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Writer's pictureElla Napton

How Did I End Up Walking This Dog?

Hello good people! You may have noticed that the domain for this blog is looking a little ~different~ and you are correct--if you haven't seen my post on my Facebook page, I recently bought the domain name and feel very official!


It has been quite a minute since I last wrote a post in this format, and I have, honestly, missed it a lot. And, trust me, there are plenty of hot mess misfortunes for me to write about in embarrassing detail, so keep your eyes peeled for many more coming to a blog near you soon.


These past two months have been full of trying new things, rediscovering my passion for old things, and working a lot more than I expected. In high school I worked at a wonderful catering company, and I could not have asked for a better "real" first job. But I decided to try something new during my two month spree in Rochester and try to freelance and work multiple jobs for maximum income. I should mention that I did attempt to find a part-time job for the month of January and half of February, and I did make it to the interview process, but the bosses must have missed the "I can only work until February 11th" memo I gave them because it led to no job offers.


This fruitless part-time job search led to my mother posting about my babysitting and dog walking skills on our neighborhood Nextdoor feed. I truly did not expect anything to come of this post, but figured it wouldn't hurt to cover all my bases. But lo and behold I received a text a few days after the post asking me to walk a dog named Bella. And, thus, I had job number one for J-Term.


Walking a dog for 10 dollars a walk twice a week was not exactly enough to compensate for the hours I worked at school, so I decided to try something that had worked for my friends in the past, but I avoided because there is a fee for the membership: Care.com. Again, I expected maybe a few responses from jobs I applied for (as it normally goes with any job application process), and for the first few days my intuition proved to be correct. That is, until I received a message asking my availability from a family that just moved to Minnesota from Louisiana.


They were looking for a part-time nanny to watch their son while they worked odd shifts at a local cable company. It worked out that our random availability matched up (how? Only God knows...) and we met up for an interview. Long(ish) story short, we met up for coffee and decided I would be a good fit and I was hired to work about 20 hours a week with them. And, thus, job number 2 was born.


I figured that the dog walking and nannying would be enough. But, naturally, because I am horrible at saying no and I love my church community, when I noticed that the nursery at my church needed help, I applied. And I was consequently hired because of a short-staffing situation. Say hello to job number 3!


Now, you're probably thinking that three jobs is more than enough. And that I was meant to spend at least part of my time at home relaxing, and, trust me, that's what I thought as well. But when a family that just moved from California contacted me about watching their kids during the day so the work-at-home mom could get some things done a little more efficiently, I said yes. Are we even surprised anymore? Nope, not really. So job number 4 decided to join the party.


And you're probably wondering, "Ella, what is the point of telling us all this? It's not particularly funny nor is it a misadventure" (although each job had plenty of misadventures). Well, I wanted to highlight the amount of jobs I worked to emphasize the fact that college students these days work multiple jobs just to afford textbooks (something that took a major chunk out of the money I made this J-Term) and survive in general. I am lucky enough to have supportive parents and plentiful job opportunities, but not everyone has even one of those helpful things. So the next time you think about mentioning that college students are lazy and unmotivated, I urge you to think again.




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