Ideal Employee depicts the rough transition a lot of people experience when moving from school to work. I definitely struggled with this. These days, they call it the quarter-life crisis. You have to shift all of your habits and essentially learn to be a new person. Enjoy staying out all night drinking and talking to friends? Only on weekends if you have the energy. Like sleeping in and you’re most productive at night? Too bad, the working world is governed by the tyranny of the morning people. Not feeling like showing up today? We don’t care, just be here.
That said, it’s not all so bad. Earning money is nice. Independence is nice. Learning a trade can be fun. I think it’s all about being willing to change. That, and finding the right job at the right place. I had a difficult time at my first job. They treated their employees like crap (that first boss regularly said things like this), but I also own that I wasn’t willing to change. I’d loved school and I resented having to move on.