Durbin: Balance your school and work
Columnist Chelsea Durbin explains the importance of the managing your job and studies.
Friday, September 28th, 2007
College jobs. Most of us have them. Some of us have them for paying rent; others have them for buying beer on Friday night. Either way, we all have to deal with the stress, the crappy pay and the short amount of time we have to spend on anything else besides work and school. But the truth is, these jobs are what make college, college.
Working 40 hours a week is not something I want to do. In fact, I would much rather have more time to do laundry, go out with my friends and possibly open my math book more then once a week. However, those hours are crucial to keeping gas in my car, supplying food for my belly and paying off those parking tickets I seem to get every week. So, after school every day I rush home to throw on my work clothes, grab a bite to eat, and speed to that 40–hours-a-week job. Every day it’s the same thing. I go to school, go to work and then come home and do homework; it’s an endless cycle of fun, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Now, I’m not saying I don’t dread going to work every day, because I do. I bitch and moan the entire way there, and often continue on once I’m in the building. Sometimes this even leads to a giant bitch-and-moan fest for everyone on staff. Nevertheless, the truth is, work for me is an escape from the high amounts of pressure I get from school. It’s a place where I can take my mind off of those tests, those projects and those never-ending amounts of pages I still have to read before the next class. Instead of school, I focus on mean customers, YouTube videos, and whose turn it is to the vacuum the store. I enjoy relaxing nights of angry phone calls, rock-paper-scissor championships, returns that don’t belong to our store, cell phones that hate me and infinite debates on “good music.” Unfortunately, this job is just a stepping stone into the “Real World,” where YouTube videos won’t be watched, rock-paper-scissors will not settle every problem and music won’t be listened to, because we won’t have time. I dread finding a non-college job.
I believe we should rejoice in the fact that most of us have these time-consuming jobs that we hate, because it’s never going to get this good again. Let us cherish those angry customers, that horrible minimum wage, those nights you just want pull your hair out and that after- work beer you have with your co-workers, because in the end, it’s just another day on our way to that nine-to-five job that will eventually take over our lives.
College is a special time on our lives. It is a time when three hours of sleep is amazing, 25-cent Ramen noodles are a feast and when dirty laundry gets worn more then one time. It’s a time for us to grow, learn and discover that although we live our lives down to every minute possible, time is on our side. So, the next time you are on your way to that time consuming, stressful, full-of-bullcrap job, smile and think to yourself, “This job makes my life a little more complicated, but it’s all part of college cycle.”
Durbin is a Hays junior in journalism and English.
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