everybody wants avocado toast, no one wants a job

Amidst new Bumble matches, unhinged WhatsApp group chat texts, and notifications from my bank telling me my recent purchase of €15 at warung sunshine went through, a notification from Upwork made its rare appearance, promising me a stable income in the form of a job invitation. I opened the website, praying the hourly rate would be somewhat above €5 and wouldn’t require serious skills, like Meta Business Suite or other shit I probably should’ve learned during my useless Media Management degree. I say useless because I graduated two years ago, and the day I pick up my certificate is yet to happen (it won’t).

Upwork is a strange place—imagine dating app toxicity but make it corporate. Thousands of offers, but nothing you really like, and when you finally find something you do like, you waste hours crafting a perfect application that doesn’t immediately scream ChatGPT, only to get ghosted. Therefore, my excitement to receive job interviews is low-key legit because it means I at least stand a chance against hundreds of other desperate freelancers looking for the real deal—aka a stable income for a month or so.

Andreas, the man promising me a fulfilling job as a content writer—and here’s the catch—for the worst platform possible (LinkedIn), slid into my Upwork DMs to tell me that my profile matched his expectations exactly. So, I did what I had to do and had ChatGPT fill out the three standard questions, romanticizing the little experience I had managing someone’s LinkedIn years ago.

He answered immediately, asking me if I was free for a virtual get-to-know-each-other—a phrase that made me want to throw up instantly because, in past experience, it’s more like a 'let me waste your time while I tell you how important and busy I am and suck knowledge out of you, only to never message you again' call. I agreed because I was ready to give this doomed freelancing platform one last shot. So, I left the upscale coworking café I was lounging in behind in search of a quiet environment, and arranged my room in a way that didn’t scream, ‘she lives in a guesthouse in Bali’, fixed my lipstick, and mentally prepared myself to lie about every job I had ever had.

Andreas, framed by a stock image of the Golden Gate Bridge, joined our Google Meet two minutes late, which is considered a crime in Germany. However, I decided to politely ignore it, knowing well that if I had been the one two minutes late, I would have immediately been canceled. He greeted me with, 'Hi, Lisa,' and I politely told him that my name is indeed Sarah, but I’d rather have a potential boss mistake my name than a potential husband, so I smiled it away. In the following minutes, he told me how important he was, how much money he made, how busy he was, and that he was in desperate need of a freelancer who would be responsible for his entire marketing strategy, which solely consisted of LinkedIn and paid €10-25 per hour before taxes. I started wondering where this man got his confidence from, but then I remembered that he’s a middle-aged white man working in consulting, who probably gets through with everything and would most likely even talk an unpaid intern into this role.

Mid-call, I decided I wouldn’t lie to Andreas because my very low excitement for this job started to shrink into nonexistence. I wondered how far I would get if I were just unapologetically me, so instead of talking about what he wanted to hear, I yapped about my life, living in Bali, and my side quests. I soon realized that Andreas was the kind of person who could make you feel really bad about yourself in a polite way. I could smell his narcissism through my dirty MacBook screen and could tell he was neither happy with me working from a tropical island, nor with me being a mother, nor with me not knowing what the heck Scrum was (it’s a software development framework). His last straw was when I couldn’t tell him how many signs a LinkedIn post consists of (it’s 3,000). That’s when he stated in a smiling, passive-aggressive way, 'I think we don’t fit together.' I snapped, 'Yes, Andreas, this is exactly the impression I got.' He was clearly surprised because I bet he expected me to be begging on my knees for him to hire me for this ridiculous minimum wage position, which would have an adequate title of ‘Senior Marketing Manager’ with at least some mediocre benefits like fruit baskets and hybrid work, rather than ‘freelancer’.

I left the call before he did, after wishing him all the best and telling him he would be better off hiring someone who knows what Scrum is. I shut my MacBook, grabbed my phone, and crafted a Substack note because everything that goes down must be recycled into at least a Substack note, if not a whole essay, which you’re lucky to read now.

I felt electric for the remaining day, a new sense of freedom and pride glowing from within, knowing it was the first time I had ever stood my ground in a professional setting. The thought of not having to work for a middle-aged narcissist filled my entire body with joy and excitement. I suddenly felt a whole new appreciation for the life I had created, knowing I had options because I built them and would never have to do another virtual get-to-know-each-other ever again.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way about job applications. In fact, it’s my whole generation (hi, Gen Z) that would’ve dumped Andreas’s ass. It’s not that we don’t want to work; quite the contrary, I think most of us are willing to work hard. What sets us apart from other generations is that we don’t tolerate being treated like shit. You can’t lure us in with 20 vacation days and a fruit basket; we need something tangible, like making a real impact or at least making a lot of money. We’re not excited about working for a company; we’re excited about the company paying for bottomless brunch with our girlfriends on Sundays. Ergo: We’re not living to work; we work to live.

In 2024, no one dreams of landing a prestigious corporate job; in 2024, everyone dreams of landing a lazy girl job. And I get it: why hustle yourself to the ground for a title when that very title feels more like a prison sentence, doomed to a lifelong corporate grind and unpaid overtime? Nah thanks. Instead, we want to find roles that let us live and chase our random side quests first and foremost. We want jobs that fit our lifestyles, not lifestyles that fit our jobs. I think my generation understands that life is pretty short and acts on it, and I love that for us.