“I’ve been working since I was in eighth grade.

I had a realization that money doesn’t grow on trees, and I started working because I didn’t want to be financially dependent on my family. It gives me some financial independence.

Right now, I work at the science museum. I take tickets, walk people, tell people rules and guide them.

If there’s a holiday, then I’ll work that day. Usually I’ll only work Saturdays, but if I feel like it, I’ll work Sundays too. The museum closes at five, so I can’t work after school. If I just work one Saturday shift, it’s nine hours. But if I work extras, then it could be up to 40 hours every single week.

That said, it takes a lot of mental strength to do all my extracurriculars and work, but because of that, I ended up being better at time management and planning out my life. I have a lot of deadlines, and my commitments sometimes overlap, so I’ll have to prioritize certain activities over others.

I was able to actually join a lot of my extracurriculars by working because [extracurriculars] require dues. I pay for my own gas and car insurance too, so it’s pretty helpful.

When I first started working, I didn’t really know how to talk to people. I had to remind people of the rules, but I was uncomfortable and my manager would get frustrated with me. Now, it’s definitely easier. I learned how to go up to people, start a conversation and stop them from being disruptive.

I learned how to control my emotions and how to lengthen my patience. I have to talk to very different people every weekend, and a lot of times, it takes a mental strain on me. However, over time, I’ve adapted to improving my patience and my communication skills and the way I approach problems and solve them.

In the future, I’ll probably have to stack up on jobs since inflation is getting really high. I’ll have an after school job and my weekend job.

I’m trying to live in this economy. So a girl’s gotta do what she gotta do.”