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Your Individual Path to Your Dream Job

We spend four years slogging through underpaid apprenticeships in trades or often ridiculously pointless seminars and lectures, FB accompanied by student jobs, only to finally spend the rest of our lives doing the so-called dream job we constantly talk about because it stresses us out so much.

But what comes before our dream job at BMW, KPMG, Universal, Lidl, or the cinema ticket counter?

The Apprenticeship

I know what I’m talking about when it comes to underpaid, crappy apprenticeships. At 16, I began my training as an automotive mechatronics technician, earning the glorious sum of €350 a month.

For those unfamiliar, here in Germany, we receive our "wages" at the beginning or end of the month, not weekly.

Fortunately, I lived with my mother during my apprenticeship because, with €350 a month, you don’t exactly lead a luxurious life. In fact, you don’t lead much of a life at all bc. you can’t afford a room in a shared flat, groceries, or any leisure activities. For many, the reality is that quitting or giving up simply isn’t an option within their families, even if there are plenty of rational reasons to do so.

This makes it all the more frustrating when you realize, midway through your apprenticeship, that the automotive industry isn’t where you see yourself long-term. And so, you stick it out to the bitter end, enduring exploitation and poor treatment, only to later pursue a different path—one you’ll inevitably have to justify.

The University Experience

The lure of money, self-expression, and, of course, excess drives many to the hallowed halls of the world’s universities. Some are fully funded by their parents, allowing them to experience their studies in all its facets. Others, with less financial support, juggle full-time studies with part-time jobs.

Whether it's delivering packages, waiting tables, cleaning, or working in project or event management, the options to be poorly paid and treated alongside your studies are endless. Beyond the money, experience becomes the go-to justification for brutally underpaid labor. The promise of a dream job fueled by this experience pushes many to the brink of burnout.

In the process, free time vanishes, consumed by tightly packed and overlapping schedules. Leisure becomes a rarity, split roughly as follows: 60% scrolling through social media, 30% organizing life on Google Calendar, and 10% engaging in some form of actual recreational activity.

After the Horror Called University or Apprenticeship

If you make it out of university or an apprenticeship in one piece, you’re usually greeted by another 40 years of paid labor. Forty years, hopefully, in the right job.

If not, constant job-hopping doesn’t just come with the mental toll of uncertainty but also invites the ridicule of family and other social circles.

You're switching jobs again?

You should be glad you even have a job.

You studied for so long just to do something else now?

Work is, for the most part, thankless crap. No one is going to admire you for your job—and if they do, it’s only because they’re unhappy with their own. Flexing about how much work and stress you’re dealing with doesn’t help either—it’s just plain stupid.

Thankfully, more and more people seem to be catching on, and there’s a growing shift back to focusing on leisure and personal interests.

We spend about a third of our lives working, so let’s not waste the other two-thirds talking about work too.