Happy Sunday! So I'm going to turn eighteen in less than two months, and I could not feel less like an adult. Today I applied to work at a breakfast, brunch, and lunch restaurant. I was really excited because my best friend works there and she told me about how much fun it is and how much money she makes getting tips. I really need the money for college, it sounded fun, and they were hiring; it seemed like the perfect opportunity.
I was nervous all day; being a waitress always seemed like a very hard job to me. And the hours could range as long as 5:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. What if I needed to do a lot of homework? My friend said that she was able to get her work done, but she goes to a public school, and the work at my school is much more rigorous. What if I wasn't able to balance my homework with real work? Also, I'm the kind of person who really needs to relax every once in a while, which, surprisingly, tends to happen on the weekends. And would I really be able to wake up at 5 or 6 on the weekends when I already wake up at 6 on the weekdays? What if I messed up someone's order and the customer got mad at me? Knowing me, I would probably start crying right there in front of everyone, and that would be really embarrassing. As you can see, there are a lot of "what if"s, which is never a good sign. So I walk into the restaurant, planning on meeting with the manager. My first thought was that I couldn't do it. I immediately went into panic mode when I saw how hectic everything seemed: the restaurant was absolutely filled with people, there were a ton of employees rushing around looking incredibly stressed, and no one even noticed I was there. I just knew that I couldn't work in that kind of environment. The manager said that they were too busy for him to interview me, so he would take a look at my application and give me a call. I'm praying that I don't get the job.
During the summer, I work as a camp assistant at my school, where we have a summer program that offers fun classes for kids in Kindergarten through fifth grade (some of my favorite classes were "Ice Cream Delight" and "Harry Potter"). This job is, for the most part, relatively low-stress. It's mostly glorified babysitting. I do that pretty much every day during the summer, so the money adds up. It also goes directly into my banking account, so I don't get tempted to spend it (although, I did just have to buy a car because I got in a wreck, so most of that money is gone now). But almost every weekend I babysit, and I make quite a bit of money for that, so right now money isn't the issue.
If I did neither of those jobs, then I would probably have had to suck it up and work at this restaurant. I'm so glad that I don't have to, because the more I think about it, the more I realize how stupid it was for me to apply in the first place. I don't work well under pressure, and I feel like I would constantly be under pressure in that environment. There is, however, another part of me that knows that I failed. This was the first real job that I applied to, and I'm so scared that I wouldn't do well, that I'm giving up before something bad happens. It's what I do. Why try if you know you'll be rejected? Why work hard if it's all going to be for nothing? This doesn't apply to me for homework, but in almost every other aspect of my life, I figure that I'll be rejected if I try, so it's better to not risk the pain of not being accepted. I really need to get over this problem of mine, because one day I will actually have to get a real job, and I won't be able to say "Oh, I don't like how busy everyone looks, so I'll just curl up in a ball on my bed so I don't have to actually do work."
I may be almost eighteen, but there are so many things that I'm scared of. The big one: growing up. Everything about aging frightens me. You only have a few years to be young, and I feel like I've been wasting mine. I basically sit in my bed every day on the weekend instead of going out and actually doing something. I have attended the same school for fifteen years, it's all I've ever known. I have no idea what the real world is like. I'm probably one of the most sheltered people alive. Like how do you buy insurance? How do you change a tire? How do you make lasagna? What the heck is a mortgage? Maybe they should teach us these things in school. I may not know how to pay bills, but if anyone needs to know how to graph an inequality (which, obviously, everyone does at least twice a day), then I'm your girl. Sorry for writing such an annoyingly long post, but this is something I've bottled up for a really long time.
Have fun watching the Oscars tonight!
Carpe Diem,
Brooke
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