Finding meaning in a meaningless job

This week I am on spring break. I work in a store inside a dormitory at a local university and when the dorm is closed for university breaks I am on vacation :) I really need the break this time. I have been very busy at home and I have been working a lot of extra hours at work and it takes its toll on me.

I started working part time two years ago, and it was a real adjustment for me. I had a very hard time leaving my family. That worked itself out after awhile, and I can honestly say now that the hardest part about working is not being away from my family. The hardest part about working is finding some kind meaning in a meaningless job, and a motivation to work outside of just the money. It is very easy for me to get in a rut where I think about how meaningless my job is, how little money I make, how my health is suffering becuase of my lack of sleep, and how I could easily be replaced by another worker and it wouldn't make a difference to anyone. I feel like my intelligence and my college degree don't matter- and in my job, they don't.

I get very depressed when I start to think this way, and last year I spent a lot of time battling those feelings. This year has been much better, and I have really tried to find ways to make my job more meaningful, and cultivate relationships with my co-workers and students that make working more enjoyable.

It has been a stretch for me. The university students are wonderful. They are quirky and polite and really a joy to talk to. However, the employees are not that way. Most of the people I work with have been beaten down by life, they don't have postive family or home lives, they have major challenges that make my challenges seem very miniscule. Many of them have serious health problems, and most of them are living under the poverty line and collect some kind of government assistance. Over the summer they collect unemployment and they are happy with the work-during-the-school-year/ collect-unemployment-during-the-summer situation.

At this point I have gotten to know my co-workers pretty well, and it has been rewarding for me to be able to break through the facades and cultivate relationships with them. Despite our differences in our economic situation, our education and our values we have been able to form a kind of working family, and it has really made my work situation much more bearable, and at times, *gasp* fun.

It also makes me extremely grateful for the life that I have at home. I have never appreciated my supportive husband and my wonderful children more. When opportunities are presented to me because of our education or our financial security I don't take it for granted. I have been able to appreciate the opportunites that my children are able to experience and I no longer lament the opportunities that they can't take advantage of because of cost. I am around people everyday who can barely feed their own children and it makes my son not being able to take gymnastics very, very insignificant.

Also, I know that this working situation is temporary for me. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. When our debt is paid off I will not longer have to work, it will be optional-and the next time I go back to work it will be using my college degree to begin my working career. My co-workers are there becuase there are no other opportunities for them, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel because the tunnel never ends. Just the thought of that is unbearable to me. The fact that they are able to get up each day, struggle to meet their own needs and the needs of their families, and still work at this monotonous job and find some meaning in it, and even some fun in it is inspirational to me. It really shows me that the human condition and the human spirit are intertwined, but the human spirit usually wins the challenge. Could it be that this job has taught me something, that perhaps I am finding some meaning here after all? Of course it has, of course I am! My spirit has never been stronger!