Damon Brooks, Kansas City, Kan., freshman, makes doughnuts at Muncher's Bakery, 925 Iowa St.
PHOTO/ ANNA FALTERMEIER
SLEEPLESS IN LAWRENCE
Between midnight and 5 a.m., some Lawrence residents are wide awake.
PHOTO/COURTNEY HAGEN
Orielle Pauley, Kansas City, Mo., senior, works on a computer at Anschutz Library.
by Courtney Hagen
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'sscheduledherselfforlate morning classes each semester to accommodate her schedule, but says that sometimes she
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