Since our one hour lunches were unpaid, we actually had to start work by 8 AM to clock in a full workday. And since our operational hours listed start time as 8 AM, we actually had to arrive by 7:50 so that we could have the phone lines live on time. This might make this job sound terrible, but it was a small price for getting to sit around most of the day reading books. 

It was reasonable to require only a few of us to come in early since on most days the first hour was near silent, but I guess they didn't want to make people feel excluded... or they didn't want to manage the logistics that would've gone into deciding who's turn it was to come in early for this week and the next and so on. 

We never got paid for that extra ten minutes though. We were already on the bleeding edge of full-time employment so they couldn't have us legally clocking in at 7:50. The phone bank was split in half. There were those who groaned about how unfair this was and then there was the half who displayed a good attitude, almost too good, usually citing how nice it was to start the day early. 

Even though I was one of the annoyed ones, I found myself repeating after the morning birds. "Yeah it's kind of nice being out this early. Plus it's a peaceful walk." I only had to say it a few times before I started believing it.

And then once I began believing it, I wondered if maybe I'd actually believed it from the jump. Perhaps it was my initial annoyance that was my dishonest feelings. The weaker side of me who made small things bigger and then got me upset about them.

Anyways, I never minded coming in by 7:50. The phone bank was split into people who actually came in early and those who didn't. There was some correlation between your attitude and whether you came in early or not. Like some girl always complained about it but often came on time rather than early. Anyways, the ones who did come in on time, we had a sort of unspoken attitude about the late-comers... or the ones who came in just in time. 

Or maybe it was less about looking down on the people who didn't come early. Maybe we just liked seeing our faces in the morning, waiting outside that computer lab door.... waiting for our supervisor to come down with his key and let us in. 

I want to caveat one thing though. The Office of Financial Aid never pulled anything illegal. Once 4:50PM swung around they allowed anybody who wasn't already on a call to go offline. And we could leave ten minutes early. 

It was always a game of 

Russian Roulette

when 4:45 swung around. Who would be the one who got stuck. It wasn't that bad when you did get the call. You helped the person and if the call went to 4:59 you just told them sorry but they need to call the next day. But when you did get to leave ten minutes early along with all the other lucky birds, from the basement out into the evening sky, it was one of the sweetest ten minutes you could ask for as a kid getting paid $10 an hour.