This summer is the first time that I’ve ever had a 9 to 5 job. Over the years all of my work experience has been linked to school (of one kind or another), music, or family. I’ve never been in an environment where extra work and practice was not expected outside of the hours put in on-site. Also, I’ve never had a job that expects work for the majority of the day. It’s always been for chunks of three to four hours, usually in the evening after all of my school responsibilities. With all of that being said, one of the most valuable experienced that I’ve had over the course of the summer has been seeing what it’s like to spend most of your day in a job, and figuring out how to set my goals and plan by day accordingly. It took some weeks, but I’ve adjusted to this new schedule, and my level of satisfaction and comfortability has gone up considerably since the shaky first weeks. I think that out of all of the personal lessons that I’ve taken out of this summer, this one is the most valuable. I think that at this time in my life, I needed to experience what it feels like to give the majority of your time and focus during the day to another person/ cause/ company. At school the real working world isn’t a place that you think about in realistic terms sometimes, and it can seem so far away that operating on your own time 24/7 becomes the only way that you expect to be living at any given time. At a job, even if you enjoy what you do every day, you’re still dedicating the majority of your daily energy and time to an organization or cause that is outside of your control and agency. This is all fine with me, but coming into the summer, I was definitely not considering these things, and it affected all of my personal goals and expectations for the summer. Having learned this, I’m definitely feeling much more comfortable with accurately envisioning what I want my ideal occupation and jobspace to look like, and I feel like I’ve got more of an idea of the direction that I’d like to take my career.
