A Day in the Life of the Staff

Early in the morning the review center staff wake up and make sure the lecturer has taken her intended flight to make it early to the day's class.  They either fetch her at the airport, or wait for her at the site.  When she arrives, they carry her bags, lead her to the bathroom to get changed, take care of breakfast, and set up her laptop and the projector before the lecture begins.

The moment she starts it's minute after minute of either sitting down or doing paperwork.  They also make sure that the sound system is working right, that the microphones don't echo too much, and that the air conditioning keeps the room cool enough.  They should have had anticipated to ask her about food choices for the morning break, so that snacks would be ready by 10A.M.  And before she resumes the lecture, they should have already asked her about lunch.  The same thing happens during the afternoon break.  Dinner, however, is a different story.  When the lecture ends at around 5 P.M., there's fairly ample time to wait for supper.

If the lecturer has to be someplace else by the next day, they accompany her to the bus terminal and facilitate her trip either by riding with her, or simply coordinating with the next branch to make sure somebody meets her there when she arrives.

Today I had my very first chance to do staff duty.  The branch at our place was lacking manpower because some of them had to do marketing someplace else.  My boss called me up the night before and asked if I could fill in, and so I did.  It was also supposed to be a chance for me to sit in at the lecture - which was all about Community Health Nursing - as part of my training for the subject.  In the near future, I might get a chance to handle it.

Working on the other side of the ship made me realize a lot of things:  First, that staff work wasn't a piece of cake.  Just because they don't do the lectures doesn't mean they don't feel worn out at the end of the day.  Second, taking into consideration that some of the staff are also nurses brought to light the realization that somehow, the work that they do could also be seen as a form of underemployment.  It's not easy serving your fellow nurses in such a manner, but the task can still be gratifying depending on how you see it.  And last, aside from handling classes, I will definitely want to do more of this someday.