I listened to the first audio book. It consists entirely of descriptions of the main character making coffee and hawking belt buckles. It is pretty tedious, maybe a more optimistic version of something like the game cart life

Imagine getting a Steward's Assistant ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward%27s_assistant ) position on a cargo ship... something like https://recruiting.paylocity.com/Recruiting/Jobs/Details/246... (granted, that one is likely only out for days rather than weeks or months) ... and if you've got that job, its much less interesting than the things that can happen when you're working engineering... or deck... or become an officer on deck.

Yes, being a steward on a ship that has a few months between port of call is tedious... but you don't start out as a captain with the interesting things happening. You've got to work your way up the ladder and he started out on the bottom rung. Ship's Steward | Life at Sea | https://youtu.be/U02ndHzJGic as a book.

One of the things about the series though... there's no grand military conflict going on. There's no fighting aliens or heroic space marines. It's (initially) the story of a young man getting his family suddenly pulled away from him and thrown into the Deep Dark as he searches for his place. Not actively... though he gets that advice too. There's also a component of needing to take an active role in making life decisions compared to letting life drag you along (things tend to go less well for Ishmael when he lets life pull him).

Book 1:

    “Look in your handbook, young Ishmael, and consider that your feet are already on a path. It might be wiser to select a branch before one is thrust upon you by circumstance.” With that, he strolled out of the galley.

    His knowing look told me he remembered his own advice to me in the mess deck of the Lois. To choose a path before I found myself on one that I hadn’t chosen. “You once told me that I should consider that I’m on the path I’m supposed to be on.”

Books 4, 5, and 6 (Double Share, Captain's Share, Owner's Share) have much more going on with the decisions (and are likely more relatable as someone closer in age) than the equivalent of a day in the life of a unskilled 20 something... but the day in the life of the unskilled 20 something sets the foundations for how the decisions (and problems) of the man he becomes are dealt with.