After many years at school and university, it was time for me to enter the job market and start earning some real money. But I found myself in the same Catch-22 (Zwickmühle) as many job starters. Every job I applied for was looking for someone with at least 2 years of experience. But to get this experience, I needed to find a job. Which no one wanted to give me, because I didn’t have any experience…
In English, a „catch“ is like the German „Haken“ – a hidden or tricky negative to a situation. The idiom „Catch-22“ comes from the 1961 Joseph Heller novel of the same name. In this novel (set during World War II), any Air-Force pilot who asks for a mental examination — hoping to be found not fit to fly and escape dangerous missions — demonstrates that he is in fact completely sane and rational, because he has shown that he doesn’t want to risk his life. In other words, trying to avoid danger by asking to be found not mentally fit to fly, proves that the pilots are mentally fit to fly.