Coronation Street - Current Episode Discussion - V

[Son of Cain]

I noticed in last night’s episode, Aggie Bailey said she’d “Got a shift tonight.”
In so many episodes I hear characters talking about ‘a shift’, rather than just ‘going to work’.

Do people really say shift as opposed to work in real life?
I understand perhaps they’re nurses or police who often do rotating shifts. Usually then, the people I remember used to say working nights, or earlies, but not really ‘shifts’.
Even the bar staff at the Rovers use the word shift as well.

Language is not a static thing it grows and changes, altho' I have not heard many people say this in real life. It used to be said that Soaps imitated and reflected real life but now I think it is often life that imitates soaps. You never used to hear people talking about supporting others, they used to help each other, the first time I heard this was when I was working in Social Services, then Eastenders started using it and now it is quite common in real life. I suspect that some TV writers have a background in pyschology and counselling and it crept in that way.