Tag: MLabout

Ok here is part two of this past Monday’s free-write. More about my grad school years and beyond in the future. 

In college I was granted work study money, I want to say to the tune of $1,800/semester or something and I was determined earn to each every dollar. Weeks into my freshman year I got a work study job working in the Associate Dean of Liberal Arts office for about 10/hr week. My workstation was in a fishbowl of an office space, but I was facing a busy hallway and often got to see friends (or crushes) and people watch.  Again I loved this job and kept it for quite a while. My favorite task was signing the Associate Dean’s name on letters to admitted students, I perfected my Jean Blue signature, it was beautiful, although to my disappointment nothing like her real one. I actually still doodle her name from time to time! While working for the Associate Dean I sometimes covered the admin’s desk upstairs over lunch. She was the admin of a few Liberal Arts departments and her desk was stationed in a hallway full of professors from Political Science, Languages, Theatre. I loved working upstairs, the professors were great and this workstation had a COMPUTER. That meant I could get paid to play Snood and talk on AOL Instant Messenger. I ended up working 15-20/hours a week in the College of Liberal Arts through my Sophomore year.

Then prior to my Junior year I met the new Campus Fitness Center Director and we hit it off, I think I gave her a tour of campus or something. I ended up picking up a work study shift at the Rec Center at the front desk for about 8/hours a week which meant I needed to cut back my Liberal Arts hours because I was only allowed to work my work study job for 20 hours/week. Then by October of my Junior year I got selected as a mid-year replacement for a Resident Assistant position which meant I needed to cut back on work study hours yet again since as an RA we were only allowed work 10/hours a week outside of work. I ended up keeping the Fitness Center job, again I loved the people watching and opportunity to be social with other employees.

My senior year I returned as a RA, but I wasn’t granted work study money because of being an RA which gave me free room and board (valued at $10K/year). I think my Financial Aid packaged changed the year before, but because I was a mid-year hire I was still able to have a small amount of work study dollars which I spread across the rest of fall and then spring when I was at the Rec Center or maybe the Rec Center paid me wages as opposed to work study? As a college administrator now myself, I know more about there different budget lines then I did when I was a student. The free room and board as an RA was great (thank you ~$20K of loans I didn’t have to take out), but I needed spending money so the summer before Senior year I went to the ol’ Career Center and looked through the “babysitting book.” I ended up babysitting for a family with little boy who was 9 months old at the time 2x a week from 9am-2pm in their beautiful home about 20 minutes from campus. Again, I loved this job. The family was great, I adored the little boy, they always had great food in the fridge, and there was a drive through Dunkin’ Donuts right by their house. I always grabbed a iced coffee prior to getting there and sipped it all day. Plus I was getting paid CASH.

If you think I couldn’t squeeze anymore college years employment in think again. My first two college summers I supplemented my income by doing office work at both my Dad and Aunt’s offices. Lots of filing, mailing, opening mail and copying. The real game changer was the 4 summers working for the new student Orientation office at my undergrad. 2 of the summers were short stints as just a volunteer Orientation Leader, but the other 2 summers had me working all summer as an Orientation Intern with the extra perk of free on campus housing all summer too. I started my last summer intern year the day after I graduated from college and worked until I had to leave for grad school.

In January 1998, after the holidays I got my first job at my church’s Rectory, I was 14 and in 9th grade. I got the gig because at the time I was an altar server, one of the first female altar servers after a rule change in the Catholic Church thankyouverymuch. Now, I had sporadically babysat for a few years prior and continued to do so, but this was my first job on a payroll – making a whopping  $4.25/hr. I generally worked on Wednesdays from 4pm-7pm. Much of that time was spent listening to Z100 on the clock radio and doing homework. Oh and there was that one time that a funeral got scheduled, but I failed to write it down in all the like 5 places I was supposed to, so the family and funeral home showed up to a locked church…oooooooooopps. Thankfully it got worked out quickly and I didn’t get fired due to my misstep.

Each subsequent year of high school I picked up an additional gig, summer after 10th grade I worked my first of 3 summers at a Day Camp near my house while keeping the Rectory job. I loved my summers as a Camp Counselor – I got a delicious free lunch every day, got to work on my tan, make new friends, and some of the male Counselors were babes. I also liked the kids, I worked with Kindergarten boys my first summer – they were my favorite. Then 1st grade girls and finally 6th grade girls. As a Counselor, we only got paid a small stipend, but tips at the end of the summer were awesome!

The summer prior to my Senior year of high school I picked up another job at CVS, which was right across from the Camp, so during the summer on days that I was working at CVS I’d walk across the street for a 4:30-9:30pm shift after an 8am-4pm day at Camp. I knew I had a good work ethic, but I also wanted to be away from my house as much as possible and the spending money was critical since by this time I was paying for most of my own clothes, school supplies, etc. By this time, summer 2000, the minimum wage has risen to $5.15/hr. I also l really loved my time at CVS, being on register and facing the shelves were my favorite. My coworkers were also a cast of characters which made working there entertaining. I was working at CVS was when “ExtraCare Card” launched, I wanna say February-March 2001. I still have my OG card.  While working there I ended up picking up some hours in the Pharmacy as a tech and went to a few weekend training for some “certifications.” I actually got paid a little more for the hours I worked in the Pharmacy which was great. Plus I really like Pharmacy too, well except for dealing with insurance companies, but nobody like them!

Even after I left for college I came back to work at CVS over my 5-6 week Winter break my freshman year. On New Years Eve 2001 (going into 2002) about an hour before the 6pm holiday closing the store was held up… at gunpoint… by a former employee… who I hugged only minutes before when I saw him in the store. I was actually in Pharmacy when the robbery happened, but my friend (an elementary school turned he friend who I got the job at CVS a year prior) was the one held up in the office when the robber slipped in behind her. I didn’t know we were robbed until after the fact, but needless to say my CVS career did not extend through whatever shifts I was scheduled to work the rest of Winter break. I actually was subpoenaed to testify at the Grand Jury trial months later which required me to get excused from college in CT to go to Long Island for a long weekend. Despite this blemish on my CVS experience, I am still a very loyal CVS customer.

If you thought I worked a lot in high school, then spoiler alert: I worked even more in college.