In the Search of the Perfect Job

Finding your dream job can be a long trip.

I have finished my army obligation at the end of 2007. I had finished my studies before the army, so at this point, I was ready to make a fresh new start in my life. Finding a well-paid job in my area of expertise was impossible.

A friend of mine was working in a 5-star hotel and he earned double the money I could find as an automation engineer or a computer technician. Guess what? I started working there for approximately two years as a waiter. After two years with no summer vacation and with hard work I accumulate some money. I got bored and I told to myself that was enough. Enough with this job.

Life has its way to prove you wrong when you make a decision.

Time to go to Thailand. It was a dream that I had missed, because of the army. My friends were going to Thailand and I was serving my country in the army. ( Stupid waste of time)

I booked a one-way flight to Bangkok on November 28 of 2009. I had planned to stay there for a month. But we make plans and God is laughing with us. Long story short I stayed for two and a half months. It is until now the best vacation I have done.

I was ready to stay there permanently. I had a proposition to work in a diving school in Κo Τao, the diving school I took my scuba diving license. I could be earning 200€/month, the same as the salary of a well-paid police officer. One is for sure, I would never go back to Greece with money, but I would have lived a wonderful life doing my hobby for a living, on a paradise island.

Young me, big expectations. I didn’t take the job. After all, I did spend some years of my life studying and had other plans in my mind. I would go back to Greece and make my own company. Make money and come back to Thailand for a vacation with a lot of diving.

When I come back to Greece in the middle of February 2010 the political and economic situation was different. When I say different I mean worse. A lot worse.

I remember that before I go to Thailand the prime minister of Greece was on the News saying that nobody will put a gun on our head, meaning nobody will force us to give money we don’t have. When I come back on the news he was saying there is no money.

We are bankrupt.

I couldn’t find a job in my field of expertise. I had taken my decision, never work again as a waiter. I started working here and there helping people do accomplish their tasks and earned some money.

The majority of the jobs in the market were about having someone with a university degree for making coffee (or an engineer for answer the phone), working 9 plus hours, and pay them pennies.

Summer of 2010 I was desperate for leaving Athens and go to a better place. Make vacation and work at the same time.

Guess what Job I did? Yes, you guess right. I was a waiter again.

Life has its way to prove you wrong when you make a decision. The good thing is that I spent a nice summer in Cephalonia, an island in Greece.

After the summer, back to Athens in the search of a job. I find a job as a seller for a music program but it didn’t last more than two months.

At the same time, I was reading a lot of books, and I was searching the internet for opportunities. Then I found Coursera the online platform where you can learn a lot of things, gain your knowledge and understanding of the world.

I have completed more than a dozen of courses.

Life goes forward with the same situation. Learn more, work where you can, and be broken all the time.

In 2013 I took a 120 hours seminar about mushrooms but I didn’t have 100,000€ so that I can take a loan and build a small mushroom farm. But I have learned something new. Meanwhile, I had some customers as a computer technician, and I was making some money for the food.

Life goes forward with the same situation. Learn more, work where you can, and be broken all the time.

I always was passionate about microcontrollers and I started learning Arduino. A lot of opportunities are given to you when you can automate a task. Just built a device and sell it, was my thoughts.

Android development was another thing I have learned from Coursera. If you combine Arduino and Android you can develop a lot of automation in a handy way.

I have spent hours from my free time to make some projects. But again, having a prototype, until making a product for sale, has a big distance, as you can read here: 7 Lessons I Took From Trying to Make My Own Company.

The years after I have worked in real estate construction for a while and then as a driver for importing cars from Germany to Greece. Last year I started working in the real estate market and have a small portfolio of over 50 properties.

I am in a situation where I do a lot of different things for living for two reasons. I get easily bored doing one thing only, and secondly, I need money to do what I really want, and that is research and building new devices.

At least I believe so.

I am not sure if I can do only one thing for the rest of my life. You see, I believe that doing the same thing, again and again, is killing my soul. After all, for thousands of years, humans were doing a lot of different things to survive. Now with the new culture and the big Cities, technological evolution brings us to specialization. To have a job you must be a specialist in your area.

In the Greek language, the words job and slavery are the same, only the tone when you pronounce them is different. But the Greek language has another word for work and working. This word (εργασία=working), means you are producing something. You make something to work. I prefer to work and not having a job (as a slave).

At least I believe so.

You see, I like making new devices because they can make our lives easier and better. I like to invent things because you have an idea (Greek word), and then you try to implement this idea into a working device. It is like magic in my eyes. I think that I could never get bored making new devices because every single one is a different one.

Will I succeed in making my dream come true? I honestly don’t know. At least I will have a goal to go for it.