9 to 5

Part of the reason I sought out higher education was so that I could have a regular, 9 to 5 job, fully loaded with benefits, vacation, paid holidays…not to mention it could serve as a vehicle to support my passion for the underserved and underprivileged members of society. The idea of working 5 days a week was also extremely appealing to me. I wanted weekends and I wanted them to be MY weekends. Saturday for errands and play. Sundays for worship and service. Weekends are sacred--especially when workweeks are horrendous.

For the most part, my job is a 10 to 6 type of a deal. I enjoy flexibility, amazing co-workers, and I do have a passion for the work. Working with volunteers is extremely satisfying especially when you can see the impact that they have on the lives of youth and a community. But there are occasions when my department (the Volunteer Department) works very non-traditional hours. We have events, trainings, and programming that all happen “after work” and our presence, in addition to the planning, comes with the territory.

Despite my reluctance to work late on these different occasions, I can usually reframe my thinking in order to produce some sort of positive imagery in my head once everything is said and done. However, this last Saturday was a different story.

I don’t know if it was the combination of a really long week, a few late nights (work related), and the unfinished products piling up on my desk but I was in no mood to be working half a day on Saturday. So imagine my sheer delight to find that not only did I have to work half a day, but also, another half of a day, totaling a full 8 hours. As a result I missed the adult session of stake conference (my favorite part of stake conference weekend) and returned to my apartment in the dark, feeling and looking like a drowned rat. I was exhausted, my night was shot, and I hadn’t gotten a thing done on my hefty to do list.

I’ve been slightly bitter about it for the last few days but as the saying goes, “time heals all wounds.” And so it was with my wounded Saturday heart. But walking home tonight cleared up every last bit of lingering infection. Fatigued once again, I mindlessly made my way along the sidewalk. It was nearing 10:00pm and I noticed a particular group of street vendors. They were a small family, packing up their wares and remnants of the day. Father was working hard to clean out a pan. Mother was taking down one of the mini tables. And their maybe 8-year-old daughter was doing her best to pack up another box of supplies. The box was bigger than she was. It was a school night. Did she have homework? Surely she was tired and yet she was dutifully helping out her hard working family.

Somehow in that moment, my extra eight hours on Saturday didn’t seem as significant as they did before…