DEAR DR. GOTT: Your articles regarding sleep deprivation and job performance are of interest. I sailed as a licensed deck officer aboard U.S.-flag oil tankers for 10 years after graduating from California Maritime Academy many years ago. I’m suggesting that any future study of sleep-deprived persons add the men and women who work on merchant ships.
I did not sail for Exxon (it was BP) but had the same route into and out of Valdez, Alaska, during the late 1980s and believe a lot of what attributed to the Exxon ship grounding on the reef was caused by the crew’s lack of sleep. When the tankers were loading/discharging, I was lucky to get four hours of sleep a day. Sometimes the job had us awake around the clock until the cargo was finished, and then we’d sail off to the next dock. I quit the race more than 22 years ago, found a shore job and never looked back.
DEAR READER: You bring up a very good point that I may have failed to emphasize adequately — safety. When by necessity we work long hours without relief or adequate sleep, everyone around us pays the price. We become cranky, short-tempered, and find ourselves performing tasks with a hit-or-miss approach, simply to get the job done. The quality of work suffers and can lead to truly devastating results.
We are often troubled with family issues, extra-heavy work loads, coordinating tasks that seem to pile up, caring for children, grandchildren or the elderly, meeting seemingly impossible schedules. The results are less than optimal.
If we must get a family member to school or a soccer game by a specific time and start off late because of work overload, we tend to drive faster to make up the time. Not only are we endangering ourselves and our loved ones, we are also endangering other drivers and pedestrians who may be nearby. And it’s all because of fatigue, overload and sheer exhaustion.
Excessive sleepiness is the second-leading cause of car crashes and a leading cause of truck crashes in the United States. Sleep deprivation while driving is like driving drunk.
