Before I went to university I used to work as an out of school care play worker. On paper the job was pretty easy, I just had to help children play (like they needed help?). The kids were aged between 5 and 11 and I saw my duty for most days as organizing football (soccer) for the boys. It was a good job and an easy job. The salary wasn’t amazing but it was enough to pay for text books for going to university (which was subsequently spent on beer and new Oakley sunglasses) so the job suited me well enough. Obviously they don’t just let anyone work with children so there were many hoops you had to jump through. Getting suitable references and police checked was mandatory but as long as you were not some kind of drug dealing crack addict you would usually be ok.

On rain days we had to stay inside the out of school care center. This could get a bit tedious. The kids would usually be happy enough watching videos, playing video games or generally do kid things, I found it a bit on the boring side. Amazingly kids can seem to amuse themselves with very little, but I usually ended up organizing mass games of dodgeball in the games hall. Of course this always ended up with tears, but it was fun to watch. The dodgeball, not the tears!

It hasn’t been until late that I truly appreciate how good that job was.

There are some jobs that you just can’t imagine why you have been asked to do them. You know that you are over qualified for it, you know that it is going to be extremely boring and you are going to be waiting about a lot, mainly for other people to get back to you, yet you agree to do it anyway.

If this hasn’t happened to you yet, don’t let it.

From first hand experience I can tell you that it really isn’t worth it. You have to do things that you are interested in or you will become disillusioned with what you are doing and why you are doing it.
I am trying to tell myself that it could be worse, but really, I would prefer to get paid much less but with much more excitement, like working as a play worker, even on a rain day.