"A 'lobster trick' rewriteman"

This article has just introduced me to the phrase "the lobster shift."  Green's Dictionary of Slang gives a first usage from 1927 (of the variant "lobster trick") and suggests it derives from "the slow pace of the crustacean; i.e. such a shift, usu. between 2:00a.m. and 9:00a.m. is rarely busy."  It would make a great title for a novel...