I yet again find myself owing you an apology. Virtually the entire summer has rolled on by and I have not been faithful to this blog! I have no legitimate excuses to bore you with. Instead, I shall share some stories from May 30th to today, July 30th in the next few posts.
With all the restrictions that accompany my Visa and DS-2019, the documents allowing me to stay in the U.S, finding a summer job was no easy task. I tried numerous internship avenues, all to no avail. Eventually, one of the girls I lived with in the Spring invited me to work with her in a dorm. I swiftly accepted, and was welcomed by the student supervisor. Looking back, I definitely should of taken her first question to me more seriously."So, are you willing to do anything? You're not scared to get a little dirty are you?". I assured her I wasn't, and with that I was hired.
For those readers who are not so familiar with the college housing system, in the summer students are hired to help refresh the dorms for the new year. The dorms are painted, the floors are stripped and re waxed and each room is deep cleaned. Adjusting to a $7.80 per hour wage rate the first interesting lesson I learned. 7am starts five days of the week was the next. The actual tasks I was expected to complete varied over the summer. I washed, pressed and folded linen from all eight un-airconditioned floors in the building. I scraped chewing gum from carpets and deep cleaned them. I helped strip wax from linoleum floors, inhaling toxic chemicals all day which left me with an awful headache by the end of the shift.
No, it was not pleasant work at all. However, I have taken some valuable life lessons from my time there, making it an overall educational experience.
[1] People often look at manual forms of labor as the kind of work requiring no real experience, so it is generally easier. Yes, the former is mostly true, but the latter is not! Scrubbing, scraping, painting or performing any physical activity for eight hours is hard work. It is a different type of 'hard' when compared to many white collar positions, but it definitely is difficult. For me, not utilising my brain whatsoever was draining. I often felt as if a trained monkey could perform this work which was discouraging, and I felt no sense of satisfaction for what I had done at the end of the day. I hope that this experience of being at the very bottom of the corporate ladder will aid me in becoming a more knowledgable and sensitive manager one day.
[2] This was the first time I had a five day, 40 hours a week full time job. I missed the freedom of being able to schedule my own classes, skip them if I had to and catch up when I felt fit. Through this I realised that when you commit to a company, you must be there when they need you, and not when you so desire. A good bit of knowledge to have for graduation next year!
[3] Working alongside a lower socio-economic class was eye opening. I feel truly blessed to have grown up in a home of opportunity, consistency and unconditional love. It is hard to imagine living a life where no pay check the next week could mean falling into the gutter. Australia is more egalitarian than you think, and this is something so very special and we are lucky!!
I hope you too can see value in these lessons and somehow incorporate them into your own lives.
For now,
xx
