If you’ve ever done shift work, you’ll know that it can really take a toll on your mental and physical wellbeing. Of course, all work can – the constant monotony of pushing yourself through work all day, every day, really isn’t healthy. But it’s what we seem to still be committed to doing as a species, and what we as individuals all find ourselves in a place of having to do in order to survive.

But when you’re working a long shift – particularly if you do the same long shift every day – you might start to feel the uncanny sense that all the days are merging into one. You spend more time at work than you do at home, and you can no longer remember when one day started and another one ended. Because when you do the same things every day, and there’s no landmark moments to differentiate them, there’s nothing your brain can pin markers of time on. And thus, every day can start to feel like one, egregiously long shift, spreading through the days, months, years that you spend in the same role.

This can cause demoralisation, waning enthusiasm, and also a lot of frustration and confusion – even when it happens just on a small scale. In fact, for the employee in this story, simply dragging their body through one long workday with limited breaktimes was enough to cause a mistake that left them feeling embarrassed, and their customers baffled.

Read on to feel what happened.

Ever been at work for so long you forgot where you were?

I work in a craft store. I’ve been there for about a month and I’m new to retail.

The other night, I was working overtime, pulling about a 9 1/2 hour shift. At this point, I was on hour 7. I hadn’t taken a break, and I was feeling hangry.

So, I’m working the floor and a couple of people ask me where a particular item is. I’m unsure where it’s at, so I ask someone on my walkie talkie.

I’m told by another coworker what section it’s in and take the customers there.

But this employee was not prepared for what was about to happen.

While I’m there, they mention that the item they want isn’t the size they want. Everything we have is too big.

So, I say, “Have you tried [store I work at]?” One of them responds, “We’re in [store I work at].”

For a moment, I’m completely baffled, then snap back to reality and say, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I meant to say ‘Have you tried [this other craft store] or [that other craft store]?’ I’ve been here for so long that I literally forgot where I was.”

Luckily, they were polite about my brain fart, but I’m so embarrassed I did that.

Listen, this happens to the best of us.

The human brain and body can only handle so much, and working a nine and a half hour shift and desperately needing a meal break can do things to you that you really aren’t expecting.

Sometimes we make little mistakes like this that get us embarrassed, but that’s okay – it’s a part of being human.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person reassured the employee that moments like this happen to everyone.

While others pointed out how shifts can warp all sense of time and place.

Meanwhile, this Redditor pointed out that the delirious confusion doesn’t stop when you leave work, either.

In plenty of modern societies, somehow being 100% perfect at work, 100% of the time has become an expected norm. But you know what? That’s not physically possible. Even AI is prone to mistakes, and it is literally designed and programmed not to be. So how can us beautiful, flawed human beings be expected to just get things right, even when we’re putting our bodies and our minds through gruelling shift work.

Because at the heart of things, our species aren’t designed for long shifts and constant work. We evolved as hunter gatherers, to be in nature and to be taking care of things that are life or death. Not dealing with the constant threat of sales targets and entitled customers, closely monitored break times and incessant social interaction. We flounder, naturally. And being punished for that is cruel.

But in that kind of societal atmosphere, it’s understandable that an employee would become embarrassed, even anxious about making a mistake. The truth, however, is that mistakes are part of what it means to be human. Mistakes are how we learn – not only how we learn to be better, but how we learn who are the right people for us. Because if someone chastises you for making a mistake, are they really a person you want to be around? Is a job that punishes a single mistake one that you really want to be in?

Your mistakes are what makes you human. And there’s something beautiful in that.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a cashier who was on break when she was physically dragged back to the register by a customer.