My wife fell into the same trap…
She wanted sooooo badly to say she “worked for Apple” and got hired by a contractor called ACS doing Apple Care support.
She knuckled down, got her certifications, got promoted to tier 2 tech support… and was making $10 an hour. This was in like 2010.
I was like “Ohhhh… nononono no. Tier 2 + certs? I was making $20 an hour in 1996 as Tier 1 with zero certs.”
ACS was a totally abusive relationship. So glad she got out.
This is in every industry. It’s most companies wet dream to be able to convince their employees that working there is a “dream job”.
Yeah, I worked a job for a sports team. (Hmm… Which one?) I was an intern, and working my dream job. Everyone I was working with was passionate about a career in professional sports, but made like $10/hr. Unless you get to the top, people working that job make next to nothing. It would have been cool to make a career out of it, but the money just wasn’t there after talking to people who’d been there a few years.
