Hey, r/antiwork,
I have been following this sub for quite a while now. But up until now I was very shy to post my story. I had a strong feeling that my coworkers or even my boss could potentially discover my post which would get me into trouble.
Short disclaimer: I am from Germany, and this happened during my apprenticeship years. And sorry for my bad english.
How I ended up in apprenticeship
Shortly after my emigration to Germany I started studying computer science at the university. After a couple of years I realised I couldn't really advance my studies because I was struggling to survive. In my worst times here in Germany I got 450 Eur of income by working as a student assistant at the university actually doing some server maintenance and working with advanced technologies. Out of that 450 Eur I had to pay 250 Eur for renting my 11 m2 room, 100 for mandatory medical insurance, 50 Eur had to be put aside to pay the semester fees once every 6 months, so I had monthly 50 Eur to survive. That fact rendered my studies impossible, so I started looking into alternatives like the above mentioned apprenticeship program, because it is impossible to find a job without completing that one at least.
The actual story
Long story short I've found a local small software business that was willing to hire me. The first year was alright, but then the pandemic kicked in and Boss' son (drug addict btw) started also working as an apprentice in my team. Oh, did I mention his wife working there as well? They also hired a “Karen” as my new (micro) manager, that insisted on me doing work in office while everybody else was at home (even the Boss' son). I was literally alone at the office, I was required to come there and more over I was the only one that still had to go there among my other class mates. And I couldn't just look for another job, this apprenticeship program is really bonkers, you are REQUIRED to go to school even tho you have learned everything because you actually worked in IT before. If you want another job you will have to justify why you don't want to stay at the old one for your apprentice ship years any more, or in case you dropped out you will also have to justify that at future interviews.
Please take a moment to appreciate the helplessness of an apprentice:
– You have no money to hire a lawyer to regulate everything (because you earn like 900 Eur for working full time)
– The work from home regulation was recommended and not enforced
– You can't quit, because if you want a real job afterwards you need to complete the whole program and pass the exams
Conclusion
I was pretty well burned out and I'm still recovering. I also have another job as a software engineer, developing mobile apps in flutter (but I also worked with react and react-native) full time remote.
Best regards
Tildy
I just leave this here: please hire me.