...about Worlds Colliding?

Yes, there was: The Pool Guy> .

"Way lower production, too..."

That's kind of funny (and expected); I had the opposite experience at the plant. Night shift got things done, and done right! Might have had to do with a much smaller "uh-oh" crowd present in the wee hours.

I agree with you about how doing a meaningful study of this would be difficult. Maybe if the setting were say, in mainland China, which has a more compulsory (read: coercive) culture, then perhaps useful data could be obtained.... hmm....{Flame Proofing ON}

"Shift work" covers a wide range of jobs, from repetitive tasks (as in a factory) to technical support (as in a call center). TFA is really more interested in the disruption of the circadian rhythm because of those types of jobs. What would be interesting is if there was some differentiation in that study according to the types of jobs. Would working at a call center result in a different sort of degradation than, say, assembly? The former engages the brain (according to my firstborn, who seems to enjoy it), while the latter, well, I don't know if I could handle something like that for too long.

And having worked night shifts during our refueling (nuclear plant) outages, I can say that it was never dull, with all manner of problems to solve and people to deal with. There's definitely a nice camaraderie that develops on the night shift, so the term "anti-social" didn't quite apply.

I second. Drills are the way to identify and correct flaws, as well as to identify areas for improvement. It is unfortunate that it took a one-two punch to turn around Japan's nuclear culture, but hopefully they come out stronger, as we had following the Three Mile Island Unit 2 event in 1979. Here in the U.S., even now, emergency drills at nuclear power plants continue to optimize emergency processes, and to test a plant's (including and especially its staff's) response to a significant adverse event. The typical drill postulates a series of malfunctions that inevitably lead to a radiation release, which then triggers an evacuation. This latter part is designed to exercise local and state resources as well.

After Fukushima, the paradigm got turned a bit on its head: instead of a nuclear plant event causing the emergency, it's a natural calamity that degrades and destroys infrastructure that could lead to a radiation release. As a result, the lessons learned prompted at least one order, which requires all U.S. plants to be ready for events that are beyond their current design bases. In other words, if your plant was designed for a Category 3 hurricane, be ready to handle one that's much more devastating. As you might expect, this is no small expense, but the U.S utilities have committed to making the preparations, and you can find descriptions of these on the NRC website.