Working for a living

Last night was my first shift as a minimum wage employee at Sonic. Today while we were chatting via web-cam my parents asked me how it went. Here are some of my thoughts.

1. I heard more gossip in my first half hour there than I have heard in the past 6 years (since I left DFCS).

2. While the national numbers for teen pregnancy have gone down it seems to still be an issue in our community. Last night I met 3 girls (ages 20, 17, and 15) who were all pregnant or had just recently had a baby.

3. Language! I had forgotten that in "the real world" people drop curse words at least once per sentence.

4. Flirting with members of the opposite sex was rampant and accepted, even if you were married or had a significant other.

5. It is much easier to tell a persons character by their actions rather than their words. Within about 20 minutes of being there and observing I could pretty much tell who were the real workers and people with integrity and those who weren't.

6. It is sad how the lack of education and opportunity breeds apathy and fatalism.

7. The middle school that Aaron teaches at has such a reputation for kids with bad behavior that most of the high school students that I talked to last night expressed sympathy when I told them where Aaron taught. Seriously. They all said, "Oh, I'm sorry for him. Those kids are the worst - and we should know!"

8. My left hip is still out of whack since giving birth. It was hurting so bad by the end of my shift that I couldn't even balance on my left leg in order to change my clothes. I felt like an old woman.

9. Even though this is a physically demanding job I already feel less stress in my life from not having to worry about MCC stuff and responsibility.

10. I have been living in a sheltered Christianized world the past few years. I realized last night I have really had very little contact with non-Christian people lately. I realized again last night that this small town community has so many needs, issues and cycles of sin. I hope that just by being compassionate, hard working, and real I will be able to make some kind of small difference in this new place God has put me. Imagine - a small town Sonic restaurant being a mission field! :-)