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Pitman schedule
The same two on, two off, three on cadence as Panama — but your crew stays on days or stays on nights instead of rotating between them.
- Shift length
- 12 hours
- Cycle
- 14 days
- Average week
- 42 hours
- Tour
- Fixed
What the Pitman schedule is
Pitman runs the 2-2-3 rotation — two on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off — on twelve-hour shifts across a fourteen-day cycle.
The difference from Panama is what happens to your tour. Under Pitman, a crew is assigned to days or to nights and stays there. The on-off rhythm rotates; the time of day does not.
For a lot of officers this is the better arrangement. A permanent night crew can build a sleep schedule and actually keep it, instead of resetting their body clock every few weeks.
How the cycle runs
Fourteen days on a fixed night tour. A day crew works the identical pattern, twelve hours earlier:
Night shiftDay off
Hours and overtime
Seven twelve-hour shifts per fortnight — eighty-four hours, averaging forty-two a week, alternating thirty-six and forty-eight.
Because the tour never changes, shift differential is predictable: a night crew earns it on every scheduled shift rather than on some blocks and not others.
Who works it
Pitman is common wherever agencies found that rotating tours cost them more in fatigue than it gained in fairness:
- Police patrol and sheriff's offices
- Emergency communications
- Corrections
- Hospital and EMS crews
- Utilities and control rooms
- Security operations
The trade-off
What works
- Your body clock gets to settle — no flipping between days and nights
- Same days off every fortnight, indefinitely
- Predictable shift differential
- Off-duty work is easier to commit to when your tour never moves
What hurts
- A permanent night tour carries real long-term health costs
- Day and night crews rarely see each other
- Twelve-hour shifts, three in a row at the peak of the cycle
- Court dates land in your sleep window if you work nights
Put it on your calendar
Your crew stays on days or on nights, so the part that shifts is which days you are on — and every third weekend is yours.
Save the cycle once and those weekends show up months out, which is what you need when someone asks you about a wedding in April.
Common questions
What's the difference between Pitman and Panama?
The on-off pattern is identical. Pitman keeps a crew on a fixed tour — always days or always nights — while Panama rotates crews between the two.
Is Pitman the same as 2-2-3?
2-2-3 describes the cadence. Pitman is that cadence worked on a fixed tour.
How far ahead can I know my Pitman days off?
Indefinitely. The cycle is exactly two weeks, so your days off repeat on the same weekdays for as long as you stay on the crew.
Put the Pitman schedule on your calendar
Save the Pitman schedule once, tell BlueShifts the day your cycle starts, and the rest of the year draws itself. Leave, court and the work you take on your own time go in around it.
Scan to install — or hold it up for the officer next to you.
