I am tired of working. I work at a very high pace profession that requires a lot of interaction with people and walking. There are times where I have to push and slide people onto beds. This has taken a toll on my body. There was a time where I worked Monday-Sunday (I know, I am crazy for even thinking that this was a good idea) because we were very short staffed and the overtime sounded really nice. However, just because it sounded nice two weeks before the actual shift doesn’t mean it was actually worth it when I was working. After working with a person from prison to getting yelled at and cursed out by older people for moving them I was done. I was tired physically, emotionally and mentally. I didn’t want to go to work and even contemplated calling out because of how bad it got but I knew that I could push through. There were some days where I just sat in my car 30 minutes before my shift just staring into space and completely zoning out because of how much I didn’t want to go inside and interact with people. Everytime I talked to anyone I had to act happy even if I had just seen someone passed out on their bed and a code was called on them. However, I finally saw the light. That sunday night I was so tired but so happy knowing that I am done with the week and thought about how I WILL NEVER PICK UP CRAZY SHIFTS. This was definitely a learning experience for me and I don’t think that I would ever work like that again unless it is in the summer where I don’t have to worry about classwork. My job had taken such a mental toll on me that I had to ask my professors for extensions on some of the assignments because I simply could not get them done in a timely manner. Even though I needed the money, my education is worth wayyy more and I would never compromise it like that again. This reminds me of Arlie Hochschild from ‘The Concept Creep of ‘Emotional Labor’ where she said that emotional labor is “the work of managing one’s own emotions that was required by certain professions”. I related to this so much because I had to put on this fake smile everytime I interacted with people because I couldn’t show them that I was going through a tough time since they are probably going through something worse.