I am part of that generation that grew up with the myth of a permanent job!
Even before we enrolled in university, we were asked the question: "But will it get you a job?"
The expression "finding a job" implies looking for a permanent position, working for someone. It does not take into account the fact that one can also create work oneself.
And perhaps today it would be better to ask: "But will it give you the means to create a job for yourself?"
After completing my master's degree in Barcelona, I had the ambition, motivation, ability and recklessness that you have at twenty to open a design studio with some colleagues.
Why didn't I do it?
Always for the nightmare of a permanent job!!! 🙄
Because if you are a young graduate and society continually shouts at you:
"But where do you want to go!"
"You'll starve!"
"Get a permanent job!"
you will feel wrong and will inevitably be influenced in your choices.
So what did I do?
I returned to Italy and shortly after found the much desired (by others!) "permanent position" in an important design studio.
Sometimes I ask myself: "What if society and universities had prepared young people with the entrepreneurial mindset and had stimulated and encouraged them to start their own business, what would have happened?
Perhaps most of my colleagues would not now have low-paid jobs, with no protections and no chance of advancement.
Maybe I would have stayed in Barcelona and founded clocop design! 😆 (I'll tell you about it in another post!)
Perhaps.
So I ask myself: "Where has the nightmare of the permanent job brought us? And is it really permanent? Or is it just an illusion and we are all precarious workers anyway?"