Cab driver According to Michael Hall, nighttime is when a cab is needed the most. Family and friends are asleep, and busses aren't running. Cars break down, people get drunk and need a safe way home, travelers need a lift to and from the airport.

Hall, 46, says he is content to serve the Hampton Roads community by driving his Crown Victoria from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. six to seven nights a week.

Hall keeps his cab pristine and offers a friendly smile and an ear, because many of his customers need both.

Air traffic controller Carolyn Johnson knows that a misstep on the job could mean a catastrophe. Johnson, 32, works the midnight crew, or "mid crew," at the Oceana Naval Air Station tower in Virginia Beach, Va.

Her responsibilities as one of a team of air traffic controllers are to monitor radar and the dark sky to oversee that incoming and outgoing F/A-18 Hornets and F/A-18 Super Hornets land and refuel safely.

Johnson also keeps watch for any aircraft — including police helicopters and planes heading to and from Norfolk International Airport — that pass through their airspace.

Bridge-tunnel patrol Barbara Felton, 53, of Newport News, Va., stops traffic for a living. As a patrol worker on the 3.5 mile-long Hampton Road Bridge-Tunnel on Interstate 64 and U.S. Route 60, she listens for alarms stationed along the road and alerts trucks and other large vehicles that are too tall to pass through the tunnels.

Felton also looks for trucks carrying flammable cargo and other hazardous materials and reroutes them to another bridge crossing.

One thing she likes about working the overnight shift: She doesn't get stuck in traffic on her way to work.

Krispy Kreme assistant manager After hours, drivers deliver "heroes" to hotels and grocery and convenience stores. The hand-dipped, hand-filled and hand-sprinkled doughnuts are the standard glazed Krispy Kreme specialty. People can buy their heros within hours of them coming off the line.

That's where Tyler Wilkerson, 25, of Norfolk, Va., comes in. Wilkerson is the night shift assistant manager at the local Krispy Kreme.

The lit "hot and ready" sign may be off, but inside the store, workers watch as some 6,000 to 8,000 dozen doughnuts of several varieties stream down a conveyor. The pastries that pass inspection are packed, slid onto trays and prepared for pick up just before the first smiling faces show up outside the door.

Fishing pier cashier Richard "Famous" Amos already fished day and night at the Lynnhaven Fishing Pier in Virginia Beach, Va., before he was given an opportunity to work there this summer. He was offered a job at the pier store working the cash register from midnight to 8 p.m.

"I just love fishing," he said. "I love it, love it, love it."

The job is just another reason to be there.