The Reality of Working Girl Summer
The summer I expected: vibrant swimsuits, the encircling zincous smell of sunscreen, and my faded freckles redefined by so much time spent in the sun. Hotdogs slathered in relish. Blades of grass stuck between my manicured toes. A summer like the pasta eaten by the dogs in Lady and the Tramp: shared, cinematic.
But instead, I’m in Berkeley, California, where the high temperature of the day is in the low sixties and my idea of a spontaneous, relaxed summer has been disrupted by a job. Almost everyone I have talked to has faced a similar dilemma: the expectation of Hot Girl Summer has turned into the reality of Working Girl Summer.
Among my friends and I, much of our days are spent at our jobs: whether that be as a consulting intern working remotely, a receptionist at a dermatologist’s office, or a barista. The two days off are spent on self-care (for my housemates and I: bingeing Korean dramas) or running errands (restocking at Trader Joe’s, finally grabbing that prescription at Walgreens). My time off rarely overlaps with the people around me, so I tend to see my friends in the lull of the night before I retire to my bedroom or early in the morning while we all pull our cars out of the driveway to head to our respective offices.
My friend Julie arguably has the worst schedule of anyone I know, splitting her time between working at a lab and working as an EMT. She, too, had big plans for a fun summer sponsored by COVID-19 vaccinations and her twenty-first birthday. Instead, she was trapped into a six-day work week, struggling to find enough time to, as she put it, grab a coffee and bagel with friends.
She speculated, and I agree, that all of us college students caught the pre-professional resume-building bug, which has landed us in the suboptimal spot of all work and little play. The past year and a half in the pandemic not only took away our chance for fun, but also caused the cancellation of many internships we needed in order to gain work experience. Now as the world opens up more, so are the summer jobs we need to one day go to graduate school or land our dream job or, in the case of many of my friends, earn some much-needed money.
Though tiring, this reality is not necessarily bad, it’s just so different from the one I had imagined. That’s where the disappointment comes from: plans versus life.
In the beginning, this dichotomy made me really sad, but after a month of going to sleep early to prepare for the opening shift the next morning, I have learned how to make the best of the situation. How to accept and appreciate my reality.
I appreciate the people I am surrounded by, whether it’s the coworkers with whom I spend nearly everyday or my housemates with whom I get to share the kitchen every so often. I make the most of these overlapping times, making genuine connections with those I work next to and blasting pop music in the house when all my friends are together. I say yes to more — yes to 9 PM slurpees, yes to writing on the patio with a glass of wine instead of in my shut-up bedroom wrapped in my comforter, yes to the small adventures I can fit into my schedule.
I’ve also learned how to take aspects of that Hot Girl Summer vision and work them into the summer I’m experiencing. For example, the Hot Girl Summer ideal of embracing my body has manifested as biweekly visits to my local yoga studio to become attuned to my body, or learning to engage in self-expression through developing a work-friendly style that I can show off while brewing coffee.
My mantra has now become: though it is not the summer I imagined, it’s still summer. It’s still a break from school; a break from homework and exams and professors. So I’ve got to soak it up for all it's worth.
By Lindsey Staub
Junior at UC Berkeley, studying English and history. Lover of sweet lattes, sheepdogs, and the color pink.