For Ellie, work is not everything in life. When her career as a freelancer no longer makes her happy, she decides to give it all up and work in a café – and she doesn’t regret anything.
More and more young people are putting their emotional satisfaction above professional success and refusing to conform to the traditional work culture. One example is Ellie Kate, a 22-year-old Australian. She gave up her job in online marketing for the sake of her mental health to work as a barista in a coffee shop.
The 22-year-old, who has reportedly been working since she was fourteen, dropped out of college to work as a freelancer for a social media and marketing company.
After three years, she started her own business in the same industry. While she saw others on social media who were very successful with similar companies, she increasingly began to suffer from the heavy workload and the twelve-hour working days. Ellie hardly had any time for friends and family.
She quickly realised that there had to be another way for her to be “successful and happy” outside of her career, she told Yahoo Finance. Her job should no longer be her “entire identity”.
That’s why she decided to give up her marketing career and work in a café instead. Now her day starts very early at 4:30 a.m., but she finishes work by 2 p.m. at the latest. This gives her her “mental energy” back, reports the New York Post. She hasn’t regretted this step for a second, as she also reports in a video on TikTok.
In the video, the young woman is cheerfully putting on makeup in front of a mirror. She captioned it: “How I get ready for my job as a barista because the world didn’t end when I realized that my job doesn’t have to be my entire identity and that I can be successful according to my own definition, regardless of what society or my job title says.”
The video has now been viewed, shared and commented on by over 700,000 people. The Australian is receiving a lot of support for her drastic career change.
One user writes: “I did the same thing when I was 26 and never looked back. Now I’m 32 and I work in a bakery and I love it.” Other users who seem to be in a similar situation to Ellie comment: “This is exactly what I needed to see.”
Another user reports: “I love marketing but now work part-time at an airline because I didn’t enjoy working full-time. I wanted to focus on my hobbies rather than being trapped in a 9-to-5 job.”
After her shift, she shares another video of herself laughing in the car. She captioned it: “I can feel my glow returning.”
There is a lot of support for this too. Comments include: “I’m so happy for you, my angel”, “you’re living your best life and I admire you for it” or “that’s the best feeling”.
Ellie is not the first member of Gen Z to decide against the traditional working day. Juliana also finds a 40-hour week “unbearable”. In her eyes, the possibility of working from home has changed everything.
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