Falcon Force Meets The Work Force

Everyone loves cheese, especially our Christian Brothers’ students, who are all about that cheddar. Our students are gouda in the classrooms and on the court, but not in their wallets. It’s no brie-ze to balance work and school, but for our CB students, anything is possible. CB is home to many of the hardest working, determined, and successful student workers who make it their priority to put their customers, kindess, and education above all.

The Talon spoke to Mari Cisneros (’17), Kailee Christmon (’17), and Emily Hosoume (’17) about their experience in the workforce.

“We’re called student-workers for a reason: education comes before my work,” Mari says.

All of the girls got their jobs around the same time in July and August. Mari works for Papa Murphy’s in West Sacramento, Kailee works for Domino’s in Davis, and Emily works for Sprouts Market in South Land Park.

“I was broke and needed the money so that I could do whatever I want without using my mom’s money,” Mari said. “Having a job is also good experience for me to improve my customer service, communication, and pizza making skills. It provides a professional environment that will prepare me more for college and my future.”

Kailee and Emily had similar reasons to finding a job.

“I wanted money,” Kailee said. “I need it when I go out with my friends and eat or do whatever with them.”

Emily adds that she “wanted to stop depending on my family for money and start depending on [herself].”

But besides money, jobs have many different benefits — like responsibilities. At their respective workplaces, each holds a significant part of their jobs responsibilities and success.

Mama Mari Murphy, as she likes to go by on the clock, was confident and proud to say that she does everything at her job.

“I’m the cashier, I make the pizzas, I stock the ingredients, I make the ingredients like dough, I cut the ingredients, I clean,” she claimed. “I literally do everything at this job”

Kailee added that she holds similar responsibilities.

“I make the pizzas, stretch the dough — we have sandwiches and pastas and everything else and I make that too.”

The “Sproutie”, Emily, said that she has different skills that she must bring to the Sprouts Farmer’s Market table.

“I have to bag people’s groceries, sweep every hour, clean the bathroom every half hour, and give out general customer service.”

With all these responsibilities, how do our CB students balance a school, work, and social life?

“Mama Murphy” explained that she works four days a week including weekends.

“It’s actually very hard to balance work and school. Like sometimes I get too tired and have to sacrifice my sleep for school,” Mari said. “But school is very important to me, so I try and put it above everything else so that I can prosper in everything else I do in and out of the classroom.”

“I draw a fine line between work and school and realize school will always be more important than work,” the senior added. “I take days off when I need to, so I can complete major works before due dates.”

Kailee said she has a similar work schedule to “Mama Mari”, and when she gets home, she has almost zero energy.

“But I still come up to Sacramento to see and hang out with my friends and do my homework because it is a commitment — a commitment to my friends and a commitment to my education.”

Emily says that Sprouts only makes her work on weekends for one or both days and offers very flexible schedules for its workers.

“I do my weekend homework before and after work,” she said. “I don’t know how i balance it all, I just make it work.”

“Sometimes I don’t get to hang out with my friends and family because I have work, so sometimes it’s a sacrifice.”

Having a job is both physically and mentally demanding and exhausting, but all of our CB workers recommend trying to find a job.

“Having a job is a lot of fun. I’ve met a lot more people and it’s good experience,” said Kailee. “Plus the money is nice.”