Twelve-hour nights, rotating sites, and cover at short notice
Security work is mostly nights and weekends, often across more than one site, and frequently rearranged when somebody does not turn up. The rota is a starting point and the phone call is the reality.
The schedules this actually has to cope with
Freeish is built around these, not around a nine-to-five with the occasional exception.
Twelve-hour nights
Seven to seven, in blocks, inverting the day for as long as the block lasts.
Four on, four off
A cycle that drifts through the week, so your days off land differently every time.
Site rotation
A different site changes the commute as much as the hours.
Short-notice cover
Somebody does not show and the call comes to you.
What it sounds like at home
- “I sleep during the day and the house does not always know.”
- “My days off move every cycle and nobody can track them.”
- “Cover gets asked for at short notice and plans change with it.”
- “Weekends are work more often than not.”
- “The rota comes by text and disappears up the thread.”
Where Freeish fits
Set the cycle once and it keeps generating, so the family calendar stays right.
Sleep windows after nights can be visible rather than assumed.
Picking up cover is one edit that everyone following sees.
Which site you are on is yours to share or not — times are what matter at home.
One week, start to finish
Ken, night security
- Ken sets his four-on four-off cycle once.
- His partner stops trying to work out which four are which.
- The sleep window after each night block is visible to the household.
- A colleague calls in sick; Ken picks up the shift and adds it in seconds.
- His mother plans a Sunday lunch on a day he is genuinely off.
Questions security officers ask
Does it handle four-on four-off?
Can I keep the site private?
What about cover picked up the same day?
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.