How to Become an Adult Without Being Properly Warned

There are many elegant stories about first jobs.

Stories about ambition.
Stories about discipline.
Stories about a young person stepping confidently into the world of work, ready to learn, grow, and become a productive member of society.

This is not one of those stories.

This is the story of two men who entered working life in very different ways, but both discovered the same uncomfortable truth: work is not simply about tasks, tools, or training. Work is where childhood quietly ends, usually without asking permission first.

For Manfred, the beginning was not gentle. His father took him to a local company, where he was taken on as an apprentice electrician. It sounds simple when written like that. Almost respectable. Almost normal. But Manfred’s memory of that first day is less “proud new chapter” and more: “Oh shit! Why am I here?”

He was not part of the local scene. He did not drink alcohol, which, in some working environments, is apparently close to refusing citizenship. His childhood had been relatively sheltered, and suddenly he found himself pushed into a world that was rougher, louder, and much less protected. He described that first day as being “brutally kicked out from home.” Not physically, perhaps, but emotionally. It was a culture shock. He was apprehensive. He had no expectations. Which may have been wise, because expectations are often just disappointments wearing a nice jacket.

The apprenticeship itself had structure. In Germany, Manfred explained, an apprenticeship has two parts: the practical part, where you learn what to do, and the theory, where you learn how and why. For him, this made sense. It was logical. And logic, in the electrician’s world, is not decoration. It is survival. Wires do not care about feelings. Electricity is not impressed by creativity. You either understand what you are doing, or the consequences may become very educational, very quickly.

His father’s advice before he started was short enough to fit on a very small motivational poster: “Do as you are told.”

Not: follow your dreams.
Not: believe in yourself.
Not: bring your authentic self to work.

Just: do as you are told.

And Manfred did. Not because it was inspiring, but because it was the only way to survive. His attitude was practical: it would only get better. This is perhaps one of the most honest descriptions of apprenticeship ever given. Not a golden path. Not a heroic beginning. More like holding on, keeping quiet when necessary, watching carefully, and trusting that the first shock will not last forever.

The hardest part was not only the work itself. It was the people. Manfred called those years an eye-opener. He learned about people, and he learned to make his own decisions. That sounds simple, but it is not. Many people spend years at work before they understand that technical skill is only one part of the job. The other part is surviving humans. Their habits. Their moods. Their jokes. Their rules. Their strange tribal customs, including the suspicious role of alcohol in local belonging.

And what did all this teach him?

Manfred’s answer is beautifully severe: “Precision is king. Everything else is waste.”

There it is. The electrician’s gospel. No fluff. No motivational fog machine. Precision is king. Everything else can go into the bin.

Then we have Martin.

Martin’s beginning was different, but not necessarily easier. He did his apprenticeship in his father’s company, learning to become a draughtsman. On paper, this sounds more familiar and perhaps safer. He was not thrown into a completely unknown world. The environment was not strange to him. But even so, Martin says it was a strange feeling. Because there is a special kind of confusion when your father is also your boss. The furniture may be familiar, but suddenly the room has different rules.

Martin described the work of a draughtsman in a way only Martin could: he was a “stone age computer.” His job was to translate somebody’s thoughts into a standard diagram, with as few mistakes as possible. This is both funny and serious, which is exactly where Martin often lives. A draughtsman is not just drawing lines. He is taking ideas from someone else’s head and making them visible, structured, readable, and usable. Before the computer became the normal tool, Martin himself was the machine. A mechanical translator of thoughts. A human interface with a pencil, discipline, and probably a very low tolerance for nonsense.

When asked whether it was easy to separate “father” and “boss,” the answer in the document repeats the question rather than giving a direct response. And somehow, this may be the most Martin answer possible. Because perhaps the repetition says enough. Was it easy to separate father and boss? Was it? Can anyone really separate those two things cleanly when the same person gives you family history at home and work instructions at the company? The silence inside that repeated question is quite loud.

Mistakes, however, were not treated lightly. Martin says his father taught him to look for mistakes as if they were his worst enemy. That is a powerful apprenticeship lesson: do not admire your own work too quickly. Hunt the errors. Assume they are hiding. Assume they want to embarrass you later. But Martin adds the twist: his problem today is that he wants to “give peace a chance.”

This is wonderful. On one side, the father’s discipline: mistakes are enemies. On the other side, the older Martin: perhaps the mistakes are tired too. Perhaps we can negotiate. Perhaps not every error needs a war tribunal.

Of course, this peaceful philosophy does not mean Martin has become a reckless modernist. Absolutely not. When asked how different the technology was back then, and whether he misses it, Martin gives the kind of answer that makes laptops nervous: “I still prefer using my trusted mechanical brain, it serves me better than some of this newfangled technology.”

This is not nostalgia. This is resistance with a ruler.

Martin is not against progress because he is lazy. He is suspicious of progress because progress often arrives with cables, updates, passwords, and a cheerful message saying something has improved while everything now takes longer. His trusted mechanical brain has served him well. It does not need charging. It does not ask for cookies. It does not suddenly change the menu after an update.

And when Martin thinks about his apprenticeship now, what still influences how he works today?

Again: “I still give peace a chance.”

This may sound gentle, but hidden inside it is a whole working philosophy. He learned precision. He learned suspicion of mistakes. He learned the discipline of turning thoughts into diagrams. But he has also chosen not to spend his entire life at war with every imperfection. Somewhere between the stone age computer and the trusted mechanical brain, Martin found a way to keep the old discipline while making peace with the fact that life, work, and probably diagrams are never completely clean.

So, what do these first work stories really tell us?

Manfred’s apprenticeship was a shock: a sheltered young man pushed into a working culture where he had to observe, survive, learn people, and discover that precision is not optional.

Martin’s apprenticeship was familiar but strange: a son becoming an apprentice under his father, learning to translate ideas into diagrams, to hunt mistakes like enemies, and later, somehow, to offer them peace talks.

One became an electrician, where precision could be the difference between working equipment and a very bad afternoon.
The other became a draughtsman, where precision turned thoughts into something the world could actually use.

Different tools. Different worlds. Same lesson.

Work begins when someone, usually without enough explanation, puts responsibility in your hands and expects you not to drop it.

And perhaps that is the real beauty of these stories. They are not polished success stories. They are better than that. They are human stories. Awkward, dry, funny, serious, and full of the small brutal truths that only become funny many years later.

Manfred learned that precision is king.
Martin learned to give peace a chance.

Between those two philosophies, you may find the entire history of European working life: do it exactly right, but try not to start a war with the pencil.