The Adventure Through “Likes” and “Interests” - Prelude: Capter 2

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Prelude: Can You Make Your 'Like' into a Job? - Chapter 2

I was so excited to enter university, thinking, “I can choose my own classes and study what I like!”

But when I actually started, I found out that almost all classes were required, so my schedule was full. I had almost no freedom to choose. Most required classes were just writing notes from the board or solving exercises again and again. The kind of free research and study I imagined only happens in the fourth year when you join a lab. I felt disappointed, though, so until my fourth year, I decided to focus on my part-time job instead.

Looking back now, I think university is a place where you should use the environment and resources wisely. I could have brought my bicycle to a teacher who loves bicycles and asked them to teach me how it works. I could have taken my Monkey bike to a teacher who loves engines and learned how to customize it. I didn’t think that far back then, though, which is a shame.

So, I decided to start with a tutoring job. But then I thought, "I don’t even like studying... There’s no way I can teach well! I'd rather be the one learning!"

So, I quit and tried something totally new—a part-time job at a casual chain restaurant. And that job? I got completely hooked. I loved going to work every single day. It was so much fun, I just couldn’t get enough of it!

The older part-time ladies treated me kindly, teaching me how to work and chatting with me. I also became close friends with a type of person I would never have gotten along with in class. On busy days, I worked together with my coworkers, sweating and pushing through as a team. One regular customer even told me, "You have a great smile! Why don’t you marry my son?"

I had always been shy and lived a hardcore otaku life until high school. In class, I was quiet and only got excited when talking with my otaku friends in the library or clubroom.

But through work, I realized I could actually get along with all kinds of people. It was a fresh and exciting surprise, and it made me really happy. Even dealing with customer complaints felt fun—whenever I handled them well, I felt like I had leveled up!

This was also the time when I started reading business books.

The store manager was always happy to listen, whether it was small talk or work-related topics. Since he listened so well, I often told him about the problems I noticed at work. But maybe because I was just complaining too much, one day he said:

"Then why don’t you think of a solution? Let’s talk after that."

I enjoyed talking with him, so I wanted to continue the conversation and tried hard to come up with my own solutions—but then I realized how weak and shallow my ideas were. Realizing that this wasn’t good enough, I decided to take a business class from another department and started reading business books.

When I First Thought, ‘Maybe I Can Turn What I Like into My Career’

I had a great time at my part-time job, but even so, I thought, "It’s just fun because I’m a student worker."

The store manager, who was a full-time employee, mainly focused on numbers and management rather than customer service or teamwork—the parts of the job I enjoyed. So, I didn’t find his work very interesting. I vaguely thought that after graduating, I would probably get a technical job at some company and live a normal office worker life.

My image of jobs and working life completely shattered in the spring of my third year at university when a former hotel worker joined as a part-time employee.

A little before that, a high school boy had also started working in the same floor staff position as me. But he seemed unmotivated and unfriendly, so I chatted with the older part-time ladies, saying, "He’s not suited for this job. He’ll probably quit soon."

But then—something unexpected happened. After he started working with the former hotel worker, his skills improved fast.

I found it so strange that I couldn’t help but ask the former hotel worker, "How did this happen?" and started asking him all sorts of questions.

He taught me something simple but eye-opening, "Training people, customer service, and teamwork all follow a theory." And the industry that takes this theory seriously as a business is the hotel and restaurant industry.

He said to me,

"Someone like you, who is passionate about customer service, would be a great fit for a hotel. Why not consider it as a career?"

At that moment, all the vague ideas I had about work—"This is probably how things are." "This will probably happen."—completely collapsed in an instant.

I had always been a science person, and everyone around me—my family, my friends—thought so too. So, of course, I would get a science-related job.

No matter how fun a part-time job was, it was still just a part-time job. Work wasn’t an extension of a part-time job—it was an extension of school.

I had always thought that "somehow, that’s just how things are."

But for the first time, I started to question this "somehow future" that I had never doubted before.

Just because I had always studied science, does that really mean I have to get a science-related job? Isn’t that just an assumption?

And thinking, "Part-time jobs are fun, but real jobs must be boring," isn’t that just an assumption too? After all, my university friends weren’t as passionate about their part-time jobs as I was. So it’s not like "part-time jobs are fun for everyone." And in the same way, isn’t it possible that "real jobs aren’t always boring"?

Maybe, even with all the hard and frustrating parts, work could still be enjoyable. Maybe, I could turn something I “like” into my career.

Hitting a Wall in My Job Search

So, I started gathering information about the hotel and restaurant industry. Even though it was still the time when students a year above me were job hunting, I joined them and attended job-hunting events for the hotel and restaurant industry.

When the new year started and my own grade entered job-hunting season, I went to a manufacturing industry job fair with my university friends—just once. But nothing felt right. I knew that the hotel and restaurant industry was where I belonged, so I focused only on that for my job search. My friends looked at me like I was strange for making that choice.

However, even though I had started preparing for job hunting earlier than anyone in my year, I still hadn’t received a single job offer by the time all my classmates had.

At my first-choice hotel’s group interview, there were four students, but in the second half, the interviewer almost only talked to me. I felt confident—I was sure I had made a strong impression. But the only thing I received was the usual rejection letter.

Summer had arrived, and it was time for me to make a decision about my future and focus on my graduation research. I even started thinking, "Maybe I should just get a part-time job at a restaurant or hotel and work my way up to a full-time position."

Around that time, I had an interview with a restaurant company. The recruiter, looking a bit concerned, said to me:

"You know, you just don’t have the ‘restaurant or hotel’ vibe. What you’re saying is great—really great. But no matter what, you just don’t fit the atmosphere. Honestly, I think no matter where you apply in this industry, you won’t get hired."

Hearing that, everything suddenly clicked.

I remembered that in past interviews, when I asked recruiters "What do you look for in students?", they simply answered, "The vibe, I guess." I also recalled how some interviewers kept pressing me, "What do your family and friends think about you applying to hotels?"

At that moment, all those scattered pieces came together.

I still remember standing on the subway platform after the interview, feeling completely lost. I knew I had no choice but to change my career path. But… what should I do now?

"What even is my ‘vibe’ supposed to be!?"

Half in tears, I asked my classmate in the university lab. Without hesitation, she answered, "System engineer?"

"Ugh, stop with the lazy idea that 'if you can code, you must be a system engineer'!" I replied, annoyed.

But since I had focused only on the hotel and restaurant industry up until now, I had no choice but to start over and gather information about other industries. So, for the time being, I looked up some companies hiring system engineers and went to their job fairs.

At the job fair, they explained that the job was about "working as a team to develop systems for customers." Hearing that, I thought, "I always imagined this job as just sitting in front of a computer all day… but it’s actually about working with teammates to make people happy."

Then another thought came to me,

"If I can do the kind of teamwork and customer-focused work I wanted—while using the programming skills I’ve built as a hobby—that would be amazing."

With that in mind, I applied to several IT companies. Things moved quickly, and I received job offers from two companies. In the end, I chose one of them and started my career there.

After I started working, my boss or coworkers would sometimes say, "You're lucky because your hobby is your job." Whenever I heard that, I felt like saying, "I didn’t choose this job just because it was my hobby!" I think it’s because of everything I went through before getting here.