| I've had that. I've had to work late into the night at work (I work at a hotel, in the Conferance and Banqueting section), and there have been times when I've drifted and time has passed in an odd manner. Maybe it was just me, maybe not.
I've worked shifts before where I turn up at 10 in the evening and I'm working till 4. Everyone is gone by 12, the guests, the staff, and I'm just working on setting up something for breakfast the next morning, like preparing the silver and whatnot. I've sat before and watched time pass when I've been bored, and I have sat around thinking, idle. The thing is, I check my watch and it's 1:30. I continue to sit in the chair and watch the traffic on the road. There is hardly anyone out that late. In what seems like 5 minutes, I look back at my watch, and it's 2:30. I like it when time passes like that. I wonder if I was sleeping or something, I must have been. It's odd on those shifts.
Sometimes they leave the ambient lighting on which casts odd shadows over the lobbies and the rooms. Sometimes the lights are turned off and I've just gotta work them manually depending on where I am. It's odd then because you're sitting in a room, and the light seems bright and aritificial. The doorways are dark becuase the lights in the next rooms are off. Becuase of the contrast of the light that you're standing in and the darkess of the room you can see into, it looks pitch black in there.
Those shifts are somehwhat easier when you get put on with someone else, when it's two of you working you don't tend to see time fly, although occasionally, during conversation you think "What were we just talking about?". On those shifts, you also tend to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Typically, one chef works through the night in one part of the kitchen, dealing with the occasional room service order. Again, the lights are always down low in the kitchen at night. In parts of it, they are off completley. Pastry and the Jackstand areas are allin the dark.
Yeah, those shifts are eerie and spooky. Especially when you think there is someone else there with you. You know there could be, because the hotel has night staff, and sometimes guests arriving late, so sometimes you try to rationalise the noises you hear. Sometimes, you don't even bother.
God, I love those shifts. | 
