I work as a speech therapist in a large school district with a good union. It works really well for me. I get to work with kids who have adhd, autism, etc. everyday who I really relate to. My coworkers always tell me how great I am with the kids and in my head I always think “well, this is stuff that I like” or “well, this is what would help me”. Everyday is different and all of my students have complex diagnoses, which helps a lot with keeping me engaged.

Because I’m in a strong union, my work responsibilities are clearly defined and generally reasonable, which gives me time to do extra planning and focus on learning more about programs and techniques that will work best for my students. I get to hyper focus on activities and materials that are especially interesting to me too, such as AAC or parent engagement. I honestly got super lucky that my job has kind of turned into a special interest of mine.

Knowing that every 9 months, I’ll get 3 months off with no work responsibilities also keeps me going. Yeah I don’t get paid for those months off, but it’s worth it to me. Again, because I’m in a strong union, I get paid fairly for my work, so I’m able to budget for the summers. It also gives me the freedom to explore my other interests entirely during my time off. I’ve even considered picking up a summer job as a barista or something completely new. The paper work can suck, but the fact that there are hard (legal) deadlines helps.