Woodworking-Internship

Posted 2025-09-07, Updated 2025-09-10

Aaahhh, I am excited! Tomorrow my new woodworking internship starts.

After acquiring a Bachelor’s in Computer Science and a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering, I am daring to try something completely new.

I have been magically drawn into my grandfather’s woodworking shop since I was a kid, and have done a few projects, whenever I felt like it, but I have never made the connection that this could actually be a possible career path for me. And it’s utterly sad, because I love it so much.

I also love programming (I am good at it), but in my past x internships and career positions in IT, all these things bummed me out…

• Time is crawling.
  • To pass time, other people surf the web, read whatever, watch YouTube, drink coffee, converse with coworkers.
  • To pass time, I drank as much water as possible, so I could go to the bathroom as often as possible. Yup, I was that kid.
• There are higher ups who don’t value code quality at all. It just has to work (and more features, mooooore).
• Meetings, meetings, meetings (could be its own post)
• People who are very competent. On paper.
• Low- or No-impact projects, due to…
  • No specifications
  • No real target group
  • No direction

And in IT, especially in very big organizations, you can spend hundreds of hours on some projects (thousands if you also count the rest of the team), and still never ever release something, just to have the project “paused” and get another important project assigned.

Behold, a Lord and Saviour: The Holy Cabinet

I won’t make a lot of money at the beginning in woodworking. Especially compared to IT! 😭 But a life worth living is worth a lot more than any amount on my bank account.

✨This is something I want to do.✨

2025-09-08: Software Engineers with Imposter Syndrome

And here we go. 🙈

It ain’t much, but it’s honest work

So, I spent a day at a somewhat modern joinery and I noted a few things:

• Time goes by faster than in IT
• Time still won’t go by fast
• I am old and not used to standing
• The creative and artsy woodworker is a myth
• I missed a comfy office chair

It still feels good to actually work on something and get things done.

However, I think that this must also be achievable in the IT-context. A really nice thing about working here is that my coworker actually seems to care and gives feedback. Something always felt off in my professional IT life. I have never had a code review in a professional setting, ever.

Code reviews scare me, and this is a funny paradox, as these two things happen at the same time in my imagination:

• Get code review and totally get shit on!
• Give code review and learn together <3<3<3

I have a hard time receiving feedback. In my point of view, anything less than perfect, is not good enough, and this is setting me up for failure. Nothing will ever be perfect and I know that. It’s just scary, when other people can see it too. And hard to accept.

Oh, today I had a funny thought. We could initiate a self-help group: "Software Engineers with Imposter Syndrome✨". I bet we would find quite a lot of us.

2025-09-09: Work, wtf.

I like to work. I really like to work! My teacher once asked in high school, how many hours everybody could imagine to work per week. I was flabbergasted by my classmates’ answers. All of them were answering higher than 40 hours, most saying something between 45 and 60 hours. My colleagues were astonished as well about my answer. 26 hours, maybe 28 if needed? Of course, I have worked longer hours in my life, especially during civil service, in which 48 hours were mandatory. There’s something deeply demotivating about going home after ~7.5 hours, and the computer telling you that you are missing half an hour today. “You will have to work longer another day to make it up.”, it’s telling you without emotion. It feels like I owe that time tracking machine.

I never understood, why we are paid by the hour and not by performance. Probably a good thing, but still, being a fast or high achieving staff member won’t pay more.

Also, isn’t it weird, that in Austrian law there’s no entitlement to paid breaks? After 6 hours you have to clock out and take a break for 30 minutes. But nobody can tell me they don’t take breaks in these 6 hours! I do. I sit down, have a coffee, stretch, just to be able to keep working. But I feel guilty about it somehow. We are not slaves. And still we are…?

What the fuck is work? And why do all people do it?

Currently, I feel a depression nesting inside of me. If anyone has answers,… like uhh, you know, I could use some. 🥹👉👈 Maybe I’ll have to sit down and have a few very good thinks. 🤔💭

So long! o/

2025-09-10: A failed success - or a successful failure?

Okay, I declare this experiment a success. This experiment was such a success because it failed.

The boss at the internship was joking about how long I could take it working there. He said that for most people coming from an office job background, the work is too tedious and physically demanding. I didn’t believe him. I, the great Kuhlrich, would proof him and everybody else wrong. As I am from the countryside, and also very craftly, nothing could stop me, hurr durr. Look at me, I am doing a woodworking internship. Very cool, so down-to-earth.

My feet hurt.

I am tired.

Exhausted.

I feel bored working there.

Disenchantment

It was clear that an industrial cabinetmaker would be very different from what we image a woodworker to be. Yes, it smells like wood. And yes, there is a lot of wood. But it is loud, and dusty, and you’re working on almost identical pieces of soulless fiberboard, all day. All of them have their surfaces sanded. And their edges. And their corners. And then a router used on the edges. After that the edges are sanded, again. And you do that all day long.

But the same goes, for examples, for modern bakeries. In most cases they are just large factories and the romantic fantasy of the baker turning on the lights at 3 AM in his homely bakehouse is just outdated.

Maybe it’s good, to have woodworking as a hobby.

Results

In the past ~3 years I thought about many different career paths besides software engineering.

Actually considered and tried to get into or applied to positions:

• Clowning (still in training, but it’s only a pastime)
• Artsy woodworking
• Singing instructor and/or music teacher (didn’t get in)
• Field service engineer for healthcare machinery (still considering this)

Maybe in another life:

• Professional speaker for weddings, funerals, etc.
• Film director
• Actor
• Choir or orchestra conductor
• Medical doctor
• Beekeeper (I was a hobby beekeeper when I was 15)
• Hermit in a mountain hut

I realize that just whatever I do, no job will be perfect. Most will be far from perfect. But maybe pick something that sucks the least?

On a side note: I actually like software engineering a lot. I am good at IT. It’s just second nature to me and always has been. To make a worthwhile living, IT will always be the path.

I am still struggling with self-confidence and compare myself to other devs too much.

Also, I was scared that with the new AI craze, demand for skilled IT professionals would decline. Sure, the market for juniors is at an all-time low, but as far as I know the reason for that is not AI but a financial one. I am actually certain that skilled devs will always be sought after. An analogy: There are many machines in the woodworking shop that make work easier, just like AI makes IT work easier. But to actually be effective and provide high quality work, we need master carpenters. You can give them the full suite: CNC-machine, automatic table saws, top-notch power tools. Or you give them a set of old well-used rudimentary hand tools. Either way, they will find ways to achieve great results. Same for IT.

Give monkey AI, monkey will make program.
Give monkey saw, monkey will saw wood.
Why use this saw? Monkey don't know.

Future Work

Learnings for my path ahead

• Being scared is okay, but overcome it → I’m talking about code reviews, feedback, perfectionism and comparing to others
• Look for a great high quality team
• Become self-employed somehow (just do it.)
• Want a financially stable life forever? → Win EuroMillions
• Listen to gut more often
• Blogging is awesome, keep doing it
• If I want to try something, I’ll just try it
• Maybe establish a Software Engineers with Imposter Syndrome™ support group
• Make tier list of saws :3

See you soon!

Yours, Kuhlrich <3