A 48 is easy to explain once. Explaining it every month is the problem
Fire schedules are the most predictable in shift work and the least legible to everyone else. A 48/96 repeats forever, but the person planning a wedding, a school play or a family dinner cannot hold the cycle in their head — and it drifts against the calendar, so "you were off last Tuesday" tells them nothing about this Tuesday.
The schedules this actually has to cope with
Freeish is built around these, not around a nine-to-five with the occasional exception.
24 on, 48 off
A three-day cycle against a seven-day week, so your work days walk through the calendar and never settle on the same weekday twice running.
48/96
Two days on, four off. Popular because it means real time at home, and confusing to everyone else because it repeats on a six-day cycle nothing else shares.
The Kelly schedule
On, off, on, off, on, then four off — a nine-day cycle. Almost nobody outside the service can predict it, and few inside it can explain it quickly.
Overtime and held-over shifts
The part no cycle predicts. Getting held over turns a known off-day into a working one, usually at the least convenient moment.
What it sounds like at home
- “"Are you on this weekend?" is a question I answer several times a week.”
- “My shift pattern is on the fridge and my in-laws still get it wrong.”
- “Nobody can plan anything more than a fortnight out without checking with me first.”
- “I get held over and my partner finds out when I do not walk through the door.”
- “The kids do not know whether I am home for bedtime until the day itself.”
Where Freeish fits
Set the rotation once and it repeats — Freeish keeps generating the cycle instead of you re-entering it.
Everyone at home sees plain days rather than a cycle they have to compute.
Overtime and held-over shifts drop into the same view the moment you add them.
Extended family can follow along without an account of their own to manage.
One week, start to finish
Dev, engine company
- Dev sets his 48/96 once when he installs the app.
- The cycle keeps generating, so the calendar is right in March without him touching it.
- His wife stops working out which shift he is on before agreeing to anything.
- He picks up an overtime shift and adds it in a few seconds.
- His parents, who live two hours away, plan a visit around a four-off without asking.
Questions firefighters ask
Does it handle a Kelly schedule or 48/96?
What happens when I get held over?
Do my parents need the app?
Stop being the schedule. Start sharing it.
Now on iPhone — Android coming soon. Free to start. Import a photo of your next schedule and see who stops asking.