About a little over a month ago I got a new job. I had been working at a hardware store for over five years and wanted a new experience, so I found another job that was better pay and I applied for it. The job was working at General Mitchell International Airport. I got the job and I thought it was going to be a good thing for me but I was wrong. I ended up putting my two week's notice in at the airport because I couldn’t handle the job with school and luckily I was able to get my job back at the hardware store. Here are a few things that I learned from working at the airport for just over a month.

1. Morning shifts are torture

I have always liked working the morning shifts at my old job because you get in early and then you get to go home early and you still have the rest of the day to do whatever you want. Well, going into this new job I thought working the morning shift was going to be good for me until I found out that the morning shift starts at 4 a.m. I think I did a double take when I was told what time I would be starting.

Yet, it is a good thing to try new things, so I agreed to do the morning shift and boy was that a mistake. I ended up going to bed at 8 p.m. and waking up at 2:30 a.m., which was something I was totally not used to and I hated it. Every morning was like torture to me because it just didn’t seem like I should be up because of how dark it was outside. Although, that brings me to my next point.

2. Sunrises are beautiful

There was only one thing that I looked forward to when I worked the morning shift and that was the sunrise. I never in my life got up early enough to see the sunrise and I have totally been missing out. I’ve seen the sun set in the evening and always thought that was a pretty sight but I have to say that the sunrise is just as pretty, if not prettier.

I got to experience a time when most of the world is still sleeping and it was somewhat peaceful and soothing to me. I think that seeing the sunrise in the morning is going to be the only thing I miss when I stop working at the airport.

3. TSA issues are a pain

I’m sure everyone has their own experiences with Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and I can say that I have not had much experience with them before working at the airport. I never thought about it before but even if you work at the airport, you still have to go through TSA checkpoints and security if you are scheduled to work on one of the concourses instead of the main terminal.

My first experience with the TSA was not a good. I set the metal detector off three times going through because I wasn’t told that if you have a big belt buckle, it might set the alarm off. I actually wasn’t told a lot of things when it came to going through the security check points.

The first time I had to take a cart full of newspapers through security, I freaked out because I didn’t know if they had to be taken off the cart and checked in their little machine or not, or how was I going to get the cart through security because it was definitely going to set the alarm off? I had a lot of things going through my mind at the time and everything worked out in the end but it would have been nice to have been told in advance everything I needed to know about going through security.

4. Parking/Shuttle options are not easy for employees either

For some reason, I always thought that employee parking lots were an awesome thing because that generally meant that they were easy access to the building you worked. Well, that is not the case at the airport. They do have a parking lot for employees but it actually is the parking lot farthest from the main terminal and you actually have to take a shuttle to get to the building from the parking lot. I mean you can walk, it's not that far of a walk but when it's winter time, the last thing you want to do is walk in the cold to get to the main terminal. And waiting for the shuttle is an annoying thing; you have to time it just right in order to get on the shuttle when you pull into the parking lot and sometimes the shuttle is so packed that there isn’t even anymore standing room for passengers and you have to wait for the next one.

5. Night shifts aren't much better

I got the chance to work a couple of night shifts, which can’t actually be considered night shifts because you start at noon. Yet, you do have to work until anywhere between 6 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., and I have heard that if there are delays, you might end up staying longer than you were scheduled.

There are perks to working the night shift, though; you don’t have to wake up before the sun does and normally the night shifts are shorter than the morning shifts. A downside of working the night shift though is that you don’t have the rest of the day to do things when you get off of work, and you barely have time to eat dinner before you have to go to bed when you get home.

6. Calling in sucks

Something worse than working at 4 a.m., is when you have to call in because you are sick. They put out a policy saying that if you have to call in for your shift, that you have to call at least two hours early, which becomes a problem for the morning shift people. Most of the time you don’t really know how you’re going to feel in the morning so you can only give like a one hour notice and you have to leave a message because there is no one in the office that early in the morning. The only thing you have to do after you call in is hope they get the message and don’t call you to see where you are for your shift.

I’ve learned a lot from working at the airport for such a short amount of time but I can’t say that I’m going to miss it when I leave, except the sunrise. I look forward to going back to my hardware job and may this be a lesson for anyone looking to get a job at an airport.