They drastically altered the shift patterns from a relatively simple 2 day, 2 night, 4 off to a pretty complicated 5 on 3 off with 7 start times that you would cycle through each week. (5 straight 2100-0700 shifts suuuucked.) They also made us bid for team assignments. The real wtf moment was when they didn’t bother posting enough vacancies for everyone to bid on because of the anticipated attrition.
I seem to remember the official explanation being that they’re not that far apart, but that the holodeck can use perspective tricks to seamlessly make them seem that far apart. You could run away from someone in one direction and never hit the wall while things shrink and enlarge to make you seem far away from your companions.
Got ‘em!