What was Franz Kafka's "day job?"

On 1 November 1907, Kafka was hired at the Assicurazioni Generali, an Italian insurance company, where he worked for nearly a year. His correspondence during that period indicates that he was unhappy with a working time schedule—from 08:00 until 18:00—making it extremely difficult to concentrate on writing, which was assuming increasing importance to him. He found employment more amenable to writing when he joined the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. The job involved investigating and assessing compensation for personal injury to industrial workers; accidents such as lost fingers or limbs were commonplace at this time. His father often referred to his son's job as an insurance officer as a Brotberuf, literally "bread job", a job done only to pay the bills; Kafka often claimed to despise it. Kafka was rapidly promoted and his duties included processing and investigating compensation claims, writing reports, and handling appeals from businessmen who thought their firms had been placed in too high a risk category. He compiled annual reports for several years. Kafka usually got off work at 2 p.m., so that he had time to spend on his literary work, to which he was committed. Kafka's father also expected him to help out at and take over the family fancy goods store. In his later years, Kafka's illness often prevented him from working at the insurance bureau and at his writing.