Baskett Special to the Kansan
yhe Jackson said the difference was like night and day.
Jackson, Lawrence senior, is one of the graveyard-shift servers at Perkins Restaurant, 1711 W. 23rd St., and the difference she is referring to is that of the day and late-night shifts.
"It's really a different environment," she said. "The people during the day are almost coldly polite. This is kind of a more cut loose and relaxed shift."
Jackson said that after many local bars close on Friday and Saturday nights it can be anything but relaxing.
She laughed wryly as she recalled one frantic Saturday night in particular.
The place was packed
ed and I was in the weeds when from across the restaurant this guy stands up a yells, "Yo bitch, where's my coffee?" she said "I talked to him."
said. I talked to him and he chilled out. He left me a big tip."
worker who has had the pleasure of dealing with rowdy KU students.
Rob Christensen, Lawrence sophonore, said that the crowd at Amigos, 1819 W. 23rd, could occasionally get out of hand. But as rowdy as they might become, Christensen said he took it all in stride.
"Eventually they're either going to back down or leave." he said of rowdy customers.
When asked to make a prediction about the crowd he laughed
"Well, it's about 1:30 a.m., so I predict things are just about to get crazy," he said. As if on cue a stream of students entered the restaurant. They appeared drunk and hungry. "I've got to go." he said with a knowing smile.
And true to his prediction, things did get crazy. As one student carefully felt his way to the restroom, two of his friends busied themselves by eating leaves off of the overhanging plants. People were slur-
ring their orders and calling impatiently for their food. Christensen only smiled and shook his head. Par for the late-night course.
While Christensen was fighting off hungry students at Amigos, Cheryl Lendell, Lawrence senior, was fighting a late-night battle of her own.
Lendell, the night manager at Dillons, 1015 W.
23rd. had just handled her first shoplifter.
"It was the first time something like this has ever happened to me," she said. "I followed her out of the store and was trying to block her from leaving when she took a swing at me. It was pretty scary."
The night's episode was extreme, and Lendell was left a bit shaken. But she was back in the comfort of the video department where the evening would peak with a fruitless search for "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
Despite the scare, Lendell said that she preferred to work nights. She said that she chose the shift because, like many gravevard-shift workers, she
was a full-time student who needed to work a lot of hours.
"It affects my social life a little bit, but it also helps me to budget my time and be more productive," she said.
Christensen agreed
"I only work a few nights a week, but I put my time to good use," he said. "I have to balance my time between school, work and my girlfriend."
Jackson admits a different purpose for electing to work the Perkins night shift.
"I understand the night," she said. "I understand the people, because they're a lot like me."
She said that the obnoxiousness of some of the night customers did not bother her.
"The only major thing that has happened as a result of their craziness is the Perkins pajamas," she said indicating her casual uniform of pants and a T-shirt. "We got a lot of harassing comments, so they got smart and changed our uniforms," she said of the management.
The standard Perkins uniform is a skirt and pinstriped blouse.
Some people find it hard to comprehend that these three late-nighters all said that they preferred working while most sleep.
"It's a good opportunity to get a lot of paperwork and piddling things done." Lendell said. "I also like the chance to be able to concentrate on things I need to do later in the week."
Jackson said that she liked the mystery that surrounded the night and the myths that it perpetuated.
"People believe that people who are up at night must lead decadent lives," she said rolling her eyes. "We do."
Maybe it is a mystery. Maybe they are crazy
Maybe it is a mystery. Maybe they are crazy.
Maybe it is as simple as the difference between male
and female.
Jason Auld/ KANSAN
The quiet nights at Dilons, 10.15 W. 23rd, give employees like Duane Boor of Lawrence an opportunity to restock the store's shelves. Boor worked from 8.p.m. Friday until 4:30 a.m. Saturday.
Just five more minutes, pleazzzzzzz
By James J. Reece
Kansanstaff writer
Angela Denner, Derby sophomore, is not a morningperson.
Denner, like many KU students, uses the snooze button on her alarm clock. The snooze button allows an extra five to nine minutes of sleep before the alarm rings again.
"I lay there and think, 'You know, I could wake up right now and eat breakfast real slow, get a fresh start,' she said. "But I never do."
She said she has been a snooker since she was in high school. And she often uses two or three alarm clocks to wake up for early
classes
Denner said she believed that using the snooze button was not good for her health because she is tired until noon and then wide awake and unable to sleep at night. Then the cycle starts again.
But snooze alarms may not be the cause of excessive tiredness, said Michael Garrison, supervisor of the Pulmonary Function and Sleep Disorders Lab at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
"Snoozing is my life," Denner said. "If I have to be up at 7:30 a.m., I set my alarm for 7 a.m. and hit the snooze until I absolutely have to get up."
He said the best sleep a person could get was uninterrupted sleep. Waking up at old
Garrison said that the stages were not important by themselves but that together they worked as a framework for sleep. Weak points, like disruptions in sleep stages, cause the sleep cycle to be less restful, he said.
hours causes a person to spend a disproportionate amount of time in one of the five sleeping stages.
Garrison said he had never heard of a study on the detrimental side effects of using a snooze button, but he said that for the most beneficial sleep, people should go to bed early and set their alarms for the exact time they wish to awaken.
Snooze buttons can also bother the neighbors, said Ron Andrews. San Antonio
freshman and a practicing snozer. He said that he and a former roommate frequently used the snoze button on a loud radio alarm clock when they lived in Ellsworth Hall.
"We would set it about an hour to an hour and a half early just to make up for the snooze," he said. "But then we had people from down the hall come and turn our alarm off."
Compulsive snoozer David Ortman, Omaha, Neb., freshman, said he did not think twice about using the snooze button. He said he normally hit the snooze button six times and was never late for class.
"The first two times I want to get up, but then I realize I have to," Orton said.
Lead Story
Former U.S. Diplomat Felix Blach, who was suspected of espionage while working at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna in 1989, was arrested in January and charged with stealing $100 worth of groceries from a grocery store in Chapel Hill, N.C. After the State Department dismissed him, Bloch embarked on a second career as a cashier and bagger at the store. Two store employees said they saw Bloch cart unpaid for groceries to his Mercedes-Benz.
Government in Action
In a recent Canadian government book offering tips to immigrants, authors thought it necessary to give specific advice against being late to school or work and against public displays of affection, breast feeding, urination and defecation.
When Long Island, N.Y., School Superintendent Edward J. Murphy retired on Sept. 30, he earned severance pay of more than $1,000,000 at a time of severe financial troubles for New York schools. However, that was only the beginning. Under the contract he had negotiated with the school board in 1985, Murphy was entitled to 90 days' paid vacation a year (the normal is 15 to 20) plus sick leave with the option of accumulating it and casing it in at a rate of $1,000 a day. His total severance package came to more than $900,000.
Pre-Christmas paychecks were delayed for 2,600 Postal Service employees in the Hampton Roads, Va., area. The checks had been mailed from the Minnesota check-disturbing facility but were delayed somewhere in Virginia according to postal officials. Because of the delay, employees were unable to deposit the checks before Christmas.
**Roger W. "Pockets" Halvorson, a meat inspector for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was indicted in January in Minneapolis for stealing meat several times from a company he was inspecting. Prosecutors said that Halvorson, who had a uniform with extra-large inside pockets, was accused of loading up on prime rib during inspections with intentions of reselling it.**
Compelling explanations
Eric F. Murillo, charged with shooting his fourth wife to death in Fayetteville, N.C., in July, said it was an accident. Murillo received probation for the accidental-shooting death of his first wife 21 years ago. His second wife supposedly committed suicide. His third wife divorced Murillo after he put a loaded .357-caliber Magnum in her mouth and threatened to kill her. Murillo acknowledged that the circumstances "look terrible" but said he was just unlucky.
Continued on Page 14.