My alarm goes off at 5:45 a.m. I hit snooze, convincing myself that six more minutes will somehow change everything. By the time I drag myself out of bed at six, I’m already running through the day in my head: classes, assignments, work. I grab a yogurt from the fridge and eat it standing, too rushed to sit, and too tired to care.
By 6:30 a.m., I’m in the car. The highway is already filled with commuters, brake lights blinking like a long red river. I stop for coffee on the way, the small luxury I refuse to cut out, even as gas prices eat into my paycheques. Some mornings I calculate how many McDonald’s shifts it takes just to fill my tank. The numbers never feel worth it, but the car is the only way to make school and work fit into the same day.
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The rest blurs together: lectures, readings and a mental checklist of assignments I’ll squeeze in later, between shifts. I’ve been working at McDonald’s for years, balancing my job and a full course load. As a manager, I’m not just taking orders, I’m running shifts, handling staff, calming upset customers and making sure everything flows. My schedule doesn’t leave much room for sleep, or anything else.
By mid-morning, I’m sitting in class with my laptop open, but my mind is already skipping ahead to work. I type notes, highlight readings and fight the urge to yawn. Sometimes I catch myself staring at the clock, not because the lecture isn’t interesting, but because I’m calculating how many hours I’ll have before I’m standing behind the counter.
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The shift change feels physical. One moment I’m a student scribbling ideas for a journalism project; the next, I’m pulling on my blue McDonald’s polo and clipping my name tag to my shirt. As a manager, there’s no easing into it. I’m immediately answering questions from the crew, checking schedules and calming a customer who insists their order is wrong. It’s a different kind of test than a midterm, but the pressure feels just as heavy.
Some days I feel like I’m managing more than a restaurant. I’m managing people’s moods, customers expectations and my own energy levels that are already running on empty. When the headset buzzes with a rush of orders, I’m directing the line like an air-traffic controller. At the same time, I’m texting classmates about a group project due tomorrow.
Gas prices turn into mental math problems I solve at red lights. How many hours behind the counter equals a full tank? How much of my paycheque disappears before I even see it? I work not just to stay afloat now, but to buy myself the future I want. Still, there are nights when the effort feels endless.
Even on the longest days, there are sparks that make it bearable, a coworker slipping me fries at the end of a shift, a regular who knows me by my name, or a blast of my favourite playlist on the drive home. They’re small, almost forgettable details, but they keep me going.
By the time my shift ends, the restaurant is quiet. The fryers are shut down, the counter is wiped and all the dishes are washed. I lock the doors and step into the night air, my uniform still smelling faintly of fries. It’s almost midnight and the road home is dark except for the glow of headlights.
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Tomorrow will start the same way. The 5:45 alarm, the quick breakfast, the drive to campus, another round of lectures before I trade my notebook for a headset and a set of keys. It’s a cycle that leaves me exhausted, but it also reminds me of what I’m working toward.
Like a lot of students, I’m just trying to hold everything together: school, work, and, notably, a little hope that it’ll all be worth it. For now, I take a sip of cold coffee still sitting in my cupholder, turn up my music and keep driving.
Living in between lectures and late-night shifts has taught me that the hardest part isn’t only the exhaustion, it’s feeling like you’re split in two, never fully a student or a worker. I remind myself that I’m doing this for my future, but sometimes I wonder why society expects us to sacrifice so much just to stay afloat. If I could tell the next student walking this path anything, it would be this: you’re not weak for being tired. You’re surviving something bigger than yourself, and that deserves recognition.
