After my last few summers were mainly consumed by basketball, I never actually had the time and the energy to work a full-time summer job. I wasn't super upset about it, yet I always wondered what all this complaining about the working life was about.
I wanted to experience it for myself. I was very familiar with what the job of a journalist looked like. I was working for several newspapers for the last few years. I could write articles whenever I had the time and scheduled it nicely around my workouts and classes. So it was a job, but it was one I loved doing, so I didn't quite consider it as a job.
I decided to completely leave my comfort zone and say yes to being a secretary at a physical therapy place. Three months, four to seven hours a day, depending on how busy it was. My tasks included answering the phone and scheduling new appointments with the patients. I don't want to bore you with the details.
The job itself isn't that challenging, but what it requires is a lot of patience and calmness. Imagine a line of five people waiting for it to be their turn, while you desperately try to find new appointments for the next week with the phone constantly ringing. My pulse wasn't that high since the last time I had to do burpees for a minute straight.
Don't get me wrong. I like the job, I really do. You meet a lot of very interesting people, you gain knowledge about what treatment to do for what kind of injury and every now and then people give you a little piece of chocolate to show their appreciation.
And yet, I never for one second imagined that sitting on my butt for almost seven hours a day would be that exhausting. Like I am an athlete, I can work out for hours, while constantly pushing my body to its limits, yet for the last two months, I have been more exhausted than I have been in a very long time.
It is a different kind of exhausted than I am used, to and I certainly can understand what all this complaining is about.
I am not going to lie, I was considering more than once to stay in bed, instead of getting up bright and early to work another seven-hour shift.
Here are 10 of my thoughts I have before I finally manage to get out of bed in the mornings.
1. Do I really need the money?
2. I am so tired. I need more sleep.
3. Screw the money. Sleep is so much more important.
4. Urgh, OK don't screw the money. Maybe a different job. But I am so picky.
5. I wonder how much strippers make *Google search*
6. I have to be reasonable, I can't become a stripper. I can't dance.
7. Maybe I should just quit my job and ask my parents for money.
8. I mean, being unemployed really doesn't sound too bad, right?
9. OK, who am I kidding, it sounds terrible. I need to get my life together. Positive mindset.
10. But seriously, I wish I could go back to school. Everything was so much easier back then.
