Third Reflective Essay
As an environmental lawyer, I would be putting in at least 40-hour workweeks, as well as
potential overtime and travel time. These workdays would likely begin at 9 AM and end at 5 PM. The
length of my workday would have an affect of my social life and hobbies, as well as my family if I were
to have one. There is also the possibility that I would have work to bring home, making the workday even
longer. The following interviews of my mom, Deb Murphy; my friend, Megan Douglass; and Mrs.
Buchman will demonstrate and provide solutions to possible problems in your family and work.
Deb Murphy runs her own business, Pilates and More. She assists people in their physical well
being by providing Pilates instruction from a rehabilitation perspective. She lives with her domestic
partner, who is disabled, and has partial custody of me. Basically her partner provides room and board –
food, housing expenses, utilities, etcetera. Her personal income supports her hobbies, along with my own,
as well as paying for her vehicle expenses, retirement fund, insurance, and medical expenses. To manage
dividing her time between her work and family life, Deb manages personal, business, and household
calendars to accommodate everyone’s schedules. She said that you have to find the balance in your
priorities and stick to it. To her, this means putting her hobbies and personal needs at the bottom of the
priority list. Her first priority is meeting her budget, second taking care of her family and pets, and finally
attending to her personal needs. Since she is runs her own business and does not have any employees,
Deb is able to adjust her work schedule more easily than others. Typically she works 30 to 35 hours per
week and plans ahead as well as possible in order to fulfill her budget requirements. I also asked her about
how she judges when to schedule a day off. She said that although it is convenient to be able to take off
work whenever for any reasons, there are no sick or personal days that receive pay in this situation. She
often schedules days off for doctors appointments and for events such as college visits. I was also
interested in the work that she brings home from her job. Deb that said although she cannot do Pilates
sessions anywhere other than the office, she will work on tasks such as scheduling, accounting, and
emergency consultations at home.
Megan Douglass works at a local pet store. Her job includes taking care of the animals,
maintaining the store, and managing some sales. Megan lives with her sister, who is in college, and her
mom. The bills in their household are paid mainly by Megan’s mom’s income and the family’s
investment income. The money that Megan makes is used to pay for her food and her horse’s expenses.
Megan does not find much conflict in balancing her work and family life, as work provides her an escape
from her family. Megan has similar priorities to my mom, allowing her work schedule to dictate her
family and social schedules. She does not run into issues managing time in these aspects of her life, but
sometimes does have problems with shorter-term time management. I was also interested to learn about
Megan’s personal policy about taking off of work. She stated that she only takes off work if an event is
absolutely mandatory, such as a school function or a family emergency. She also occasionally schedules
days off ahead of time for social or horse events. In contrast to my mom’s job, Megan does not on any
occasion have work to bring home other than her scheduling.
Mrs. Buchman is the high school guidance counselor at Federal Hocking. She works with
students who have social, emotional, and behavioral issues and help them by providing them with
counseling, instruction, and mentoring. Mrs. Buchman also helps student with scheduling issues and
college and scholarship research and applications. She and her husband have a house and both have
income to pay their expenses. Along with the household expenses, Mrs. Buchman provides “child
support” for her dog, paying for only the vet bills. She says that since she doesn’t have much of a family
life, she doesn’t have to worry much about having a balance. She states that, “I can work from 7 AM to 7
PM without problems.” However, she has found that finding enough time to do everything required by
her job can be an issue. Outside of school, Mrs. Buchman says that has to create a balance and make
boundaries to ensure that everyone gets the time that they deserve. She said that she often has to take
work home and can focus on more than one aspect of her life at a time when she does this. In terms of
taking days off, Mrs. Buchman says that you just don’t do it. Unless someone is dying, taking a personal
or sick day will only add stress to your own life and everyone’s around you as well.
The three interviews above have strongly reinforced my aforementioned concerns when
balancing the different aspects of one’s life. Making sure you have time for everyone and everything in
your life, including yourself, is often an issue. Also, being able to determine when to put a work-related
task aside in order to attend to another part of your life is very important, and something I can see myself
having problems doing. Looking at the different types of jobs that each of these women holds, I can
determine that the most flexible option is to be self-employed. However, it is not practical for me to
expect to be easily self-employed early on in my career. This is still an option though, as the field of
environmental law can be very flexible. Each of these interviews has helped me realize the importance of
budgeting and prioritizing in order to best manage my time.
Content – 4
Conventions – 3.5
Overall – 48 / 50
So far, I have not had any issues with my internship but there are definitely some challenges I
anticipate in my career field. I have already become extremely close with all of my students in
my class, as well as all of the other students that attend Beacon so I'm sure it is going to be very
difficult to leave my students when they move up in their skill levels and grade levels. It is also
hard to find a balance between being nice but, at the same time being stern to get your point
across. Most of the students know what they can and connot get away with so they are constantly
pushing those buttons and testing my patience which can put me in a tricky situation because I
want to be kind with them, but I need to make a point that they cannot walk all over me. Another
factor I could forsee being an issue is communication between the parents. Things we work on in
the classroom do not always get practiced at home which makes things super complicated at
work because we have to keep going back and reteaching lessons. Children with dissabilities
need more one on one time then the average child, which can be tough in a large classroom
setting, so when the parents do not help out and go over the lessons with their child it becomes
an issue. I am sure I could deal with these issues but, I know it will be a struggle at times.
My first person to interview was Paula. Her job is a supervisor for middle management in
accounting at Athens County Job and Family Services. Her specific job is to oversee the
acounting department and make sure all goes smoothly while also helping all the people who
come into her site of work every day. Her family situation is just her and her husband Curt. Curt
is currently retired so she is the one who supplements the family's income and provides medical
benefits considering Curt has multiple health problems. Paula says that managing family and
work is a struggle at times. "It's a balancing game, when I am at work, that is my main focus.
Then the minute I step out of that office, I have to see that Curt has all the proper care and be a
full time wife and enjoy time with my husband." I asked Paula what her motivation to keep
going was, and she said "my motivation is to better myself in every way possible. It is rewarding
when my actions and hard work pay off." I cannot imagine being the only person providing for a
household.
I also interviewed my stepmother Kim Rose. She works as an LPN(licensed practitical nurse) at
Hocking Correctional Facility. Kim's daily routine consist of multiple task to help with the
medical department at the facility. She triages (basic check ups) inmates for doctors sick call,
which to us is a doctors appointment. She also oversees all the medication orders for the inmates
as well as ordering these meds for the facilities night stock. After ordering the medications she
has to process them all when they arrive. She has to cross check the medications with the orders
to make sure they are correct. After this process is complete she then has to sort the medications
by inmate and then see that each individual inmate gets the proper meds they were ordered by
the physician. When I asked Kim how she felt about having to complete all these task on a daily
basis she said, "The responcibility of handling someone's life saving medications can be very
stressful. My job is very tedious and one mistake could result in the loss of someone's life. That
much on the line can get to me at times." Kim manages the household with the help of my dad,
but considering that my dad also works at Hocking Correctional Facility as a correctional officer,
he is not home often. His long hours leave Kim to be the one who deals with the every day task
at home as well. She says that coming home after a long day of work knowing that she still has a
home and kids to care for, can sometimes be overwhelming. It is not that she does not want to
see her kids and be home, but that after a long day, all she wants to do is have some time to
herself to relax and forget about the stress of work.
Lastly, I interviewed Courtney Farley, who at the moment, only has a babysitting job that she
manages at her own house so that she can stay home with her own kids. Courtney made it very
clear that even though she does not leave home, it all still becomes very overhwhelming because
not only does she have her own kids to care for, now she has a baby named Coen that she
watches while his mother is at work from 7 in the morning until about 5 every day. "Being
cooped up in a house with 3 children that need assistance with just about everything they do right
now, is enough to make anyone a little crazy, especially with no help!" Her husband is a hard
working farmer so he is not home until late every night which leaves Courtney at home alone for
the majority of the day and night.
After listening to the struggles all these people go through, I am a little nervous to start life on
my own and begin my career. Even though I love my career choice and enjoy every day at my
internship site, I can now see that there is still going to be some major difficulties managing a
home/social life, as well as keeping up with work.
Identify and ask each of them two additional questions not already addressed in this prompt. The
second question for the first two interviews, and any questions for the last interview are unclear.
After your interview, reflect on your findings. How have the responses by your parents, friends
and others changed / reinforced your perceptions of the working world? What are some things
that you did not consider prior to this interview regarding your future career and both your work
and family lives? Your reflection is weak. What are things you didn’t consider prior to this
interview?
Content – 3
Conventions – 2.75
Overall – 41 / 50
In my job field I am doing an internship at would have some of the challenges of
sometimes not being home till late because of bad weather and your job requiring you have stay
late. This is just some of the challenges that this job would have during the winter. This job also
requires a lot of physical labor that most people would not want to do, so you would have to be
one of those people. The biggest problem with this job is it does not pay the best some places
and it pays okay but never really pays the best.
Pam Smith(mother), when I asked her this question she told me that work is not the best
thing in the world but it is not as bad if you do something that you love then work will be fun.
She told me to make sure I love the job and to make sure it has benefits because when you start
to have a family on your own you will need them and if you get hurt or sick the benefits might
come in handy. Then sometime you might not want to go into work but you just have to because
you might not be able to use a sick day or their might just be something important that you might
just need to do. The biggest thing is to make sure it pays enough to support you family when you
get one.
John Boyer (friend of the family), when I asked him the question he thought about it for a
while and his was a little different because he does not have a family of his own yet. The main
thing he said was to do something you love and if you do not have to go to college do not go
because it sucks to start out in debt before you have even started. Then he said to make sure you
make enough money at your job to support yourself. Try not to buy anything that you might
have to borrow money to get that you cannot afford the payments on because your job is not
good enough to pay them and you got ambitious and wanted it pretty bad and didn’t take the time
to save up to get it or save up to afford the payments.
Mr. George (friend of family), he is and elderly guy who is pretty smart and likes to
travel. He told me to get a job that pays well because you want a job that has a great retirement
program. Then he said the best way is to have a business of your own because you do things on
your own terms and have no boss either. The best part is you will be doing what you love and
making money at it so it is like a hobby that you make money every day. If you do not do that or
cannot do that he said to join a trade and to not go to college because you will go so far into debt
that you will be paying off college till you are like 30. Also if you do a trade there is a high
demand for jobs and most off the people doing those trades now are old and about ready to retire.
The information that I got was kind of expected but some surprising. This was a good
assignment to do and it gave me some inside of how the future will be and what I should do. In
the future I think that if I go to college I will go for a high demand and high paying job or I will
not go to college at all. I think the most likely thing I will do is take up a trade and go that route.
To help you answer this question, you will be interviewing a parent, a friend, and a third person
(neighbor, friend of the family, coach etc), all who hold jobs to learn how they manage their
work and family life. Find out what they do at their job. What did all three of your interviewees
do?
Identify and ask each of them two additional questions not already addressed in this prompt.
What were these questions?
After your interview, reflect on your findings. How have the responses by your parents, friends
and others changed / reinforced your perceptions of the working world? What were your
perceptions? Did they change? Did they stay the same?
What are some things that you did not consider prior to this interview regarding your future
career and both your work and family lives? What was surprising? What did you expect?
Your reflection is weak and your grammar and spelling makes your paper nearly unreadable. Do
you read your essay out loud? Do you get help when you’re writing?
Content – 2.5
Conventions – 1.5
Overall – 34 / 50