Orange

Classes have been over for a week, and I am sitting at home. Very un-cool for a Friday night, but I got in somewhat late from working an eight-hour shift today. Now that school is out for the summer, it's back to the more grown-up responsibility of working forty hours a week. This is the second summer I've worked at a grocery store. It sounds very shop-around-the-corner-esque, but in reality I am part of a huge, impersonal, commerical machine. There is nothing very picturesque about us.

During my first few weeks of work last year, older employees were constantly asking me, "Are you having fun yet?" And really, how could I lie and say "yes"? Not much about my job is fun. Especially in the first few days back, I clock out, stagger out to my truck, and peel my socks and shoes off my blisters. I roll out of bed in the morning with a groan and stump down the stairs, stiff all over from bending and kneeling and seven-and-a-half hours of walking every day. The environment is potentially toxic, what with the politics and the gossip and the stupid questions and the inevitable battle of relationships (in the span of about a month I've managed to attract, be asked out by, refuse, and piss off one of my coworkers...but I really shouldn't be surprised, I've been told men are confusing wherever you find them). Throw in stupid customer requests, furniture sales and pick-ups at stupid times in the evening, frantic deliveries of product during the last twenty minutes of the closing shift, and you'll understand why I tend to sit and stare when I come home at night.

Though my "Christian school bubble" pops every time I walk on that back dock (it's actually refreshing to get away from the religious and be around "real-world" people...is that bad? : / ), I am appreciating the lesson in perspective. The other day a fellow worker told me when I asked if she was alright, "There's really no point in complaining, everybody else is going through the same thing I am." I chose to complain regardless after cleaning up the toy aisle multiple times in half an hour, and when I declared I'd "had enough," one gentleman sighed, "Man, I know what you mean. I leave here at ten tonight and have to be back here at eight in the morning, and this is my sixth day of work this week."

Comments like that usually shut me up. They put me to shame.

It's days like today when I struggle to overlook the blisters, the grime caked on my hands, the sore muscles, the frustration burning in my head, the way my life constantly revolves around going to work, being at work, or coming home from work, the wonky scheduling that frustrates my family as they demand my asking off when I know I'm frustrating my boss when I ask off because my family wants me to, which makes me frustrated at them and them even more frustrated at me. (It's a vicious cycle...) But I feel that my gratitude is getting as much of a workout as my thighs. I have a job. I am earning meager but apparent pay. I haven't had to completely rearrange my sleeping schedule to adjust to third-shift hours. I typically get two days off. And being employed at the grocery store most used by my family means we get to take advantage of the very nice discount on groceries.

I whine. A lot. And I know in my head that I shouldn't. And though I sometimes think, when I ponder the futility of my job (like when I straighten an entire aisle of toys twelve times a day), "I could really do without this", I do appreciate what I'm getting out of it: a paycheck, nicely-shaped leg muscles, and a few life lessons on the side.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to throw up from the precious wrap-up to that thought. :) Oh, and Happy Mother's Day.