Senior Rhianna Middleton stared at her phone, torn. The screen read 7:30 p.m., the time her shift at Läderach should end. However, the sales goal her manager had set for the day was far from met. Middleton felt obligated to stay later to make more sales, despite having a load of unfinished schoolwork waiting for her at home. The dilemma between either prioritizing work or prioritizing school left Middleton overwhelmed, as these responsibilities both weighed heavily in importance.

For Middleton, the stressful scenario of trying to maintain balance in both her academic and work life is a common problem during the week. Although she understands the requirements of being a good student, working at the Swiss chocolatier Läderach in Stanford Shopping Center is crucial for supporting her future goals.

“I started working to save for an apartment for when I go to college,” Middleton said. “I also need money for college tuition and future living expenses. Right now, (it) is a very important period of time for me to make and save money.”

Middleton normally goes into work immediately after school using either the school bus or the city’s transportation system, Palo Alto Link. She clocks in at 4:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday, and 1:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving school earlier thanks to her third and fourth period preps. She is scheduled to clock out of Läderach at 7:30 p.m. but is typically held back later until around 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. on the holidays due to the store’s financial goals.

“We have a money goal for every single day, which is basically the amount of sales we have to make, and we have to make or exceed that,” Middleton said. “It gets overwhelming when we don’t make our goal. When we don’t reach our goal, we’ll stay open later, and obviously that interferes with my schedule because my schoolwork gets pushed back.”

Although Middleton’s responsibilities as an employee can sometimes overlap with her ability to manage and submit school assignments in a timely matter, she is still able to keep her grades from being affected.

“Work doesn’t really affect my grades at school,” she said. “I’m really good at communicating with my teachers about late assignments or missing work and how to make it up. If I need to do an assignment or if I have a friend in that class, I’ll just talk to them about the assignment, so I’ll get it done regardless.”

However, although Middleton is good at expressing her situation in a timely manner, she feels teachers aren’t always understanding of her work responsibilities.

“There’s been times when I’ve talked to teachers about how my work at Läderach has made it difficult to focus on school and complete schoolwork, and they’ve just said to me, ‘Well, you’re not sick, and it’s not your mental health, so you have to figure that out.’”

A resource Middleton thinks would offer her more support as a student worker at Gunn would be an alternative wellness dedicated to catching up on schoolwork. It would be a similar environment to wellness, somewhere teachers could send students so that they could leave class and work on other assignments.

On the flip side, Middleton feels that Läderach is supportive of her being a student as well as an employee and is lenient when she’s overwhelmed.

“My manager is really big on the idea that school comes first,” Middleton said. “She obviously wants the store to be up there as well, but she’ll tell me, ‘If you have anything big coming up, just let me know two weeks ahead,’ which is not normally a problem because I know when tests and assignments are happening in school.”

A way that Läderach supports her being a student is offering her one day off work during the school week.

“I always have one day off of work,” Middleton said. “I normally choose Tuesdays or Thursdays, if I’m able to, as my day off because I have a fourth and third period prep. Then that gives me from twelve to the entire night to do all my homework.”

Middleton’s work environment is overall friendly and welcoming. She describes a normal shift as mostly customer service and working alongside other employees. When she clocks in, her manager will give her a debrief on the projects that need to be completed. Middleton usually takes the more complicated projects as a senior employee and later on helps other co-workers complete their tasks.

“Projects are usually tying ribbons on the chocolates or refilling giant slabs of chocolates by the display window,” Middleton said. “There’s also refilling our pralines and truffles, doing extra deep cleaning and things like that.”

However, customers are top priority to reach the end-of-day goal and create profit for the store. When customers come in, Middleton and the rest of the employees shift their focus to them.

“Whenever a customer comes in, we pay full attention to the customer,” she said. “It’s fully (about) customer service and getting customers inside the store with tactics such as sampling.”

Being good at communicating with customers is important to being able to reach the store’s daily financial goal. Middleton finds working in sales easy for her because of her past experience working with kids. Before she started working at Läderach last October, Middleton used to babysit and help out at a local day care center. The skills she acquired while working with kids is also applicable to working in sales.

“Working with kids and being in sales (is) almost the same,” she said. “A lot of customers are like kids. I’m just promoting and selling something and trying to convince a customer to buy it, similarly with convincing a kid to eat their food or share their toys. I feel like those are very similar in my brain.”

Although creating an equal balance between the responsibilities as a Läderach employee and senior can be difficult at times, Middleton loves and appreciates her work.

“I would say work definitely does interfere with school, but I really like my job,” she said. “It’s not like I don’t want to be at work. Work is a staple in my life to secure my future goals and help better me as a person. I think later I will look back at this stressful time and feel gratitude and be proud of myself.”