Working three jobs at age 44 was not something I had envisioned, but this was 2025, and being able to juggle while producing income is the only thing that matters to the majority of the population. Most of the time, working three jobs means very little sleep, some work suffers, and even the money becomes more of a burden than a blessing after a while. I was lucky, because my first job was going to be from home, and I had already been working two of the jobs ahead of the time, taking two days off for training. For the month of October 2025, I was going to be tutoring, taking calls for customers who had filed tax extensions, and slinging tacos at my full-time job. This was going to be a fabulous month for managing debt.
With fast food, there is no choosing the general manager, even though shift managers can make the time more bearable. My general manager did not like me, even after I proved myself to be a decent employee, and would deliberately find reasons to criticize me in front of other people at work, causing me to be the butt of every joke. As a Black woman, I was used to being the joke at the office, but some days were more stressful than others. During the previous month, I had collapsed at work, and while my manager offered to send me to the hospital, I refused because healthcare is too expensive. Without skipping a beat, the next question was whether I would be able to work my shift, which I affirmed after sitting for about five minutes. I worked the full day without a break, and went home to tutor my student.
Fortunately, during this month of three jobs, my general manager had been replaced, so while we were busy, I never had to worry about dealing with rushes and being a punching bag. With the former manager gone, I was actually being called in to relieve the staff, to the point when they had to stop calling me or pay me overtime. I worked a seven-day work week until I decided that the next week would be a maximum of six so that I could rest, regardless of my cohesion with the assistant manager and the new manager. Even with more work, I barely felt pressure during this time because we functioned more cohesively as a team, proving that management makes all the difference when things are getting rough in a work setting.
Sadly, this was my last month of tutoring not because of stress, but because the parent and I had discovered that the student had learned to hide work. Online platforms are heavily pushed onto children as a sign of progress, but giving screen-dependent students all their homework with access to the internet has proven to be a bad idea. One weekend, the student had asked for more privileges at home, and based on reviewing “completed” work and the parent’s interest in season cleaning, we both agreed that the student deserved a treat. After one of the biggest days of double work, I went online to discover that the student had not actually completed the work, but simply turned off the notification in the online platform. The parent and I discussed it, and we confirmed that the student would no longer be suited for online tutoring because more vigilance was required.
Originally, I was told that I was only getting two weeks of call center work, even though I had been informed that I would be getting a month. Suddenly, we were being asked to continue the contract for two more weeks, and I was fielding full-time work and call center work to make up for the lack of tutoring. During the first two weeks, I had been called in during the mid morning to help during my “off” days at the restaurant, but during the last two weeks of call center work, I had days that began at 5a and ended at 9p. Customer service by phone is different from in person because there is a lag between help for the customer and help for the employee, so customers can become more frustrated even more quickly. I enjoyed more difficult problems because generally, problems repeated themselves with online platforms, so more calls became more efficient.
Would I like to work two jobs indefinitely? Absolutely not, because in the past, I learned that working multiple jobs leads to faster burnout than giving my all to one position. The next month, I only worked the fast food job, and it was lovely coming home from work and having nothing else to do. I finally found my rhythm, and I had enough strength to go to the laundromat even after working for 9-10 hours. Working multiple jobs is an important skill that I have managed for a few decades, but it becomes more important to ask why the empire has created circumstances that require people to get “good” at working multiple jobs.
Chasing A Dying Empire 