It seems that influencers have a vendetta against working regular daytime hours. Search any social media platform, and you will find post after post of young, good-looking people encouraging you to follow your passion while floating in a riviera somewhere. Sometimes even offering to teach you their secrets (for a price, of course).
The 9-5, once seen as the standard work schedule, is now being demonized as 'boring' and 'settling' and even to some, 'soul crushing.'
Yet for some of us, we spent our first decade in the work force dreaming of a consistent work schedule.
Like most people, my work experience started early and traumatically in fast food. At 15 I'd had a few under-the-table jobs babysitting, snow shoveling and gardening for neighbours, but Wendy's was my first "job job" where I was supposed to start making the big bucks.
Or so I thought.
It started with several group interviews, followed by digging through a cardboard box to find a uniform that was small enough to fit me (which was promptly deducted from my first paycheck).
The training was simple enough. Here is the order screen. Here are the buns. Here are the ingredients. Slap them on the bun as quickly as you can and try to keep up.
Well, it quickly became obvious that I couldn't. My nickname as 'the sloth' in elementary school wasn't for nothing.
The first obstacle was my reliance on a constantly disappearing stool needed to reach the buns on the shelf.
The second was my inability to please my supervisors. While one was screaming at me to get the burgers out as quickly as I could, the other was screaming at me to get exactly 4 pickles on that burger (picture a drill sergeant in a Wendy's uniform asking me if I knew how to count to 4).
I was often relegated to dining room clean-up during rushes, which I did not mind at all, given the whopping $6 an hour I was raking in.
I came to loathe my job and dreaded going to work, suffering the abject humiliation of being bullied by two miserable middle-aged women, that I later found out were in a throuple with what appeared to be the last living neanderthal.
My life continued on in this vein, relying largely on shift work.
Fast food, house keeping, janitorial, child-minding, call centres, customer service, retail, a stint as a laundry operator for a reusable diaper service, before transitioning into health care for seven years.
I dreamed of working a simple 9-5.
My opportunity came when I tore the tendon in my foot. I was off-work for 5 weeks, at which point I started thinking long-term for the first time.
It was obvious to me that I was physically incapable of working in health care for the next 40 years, and that if I was going to do something about it, I needed to do it now.
I wanted a fun job, or at least a job that didn't deal in greasy burgers, or screaming kids, or cleaning other people's toilets, or death.
I wanted a job that allowed me to wear fancy office clothes, and paint my nails, and sit without being yelled at, and see my friends and family.
That was the dream. At the age of 24, I enrolled in the Tourism Management program at VIU. This wasn't easy either, as I soon learned, but I was definitely better-suited to writing academic essays on the economics of tourism, than I was to hauling laundry up and down several flights of stairs.
It took me 5 years to graduate, as my need to pay my mortgage superseded my desire to graduate on time. When the time came, I walked across the stage with a modest $37,000 in student loan debt. Afterwards, I set out to find a 9-5 with a local marketing company.
And here I remain. While the pay might not be outstanding, it pays the bills. I might not live a jet-setting lifestyle comparable to Youtubers and influencers so popular with my generation, but it's enough to be able to spend weekends and stat holidays off with my family.
No more getting up at 5:30 am feeling slightly nauseous. No more requesting permission to go to the bathroom. No more waking up in the middle of the night wondering if I work tomorrow. No more wrangling three or four T4's for tax time.
While some might dismiss regular full-time employment as taking the 'safe' route rather than taking exciting risks, they miss a glaringly obvious point. Not all of us have the luxury or inclination to take risks. That's why they're called risks.
Some of us had to pay for our education later in life, while working multiple jobs just to stay afloat. Some of us have dependents and bills.
The idea that those who find comfort in a reliable paycheck are cowardly or aren't fulfilling their true purpose assume that purpose and career are one in the same.
Some might find it impossible to enjoy a simple life, but for many of us who grew up searching for stability, the idea of knowing what tomorrow will bring is a balm on our ever-present millennial anxiety.
The 9-5 might not be suited to everyone, but after struggling through what some consider the worst jobs in society, I'm grateful for it.
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