A day in the life

a day in the life

Here’s my day in the life of a dance studio receptionist. I will tell you the name of the studio I work for, which is called Arthur Murray. It’s a franchise all over the world - which brings about plenty of work & travel opportunities. Some people might be taking dance classes there or teaching.

So, I've started this job in late March. After working at a restaurant for 5 years & feeling dreadful about throwing on an apron and getting sauce on my shoes every shift.

And what I’ve realized is that each day is not the same, at this new job. You never quite what’s going to get thrown at you. You can do as much planning as possible, but until you get there, at the moment, that’s all you have.

So here’s a day in this life...

I'm writing about Wednesday. Midweek. It is a busy day. My job is to be at the desk - pretty much 90% of the time. That’s my main role. I also teach dance every now and then, but the desk is my main priority. Initially, when I started the position, I was determined to be a dance instructor, but apparently, I didn’t have enough experience at the time, so I was asked if I wanted to take the desk job instead and be trained later on as an instructor, and I said yes.

Booking appointments for students to take their lessons, answering emails and phone calls, and taking payments. That’s it. Lots of screen time.

My day starts at 1 pm. I enter the studio at 12:50 pm. Take 10 minutes to get settled in. Put my things in my locker, and change my shoes into my dance practice shoes from sneakers or Birkenstocks, depending on the weather these days. I will take my notebook, my glasses, my water bottle, and my phone to the desk with me.

According to the schedule (which I’m glued to pretty much all day), we have a dance session, and for the non-dancers out there, it's basically just a training session for us instructors, to add to our repertoire of teaching correctly and with more technique. So every Wednesday at 1 pm we have a dance session with the owner/franchisee of the studio. Today I felt really anxious about it because I didn’t quite know what to expect, every week it’s different unless we’re told specifically what to prepare and practice. I find I do get anxious a lot if I allow my thoughts to take control.

So that takes up a good 45 minutes of the day. Afterward, I catch my breath, take a sip of water and find my place at the desk. I open up the emails and see that there is quite a lot to work through. I prioritize which ones are most important, some of them are cancellations for tomorrow's lessons, and I will attend to those. Some of them are confirming lessons for today. And then there are other random ones, that don’t need too much attention. After the important ones are answered, I then have to send out reminder emails for tomorrow's lessons to students. It’s our job to remind them, either wise we get blamed for the students missing their lessons. I also have to check any phone messages, and the mailbox before I enter - yep lots to remember.

Once that’s done, once again according to the schedule we have another dance session. This time it’s in preparation for our huge event coming up in September, called Hollywood Spotlight night. This is where students get to choose songs from movies and perform a routine with their instructor, and all of us, - the 4 female instructors - have to be taught a routine or formation that we’re gonna perform at the event. So we had a dance session to learn new choreography. It went well. It was 3:15 by the time that was done. And then I had to find students on the system who had remaining lessons left in their programs and invite them back to the studio to complete them. Some of them basically told me to fuck off in the politest sense, others hadn’t responded. I was doing that for 45 minutes and longer. We usually have a scheduled break at 4-5 pm, but depending on how the day goes, we can take it whenever just not too close to the start of the shift or too late. We’re allowed to spilt into 2 30 minute sessions if we like.

What I enjoy about my work day, is that I have an hour break. So I took my break at 4:30, instead of 4. My man came to see me which was a nice surprise. He’s off on Wedensday's so I tell him that he can come to see me on my break if he wants to. We live 7-10 minutes away.

We headed to a water area and sat on a bench and enjoyed the outdoor space. My mind still lingering on work a bit and emails, but I still managed to enjoy the time with him. We were eating perogies and watching the water and other people doing their own thing. Just before 5:30, we headed back and he dropped me off, leaving to enjoy the rest of his off day.

I re-enter the studio, and see that there are a few lessons happening with other instructors and I make my way to the staff room. I put my bag into my locker, change my shoes once again, and I’m headed to the front desk.

On my to-do list, I have to finish up some emails from earlier, and that’s it.

I peak up from the desk every now and then and see that everyone else is teaching with their schedules full to the brim, with students, and mine is literally empty. I only have a few notes, and once that’s done, I clear them from my schedule and my column is empty.

The second half of the day usually flies by. I keep an eye on it, like a hawk. Once it reaches 7, I know there are two more hours to go, and from there it flies. Either than checking binders, I don’t have much else to do. By checking binders I mean, that every student has a binder. And in that binder, there’s a record of how many lessons they’ve been taken so far, and we have a system on the computer, that shows us the same thing. My job is to make sure the number in the binder matches the number in the system, and if it doesn’t then I have to find a way to fix it. I secretly enjoy it, because it makes me seem like I’m busier than usual, and I feel like a software engineer or something math whiz, because there’s a problem and I need to solve it.

Time flies, and eventually, it's inching close to 9. If I have nothing to do, I check all the tables in the ballroom, make sure there’s enough pens on each of them and the chairs look presentable. I have to ‘publish’ the lessons of the day on the system, and that way it keeps a permanent record of how many lessons we had.

9 o clock hits, and I feel relieved, we all head to the staff room and retrieve our belongings and say bye, see you tomorrow to each other. I walk out and spot the car my boyfriend is picking me up in. I climb in and we drive off, to spilt a joint.

And so that’s typically my work day. Most days are okay. I for sure enjoy it more when the bosses aren’t there. I look forward to the breaks mostly and finishing the day. It’s a new job, still. I only started in March of this year. When things don’t go well, I start looking for other jobs. Each day pushes me more and more out of my comfort zone. Sometimes I wanna make excuses and not show up for work. When things go well, I enjoy it more. Even if I do get opppotunities, they lead me right back to this one. As if to say, stay, be patient and trust the process, it will get better.

But I know for sure, sitting at a desk 7 hours of the day, with an hour break - is not something I would like to do for a long time. Something better will come soon, that I will enjoy better.

What's a day in the life of your job? Is it something you enjoy or nah?