Yeah absolutely. The good apprenticeships which give you valuable skills and experience are few and far between, and the ones that also pay you fairly are even rarer and I imagine are more contested than a place at university.

In the real world, your job is what your boss tells you to do (within reason), otherwise you don’t have a job any more.

Yes, it’s true. I actually had another job between my apprenticeship ending and going to university where the job description was handing out leaflets. That was absolutely not what the job actually was so when I stubbornly refused to do nothing more than hand out my leaflets I got fired from that too.

I was but a bright-eyed 18 year old back then what can I say <\3 these days my spirit is crushed and I just do what I’m told (but at least I get paid a lot as a software developer).