Egyptian temple service was organized so that almost none of it fell to any one man full time. Priests below the most senior ranks were divided into four rotating groups the Greeks later called phyles, each serving a single lunar month of active duty before standing down for three months, so that across a full year a wab priest spent roughly a quarter of his time in the temple and the rest pursuing an entirely secular trade, farming, scribal work, or a craft, a genuinely part time arrangement rather than the exception. Most wab priests never advanced beyond the entry rank at all; a smaller number were promoted to senior wab, wab aa, and a smaller number again moved into the specialised offices above it, the lector priest who read the ritual texts aloud during ceremonies and the sem priest particularly associated with funerary rites.
A phyle's month on duty followed the same basic sequence each day: opening the shrine that housed the god's image, washing, clothing and presenting food to the statue as though it were a living resident of the temple, and closing the shrine again at day's end, rites a wab priest assisted with and provisioned rather than personally led, since that direct contact belonged to the high priest alone. The system meant a single temple could be staffed year round by a workforce that, for three months out of every four, was somewhere else entirely, living an ordinary Egyptian life between terms of service.