Montage...They told me it would be 9 to 5!

During my last school year part of the curriculum for one of modules was to produce a magazine. We called our variety magazine Montage and I was voted editor. I figured a lot of people on here wont get to read the magazine. So over the next few weeks/days/whatever, I'll publish the articles that I wrote in the magazine. I hope you enjoy it and as always your feedback would be great.

They told me it would be 9 to 5!

If you’ve made it this far my assumption is that after the all too exciting university phase you plan to work. Some of you already have to divide your attention between a full time education and a part time internship or even a full time job. You guys more than the rest will understand what I’m about to explain.

Over the holidays, I spent some time with family and I remember asking someone when their next holiday would be: “about the same time next year.” He said it with such frankness that more than the fact that he only had a week off each year I was worried that he had become immune to it.

Remember Dolly Parton’s 9-5? No I’m not that old. My mother had a taste for country music. It’s one of the few Dolly Parton songs that stuck with me the whole time.  A part of me always looked forward to when I could work my 9 to 5 job then go home afterwards to have dinner and relax with my pet parrot or goldfish. I always told myself quite proudly that my work would not invade the rest of my life; I’ll never take my work home. Needless to say, that was before I realised the real meaning of being a journalist or any type of writer for that matter. The first rude awakening came last summer.

I got an internship for the summer and in my interview I was told by my boss that I’d have to work from 9 to 6. Not too bad, especially considering that they were quite lenient with us about our lateness.  It didn’t quite hit home then but I found myself being constantly tired. It was a short internship so before long I had forgotten the experience of having no time for myself.

Then in September I started another job. This one involved me working with someone in a different continent and time zone. This meant that sometimes communication was irregular. I was back to working hours that varied quite drastically from the 9 to 5 I had envisioned. To add to that I started another internship at the start of the year and my body was beginning to give up on me.

It creeps up on you. Suddenly you realise that your work files have become furniture, you’re having takeaway dinners in front of your TV and you had so little time to feed your goldfish it died. Your life revolves around work and sleep and very little else.

The 21^st century work culture is much different than the picture Dolly painted for us isn’t it? There is almost no escape thanks to the internet, smart phones and all the other clever ways your boss can find you if don’t pick up their calls. Gone are the days where your location, salary and type of job determined how much time you spent at the office. A PR consultant talking to our class about the possibility of an internship with her company was quick to warn us about trying to work while school was in session: “you start at 8:45am and you don’t finish till about 6:50pm.” Even scarier is the fact that office walls no longer mark the boundaries of where work stops and life begins. As long as you have a phone and a laptop you are almost always working,

So what do we do? Mummy and Daddy won’t pay the bills forever so we can’t quit before we even start. Unless you’re going to be working for yourself or for someone who offers you flexible hours, you can’t dictate when you want to work. I have one suggestion because it’s the only thing that has ever worked for me:

“Chose a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”-Confucius