Having been a 3rd shifter for nearly 6 months, I now understand why we’re a different breed of Racker.
It takes a special kind of person to work the third shift; long night hours, usually ten or more; little interaction with the rest of the company except by email, or the occasional late night/early morning phone call, and opportunities to work with some very unique individuals. It’s not for everyone, but for some, it’s what we do best and wouldn’t want it any other way.
We’re all different, yet the one thing we have in common is sleeping our days away, coming in late when others are going to bed, and being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, greeting the first shift Rackers, or day-walkers as we like to refer to them, early in the morning. We work hard and we play hard in true Racker fashion.
Most of our time is focused on working through the tickets as they come in, speaking with customers who, depending on their location, are wide wake and chipper like our EMEA customers having already started their day, or our U.S. customers, roused from their sleep. One thing we never are on third shift is bored. There are always challenges, but we meet these challenges head-on with a fanaticism as strong as can be seen anywhere in the company. We’re proud of what we do and how we do it.
You’d think it would be a thankless job, not seeing anyone, only the occasional email or phone call with other Rackers, but that’s not it at all. We know we’re making a difference when we hear that “Thank you so much” from the customer, or from the account teams for having handled an issue that just couldn’t wait. Sure, it’s not always exciting and we’re not in the limelight, many nights being long periods of ticket crunching, interspersed with brief periods of insanity, but we keep doing it.
Why you ask? It’s not because of our desire to be separate from the company or be loners. It’s just the opposite. We know we are making a difference at Rackspace and we get the opportunity to encounter situations not normally found during the day. That’s what makes it fun and challenging. We get to push our technical bounds almost every day, knowing that we don’t have a lifeline, or someone to walk over to and talk to about a problem. We meet those challenges head on with gusto because we love to do our job and we love working for Rackspace.
Category: Rackers Tags: 3rd shift, Windows
Damn straight! Third shift is where some of Rackspace’s best and brightest hail from. Some call them the “night walkers” or “third shifters”… I always thought of them as “the lone gunmen”. They’re where the buck stopped… all the complex customer issues th other shifts couldn’t figure out… all the sensitive harware upgrades, the difficult international callers and tickets routed through babelfish… where the request to “Kindly do the needful!” Was born. If it wern’t for you guys… you forgotten few… the l337 brethren of the night… there would be no Rackspace. The final defenders of the Fanatical flag. I salute you!
Tweeks
Wow! It sounds like a lot of fun working the night shift. I would of like to work with more people like the those third shift Rackers wile in the Army.
BHAVIN! “Kindly do the needful!” damn near killed Greg working late nights.
Someone near and dear to your company and possibly an employee, who works the night shift, and keeps deleting my post on here (this is my 3rd one) is hacking my life! Started through my Facebook and spread to all accounts I had. Infected parents computers and their Control 4 home management technology. My iPhone was infected via a link I clicked on in Twitter. My iTunes was hacked and the credit card on the account was used by the hacker/s. I recently sent some code they highlight to open and your IP address was in the text. I sent it off to your abuse desk and have heard nothing. This has been going on since may 2012 and I recently had a nervous breakdown because I’ve lost so much because of this hacking.
I can tell these hackers do not like me talking to Rackspace so I feel I’m getting closer. If any of you are board on the night. Shift you can contact me on twitter or email me.
Hey Nancy,
We approve the comments left on RackerTalent.com. Without approval, they don’t appear. I say this because no one has deleted your posts, and we don’t have any one from third shift with access to RackerTalent. We just have not approved your comments yet. As for your complaints about 3rd shift Rackers “with nothing better to do” sifting through your personal data, I’d love to help you get to the bottom of that. You can always submit an email to help@rackspace.com. That will start a ticket, so that we can get the issue to the appropriate support team. RackerTalent is really more about our Culture and Core Values, and not a good venue for receiving support or issuing complaints or concerns but I do want to help you as much as I can.