Student Has Angst over Work

KUTZTOWN, Jan. 24--Sara Canter sat on her brown armchair, her head in her hands and on the verge of tears. Next to her on the lamp table stood a large bottle of Robitussen, a half-ounce bottle of Vicks Sinex nasalspray, and a half-empty box of Sudafed. It was 12 p.m., and she had to be at Kutztown University’s One Card Office to work her 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. shift.

“Well, Sara,” said her fiancé Robert Roberts, “can’t you just call off?” Sara’s eyes welled up with tears. “No Bob, I can’t. Three people already called off today, and I just can’t let my boss down like that.”

She took out a tissue and blew her nose like a conch shell, then dabbed at her eyes. Canter had always been a reliable student worker. She had not missed her shift in over a year, and she despaired at the idea of being beaten by what she called “just a small cold.”

“Well, I think they will understand if you’re this sick. I’m sure they don’t want to catch what you have, even if it is going around.” Roberts moved over to Canter’s armchair and gently rubbed her back while she while she let out another blast into a fresh tissue.

Canter had woken up the day before with a sore throat and swollen glands. She had spent the day in bed and had looked no better for it. This morning, Canter got up at her usual time of 7 a.m. to have breakfast with her fiancé. Normally she would have a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats, but this time she simply stared listlessly at a piece of toast. She moved around their two bedroom trailer slowly and deliberately, as if each step required a conscious effort. She drugged up and went to her 9 a.m. Video Editing class and made an appointment with the Health Center directly afterwards.

“Yeah, but Bob, that would mean that only one person would have shown up today to work. And I can’t, I just can’t do that. I called a girl and asked her if she’d be willing to work for me though.”

Canter had returned from the Health Center at 11:45 a.m., after a 40 minute wait to see a nurse. She had said the lobby was “completely full of students, and that everyone must be sick.” The Health Center made a follow up appointment with her for 1 p.m. with the doctor.

Canter has always prided herself on being reliable. Her father left when she was a baby, and her mother had died when Canter was 14 years old. Since then she had lived with her aunt. Canter said her aunt would use the money collected from Social Security, meant to assist caring for her and her brother, to go to Atlantic City. The task of caring for her brother fell to her, as well as earning all her own spending money. The only thing she did not have to pay for, she says, was her food, and there was not much of that either.

Canter says she worked hard so nobody would feel bad for her. She resented people’s pity when they found out how her life was, and so would often keep it private. Her hard work paid off when she went to college. Her employer said she was the most reliable teenager he had the pleasure of employing, and her teachers enthusiastically wrote her letters of recommendation. Her reputation as a person that could be counted on had grown very dear to her. She did not want to be beaten by being sick.

At 12:45 p.m., Roberts drove his fiancé to the Health Center and tried to find a seat in the lobby, attempting to accomplish the impossible task of not sitting too close to one of the many disease-ridden shades inhabiting the room. Twenty minutes after arriving, Canter was called in to see the doctor, and by 1:30 p.m., she was out again with an oddly relieved face.

“I’ve got the flu,” she said with a weak smile. “The doctor told me that I really shouldn’t go to work today. I shouldn’t even have gone to class.”

She called her boss and told him the diagnosis. Her boss told her there would be nobody to replace her today because the person Canter called was also sick. Canter thought for a moment, then said “well, would you rather I did come in, then?”

Laughing emanated from the other side of the line, and they said goodbye.