During this term we were assigned with the task of completing a job shadow with someone who obtains a position in a work environment that we would like to see ourselves in one day. This was a very challenging task for some, to send out all the emails, and though I thought myself different from the class and that I may fly through the job shadow unscathed, but much to my dismay I realized that I was too much alike the rest of my class, though my problem was not sending the emails, but receiving them! I sent 6 emails to countless sustainability company’s across the lower mainland, and I never received a email in response. Now I was a little shut down and I wanted to give up and come into the next school year without a job shadow to show (mind you my teachers had then given me and other students who had not completed the project all of summer to complete it) around then I realized I had the perfect connection just waiting for me under my nose.
My cousin, Sage, is majoring in political science and is a very environmentally charged human being. She is always talking about what we need to do to help save our environment, and how we should do it. Sage has a job with the city of Penticton to help with recycling, and the connection that has with environmentalism. I was able to job shadow her during one of her shifts this summer when my family was staying in Naramata. I learned a lot about the connection proper recycling has to conserving life on this planet. I also learned that when you don’t put your recycling into the proper area or leave the products messy or dirty, the recycling company will not sort it for you and so the whole load will go to the landfill. Sage taught me a lot about the environment and how much we impact it.
I thought I would describe an average day of work for Sage with the city of Penticton. After arriving in the morning sage settles in by preforming a few audits and checking cart inventory. Later in the day Sage let her creative side show by writing educational articles or creating educational videos. This is one of the videos that sage helped to create!
As well as doing all this, Sage will also make the rounds talking to local people about their recycling and helping to inform them about the affects of wrongly preforming recycling. At the end of the day I asked sage a few questions about her job. Here are my questions and answers!
A : What classes did you take to help you get to the position you are now?
S : Environmental studies, because I care about the environment and recycling has a lot to do with that.
A : What’s the best part of your job?
S : Educating the community on ways to improve their recycling which allows them to protect the environment.
A : What’s the worst part about your job?
S : Probably dumpster diving. That’s it!
A : What’s the typical work hours and schedule of your job?
S : Tuesday to Saturday, 7 am to 3:15 pm.
A : Why did you chose your job?
S : Because I believed that it would give me good experience towards my aspirations in a political setting, whether that be in a provincial, municipal or federal environment.
A : Thank you so much Sage!
S : Of course!
I learned quite a bit about recycling through this job shadow and this learning will further may efforts to create a lesser footprint