I do 7 on 7 off 10 hour days with a 1 hour commute each way, which I just cut down to 45 minutes by moving (yay!). I think, if you have the option to decide, you should base it on a few factors.
1. Personal Habits: Do you manage time well enough to get your stuff done in your evenings and weekends? Do you do anything in evenings after work anyway or do you wait till you have days off to see friends/plan things etc.? Do you need to go to doctors often, have maintenance done on your house, etc that can't be done on the weekends/evenings?
2. Commute: The longer the commute, the less days you should want to work. Obvious one.
3. The job itself: Is this a job you can perform better with one schedule or the other? With 10 hour shifts, do you find yourself running out of stuff to do for the last few hours, or with 8 hour shifts, do you find yourself not being able to get all your work done and leaving things for the next day?
4. Goals for traveling/PRN work/etc: Could you use 3 day weekends for trips and not have to take time off? You only need 10 hours of vaca to get a 4 day weekend as opposed to 16 if you work 8 hour shifts. Do you have a 2nd job you do prn work? More days off may equal more income if you are up to the workload.
Personally, I love my shift. I only work 70 hours total, so over the year I work 16% less than the regular guys. It has its trade offs. With my commute and the hours I work (2nd shift), I am basically a shut in for a whole week. It can be tiring/boring. The last 2-3 days can really wear on you and sometimes its enough that I feel my work performance suffers. However, I have the ability to take 4-5 day vacations all the time. Go backpacking during the week so its not crowded even in the popular areas. Have lazy non productive days without it affecting anything. It works for me and what I do. Plus being a pharmacist whose friends are mostly all pharmacists thanks to pharm school, no one else works 8 to 5 so I don't have much to do in the evenings anyway most days.
