The Greatness of an Off Day (or two weeks off)

This is posted as part of our Summer Intern Blog Series. Be sure to come back each week as interns from around the country share their summer experiences with us!

By: Lauren Benda, @LaurenBenda

In baseball you don’t get very many “off” days, and the term off is used lightly. An off day during baseball season basically means we don’t have a game that day/night. We work our regular office hours (8:30a.m.-5p.m.) and then we just get to go home. We go home to our apartments and houses that really don’t see us often. We have hours to do things like laundry, grocery shop, clean our bathrooms and maybe even vacuum. An “off” day is serious business around here, and when you work for 12 hours every day for seven days in a row; you really learn to appreciate them.

So what does an intern do on an off day? What are the possibilities? Why does this time after work feel like I have days to conquer the world? I’m still figuring that one out, but to answer the first few questions…

On the first day with no game my time is usually spent picking up my room. My bed gets made, and all of my laundry makes it to the laundry basket. Then I do about two loads of laundry, and that never gets folded on the same day. That’s for day two. While waiting for the laundry to be done I try to catch up on some TV. Right now, it’s the Bachelorette. If you’re curious I have Chase going all the way, and hopefully things turn around for him.

On the second day with no game the laundry gets folded, I get some groceries and the bathroom gets deep cleaned. Getting groceries is one of my favorite things to do, mainly because I know it won’t be ballpark food. When my bathroom gets cleaned after a home stand it’s also one of the most satisfying things, because all of my hair gets cleaned up off the ground and you can finally feel good after taking a long shower instead of a rushed one.

On the third and fourth day with no game it’s usually the day we either see our friends that we don’t work with or we all hang out. Yeah, we hang out out of work, and we have some extremely good times. My friends that I have met here are some of the best people I have ever met, and we work so hard that it’s absolutely amazing to be able to “play” hard with the same people as well. The fact that we all get along so well is just a bonus.

On the fifth, and usually the last, off day it is a straight up relaxing day. Also, this day is always labeled “get everything done that you need to before the home stand”. Like this week I need an oil change, need to clean out my car from the busy holiday weekend and hopefully I can get both of my work shirts washed regularly this week.

This coming week we have eight games in a row, and most of them are at 7p.m. which means I will probably be working around 90 hours this entire week. It seems daunting, but thankfully my view is a beautiful ballpark so I can’t complain. If you’re in the area head to www.whitecapsbaseball.com to come see a game!