I never had a real employee job. Never. Not once in my life have I stood behind a counter somewhere, had a boss tell me when my shift was, or gotten a paycheck.
That might sound dramatic, but it's not. I was a student, then a farmer. On the farm, I started out doing what my father and great-uncle told me, and at some point I just knew what to do myself. And on the side, I started developing software. For myself, not for an employer. On the computer, I do everything myself — it's not something I'd want to do for someone else.
The one time that came closest was an internship at a computer shop in Sterzing. Half a year, maybe a year, during an IT course in Brixen. I was mostly in the back in the workshop, building and repairing computers. Not in sales, but in the technical area. It wasn't bad. It was actually interesting seeing different people every day. But it was just an internship, not a real job.
What strikes me: I basically never talk about this. It's not like I don't have a job — I do. I work. But I've never been an employee. And sometimes I wonder what I've missed out on.
Most people I know worked somewhere during summer breaks as teenagers. At a restaurant, in a hotel, in some business or another. It was just part of growing up. Not for me. And I do see that as a small gap. Not as a failure, but as something I never experienced that everyone else knows.
What interests me is surprising: not IT. I work on computers for myself. What appeals to me is more like tourism. Waiter. Or just something hands-on — working at IKEA, at McDonald's, somewhere I don't need any prior knowledge and can just dip my toes in. I want to see what it's like. How the structure works. How colleagues interact with each other. What it feels like to go there in the morning and come home in the evening and leave work behind.
Maybe not a whole summer. But a few weeks, as temp help. Just to learn and see how other people work. This desire is relatively new, but it's there.
The only problem is the language. In South Tyrol you can speak German almost everywhere, except in Bolzano. And of course the big stores — Media Markt and so on — are in Bolzano, where almost everyone speaks Italian. If I wanted to work there, my Italian would need to be better. I'd probably have to go to Austria if I really want to do this.
But I do want to do it. Someday. Just to know what it feels like — being part of a team where I'm not the one in charge.