It’s great to have a job you’re passionate about. But some workers are walking away from dream roles, in search of stability and security.
At 25, Andrew was soaring up the culinary career ladder as a pastry chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Scotland. Every delicious dessert and finely-sculpted pastry in the kitchen was his creation. He was in a role that he had worked towards – and wanted – for years.
Andrew had reached these heights after just six years in the hospitality industry; he’d started at 19 as a kitchen porter in a local hotel in his hometown in west Scotland, and was quickly promoted to junior chef. By 21, he was a commis chef at an award-winning hotel in the Lake District, England, avidly studying patisserie and confectionary in his spare time. He was prepared to commit his life to perfecting his skills, saying: “That was all I cared about.”
Instead, at the height of his career, working in his dream job in the revered Scottish eatery, he quit. At 26, he was a student, this time on a four-year software-development degree. He’d walked away, not just from the job he’d worked so hard for, but from the whole hospitality industry.
For Andrew, the tipping point came when, having finally got the glossy position he’d been aiming for, he realised none of the exhausting work required was worth it. “From 19 to 25, that whole period of my life, I just sort of sacrificed,” he says. “Everyone else was out having a great time and I was basically a slave in the kitchen.”
Throughout his career, he realised, he had felt overworked, underappreciated and underpaid. “I was doing between 65 and 70 hours a week and getting paid [a salary of] £20,000 ($22,290) a year,” he says. “I was running the [pastry] section. I was creating the majority of the desserts… for £5.95 an hour. For that little money, you just think, what am I doing with my life? Like, am I crazy?”
For the most part, workers have always hoped for roles that coincide with their interests and passions; swapping the office grind for that longed-for sourdough bakery, or fun role at a videogame company sounds like a no-brainer. Yet this ‘do what you love’ narrative comes with drawbacks. Many people find that their dream jobs require more work, under worse conditions. Others discover that the industries they idolise trade on workers’ passions to keep pay low. In the face of these pressures, some workers find themselves asking whether the dream job is really worth it after all.
