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Super-early starts (I've never had a job with a start before 8:00AM—high school, though? 7:30; and, crucially, if I had a job with a start that early, I could l

Super-early starts (I've never had a job with a start before 8:00AM—high school, though? 7:30; and, crucially, if I had a job with a start that early, I could look for a different job), crazy amounts of work with tight deadlines ("this thing I assigned you today is due tomorrow, hope you're not tired and hope nobody else assigned you a bunch of stuff today that's due tomorrow, you'll be doing it tonight or else"), ~7 hours a day that were basically the equivalent of sitting in a really boring meeting (I want to crawl up the wall and/or fall asleep after about two hours of that, in the working world, which fortunately almost never happens—it's every day in high school), extreme regimentation to the point of having to ask to go take a piss or maybe getting in trouble if you just want to stand up and stretch for a minute, little sunlight exposure which is awful in Winter, et c., et c.

em-bee 4y ago
ah yes. fortunately early starts are being debated as being a really bad idea, so that will hopefully go away for most students in the future. and i really like the "boring meeting" analogy. that makes so much sense. i didn't experience it like that, but i can totally see that happening, same with crazy homework which is really ridiculous. good point there. there is no homework at work. i found that aspect really liberating. except for deadlines. (but those make a cool wooshing sound when they pass by)
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > (but those make a cool wooshing sound when they pass by) That's another thing that's nicer about the working world: there's a lot more room for negotiation if too many tasks are piled on you, or if The World intervenes to prevent something from being done on time, or whatever. And true deadlines (as in: your work will be worthless and dropped in the trash bin if you miss it) are pretty rare. Plus if you work with people who aren't flexible about that kind of thing—you can find another job! Overall there's just a lot more communication and respect and people are way more understanding and laid back, which is weird because adults are supposed to be far more responsible than kids, but the expectations are totally reversed in my experience. One of the weirdest things to me about high school vs. "real life" is that high school treats everything so very much more seriously and rigidly than most situations in real life that I've experienced. There are hell-jobs out there that are as bad or worse, I'm sure, but at least leaving a job like that on a timeframe of fewer than four years is totally possible.

em-bee 4y ago

ah yes. fortunately early starts are being debated as being a really bad idea, so that will hopefully go away for most students in the future. and i really like the "boring meeting" analogy. that makes so much sense. i didn't experience it like that, but i can totally see that happening, same with crazy homework which is really ridiculous. good point there. there is no homework at work. i found that aspect really liberating. except for deadlines. (but those make a cool wooshing sound when they pass by)

yamtaddle 4y ago
> (but those make a cool wooshing sound when they pass by) That's another thing that's nicer about the working world: there's a lot more room for negotiation if too many tasks are piled on you, or if The World intervenes to prevent something from being done on time, or whatever. And true deadlines (as in: your work will be worthless and dropped in the trash bin if you miss it) are pretty rare. Plus if you work with people who aren't flexible about that kind of thing—you can find another job! Overall there's just a lot more communication and respect and people are way more understanding and laid back, which is weird because adults are supposed to be far more responsible than kids, but the expectations are totally reversed in my experience. One of the weirdest things to me about high school vs. "real life" is that high school treats everything so very much more seriously and rigidly than most situations in real life that I've experienced. There are hell-jobs out there that are as bad or worse, I'm sure, but at least leaving a job like that on a timeframe of fewer than four years is totally possible.