Paid to walk

Last week I did five four-hour shifts where I walked through buildings on a local university campus to count people in rooms. Every half hour, I would stop at each room on my route and check the number of people in the room. Many of the rooms were almost always empty and many were used quite regularly. I found the numbers started dropping as the week wore on though. By Friday most of the rooms were empty or nearly so. It was slow going at the beginning of the week though. The person I followed up from was late getting back and so I started late. Then I got to the buildings and found I didn’t have the map I needed. Fortunately the supervisor rushed to return it to me. It took about three rounds before I was caught up and I found I was going pretty much straight through the shift. On Tuesday I no longer required a map, except to provide codes for some of the doors, and by Friday I was getting through the route in just under 20 minutes at times.

The work was fairly mindless after I got used to it but it was physically taxing. I had bought some new cross trainers a couple of weeks ago and I must say they worked quite well for me. Even when my feet were sore in the morning, they shoes seemed to support me well enough they didn’t hurt when I got started. But by the last three rounds, my feet were always tired and I found my pace slowed down quite a bit. Still I managed to go back the following days and do it all again. But I must admit to being happy to be done with that right now. The cumulative effect of the entire week left me feeling pretty run down by the weekend and only today am I feeling renewed energy. I was going to exercise yesterday but decided it might be good to take a break, especially considering how much exercise I’d had through the week. I used an app on my old phone and it tracked about 11 kms over the four hours, which would have been about the same through the week. I will return to my exercise routine today, though, as I am feeling much better than I have in days. I was expecting to do another week of this at a different campus the week after next but it seems I won’t be after all due to some mix up either on my part or someone else. I’d have liked to have had the extra money but my feet are feeling relieved to have the break. :)