Survival tips for a 24/7 work environment

Post date: 2019-07-17 05:22:40

In the next couple of weeks I will be working on something that requires 24/7 on-call as well as travel. This is basically my worst nightmare -- I am not a good traveler, and I fall apart very quickly without my routines. Please hope me with some tips on how to make it through with my job and health and mind intact!

This is a "standard" kind of work trip in my industry. I have been on one such trip before, and it was apparently (according to those who have been on many such trips) "not so bad," but I didn't sleep for 36 hours and was sick for over a week afterward. It took a month for all of the stress rashes and breakouts to finally go away.

This trip will be twice as long and I will be alone, so there will be nobody to "spell" me or even, you know, morally support. I will be responsible for making decisions that represent hundreds of thousands of dollars, by myself, with no sleep. I am having straight-up panic attacks thinking about it.

Parameters:

-Presumably, wherever I end up, I will have a hotel; however, I do not drive, so basically once I am at the work site I am more or less stuck there. I do not know about the availability of rideshares as I do not know yet where the hell they are sending me.
-The work is truly 24/7 on-call, and I will have NO idea in advance about the actual times at which I will need to work. If someone calls me at 2 am, then that is when I need to go. Sleep is expected to be done in the random 2-3 hours between jobs, on sofas in the work site breakroom or on the floor or wherever.
-Throughout all of this I am expected to be fully engaged and professional. We do dress comfortably, but last time I really struggled to be presentable! I am a greasy person with challenging hair who typically showers 2x per day -- how can I even just make myself look CLEAN and AWAKE, never mind GOOD.
-I have a rigorous exercise schedule which is a big part of my mental health care; I will not be able to do any of that. Even if the hotel has a gym, odds are I will never be at the hotel long enough to use it. Any tips on how to counteract this? I will be sticking very rigidly to all of my mental health routines in the next week as a sort of preventative measure.

Any help is welcome. Even if you just want to tell me that there's no help at all but in 2 weeks it will all be over and I'll just have to pick up the pieces.

Thanks in advance.

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