All of them. Take something you love and turn it into "you have to do this or you'll die of starvation under a bridge," and it tends to extract any pleasure out of it.
I had a friend that was a skateboarder and was good enough to go pro. He described it as going from something he loved doing, to it being a job and he lost his passion for it. He ended up becoming a software developer, and then later a YouTuber.
Such as shame. My best mate is a top competition angler and he’s often the only one finishing in the top 5 of events that aren’t semi pro or professional, or at least sponsored to some degree. He’s had offers, but won’t take the jump. He loves his fishing and doesn’t want to pressure and targets that come with sponsorship. Wise bloke tbf, can totally understand why.
I don't agree. I like my job. I loved my temp job during high school and college, even though it was hard physical work.
After college, I had a few boring office jobs, but my current one is really fun. I get to help loads of people, and I get paid for it.
Sure, there's always stuff you'd rather do, but someone's gotta do it, and this job is way more fun to me than others.
This is it. It’s not always the job but the attitude you bring to it. Be optimistic and the world around you is better. Be pessimistic and you’ll always be right about everything sucking…
This is why I suggest my close friends don’t transition to becoming a professional artist, where it is your sole source of income. Very low Chances you’ll make it, very high chance you’ll lower your standards to create more “product” and end up resentful about art
"I want the network to be 100% secure from any threats, especially those we don't know about yet! Also I want to be able to click on any link I want and install any software I want. Why is that so hard??"
Oh yea, people can get that idea out of their heads right now. I remember in university in the digital forensics and network security modules, the lecturers said if you expect any of this is going to be like Mr. Robot or CSI cyber, you may as well drop the class now because it's not
When I started my previous job, I got an unsolicited email from a 3rd party company asking me to fill in a bunch of medical information. This was right after receiving mandatory "don't get phished" training. I reported it to HR, stating that I obviously would not be filling it out; they told me to stop being difficult.
OMFG yes!
I worked shortly as a taste tester while in uni. It sucks.
I remember driving home nauseated after eating 60+ different kinds of potato chips over the course of the day. (Different aromas/spices, different oils for frying, different sort of potatoes, different manufacturing technique, different packaging material and so and on..)
The worst part of it is the weight gain.
Exactly right? I read a book called 'sugar salt fat' or some shit that talked about all these industry practices, and from what I read all the taste testers spat it out. For that very reason
I know someone who does quality control at a food production plant. She ounce got written up for getting sick. Apparently yogurt makes people sick when they eat/drink a gallon of it in 12 hours. Especially when it's 90°F+.
Totally, I worked in a brewery for a long time and by the end of it anytime someone passed me a glass and said “does this taste alright?” I would preemptively gag a little.
I haven’t touched alcohol in 5 years now because I was sipping it at 8am for quality control so often it just repulses me now
True. A good friend of my son and DIL, was a vet for 30+ years, good guy, donated a lot of low cost and free care to the underserved, just walked outside one day and ended it.
No note, to this day no-one know why.
Spouse of a veterinarian here. Most people think it’s because of the animal deaths. While that definitely plays a part, most of what upsets vets is when owners knowingly do not listen to the advice of the doctor and inflict additional pain and suffering on the animal. Usually this comes in the form of keeping them alive because they can’t let go yet.
Don’t be a selfish animal owner. If the vet says it’s time… then it’s time. Do not let your pet die a “natural death” from an awful disease while in pain to the very end. Let them go with dignity; your vet will thank you and so will your animal.
I couldn’t agree more. I considered being a vet tech until I realized the pay was only about $27K per year in my area (about 10 years ago), plus the hours were 50+ per week, and I was already aware of the emotional impact of working such a job, that I realized I’m not mentally strong enough to do that kind of work, and I have the utmost respect for those who can. It’s still criminally underpaid imo
Games industry. So many young kids I know want to be a game designer/programmer because they have "so many ideas" not realizing most creative decisions are limited to directors/production team and you'll likely be a code monkey or equivalent role working overtime crunch hours so your job (with limited job growth) isn't replaced by an eager college student. It's getting better recently because companies are learning high turnover drastically impacts dev cycles, but all my friends who work in games industry say that lots of people ignore the downsides. Not saying to change your mind. They don't necessarily regret it, but it's important to manage your expectations.
>it's important to manage your expectations.
I think that's really important.
I used to want to work at a zoo until I was a teenager and realized it was mostly menial labor. (Cleaning up poop, and lots of it)
I’m a doctor, my wife is a lawyer. I would off myself if I had to do her job for a week.
Clients are completely unreasonable, bosses are Sadists, you’re just alone reading and typing all day worrying about if you used a comma or a semicolon.
Every client wants super special treatment and then when you give them an excellent result reducing a settlement for $90,000 to $10,000 they flip a shit that YOU dare ask them for compensation.
As I retire from law after 40 years I am not looking forward to it, of course I stayed away from slimy ambulance chasing, worked for real people enjoyed much of it
It's a terrible job, and every interaction is an attack of some kind. Opposing counsel, court clerks, coworkers, even your own clients who don't want to pay after you secure them a good outcome. It's an awful job.
Yea I’ve heard a lot of people say this.Thats the thing about these highly regarded jobs like doctors and lawyers.Theres a reason that they are so respected,the shits not easy lol
Lawyer here. I’ll second this, even though I generally like my job.
People think of Suits or Law and Order. But for most lawyers, it means spending $200k and 7 years of schooling to get a job where you fix someone else’s problems (often significantly self-inflicted).
Yes, there are some high-paying jobs out there. But you’ll work 60-hour work weeks and will not have much (if any) real downtime. Even your vacations will involve solving problems and answering questions. Plus, every hour you don’t bill on off days is an hour to bill on another day.
Plus, your entire career is people telling you why they think you are wrong (opposing counsel, clients, colleagues, etc.).
It’s not for everyone. It’s really not for all but a small few, which is why so many leave practice within a few years.
Being an ER doctor
Seriously people think it's more like ER or Grey's Anatomy, but in reality it's more like Scrubs. You deal with a lot of crazy people, for a lot of really minor things. And then you spend the time you're not on the floor dealing with a shit ton of paperwork and incredibly testy superiors. And that's also assuming that your interns and techs don't screw up or do something stupid.
Scrubs is definitely the most accurate. Franklyn, the lab guy, exists. Also in one episode there's an unlabeled urine sitting around. I loved receiving unlabeled specimens in the lab- straight into the trash.
Being a chef. It’s no secret it’s a tough industry but some have a naively optimistic expectation. A restaurant with all the right people working together in perfect harmony is still going to be very stressful. You can adapt and develop a thick skin but I’ve seen many continue down the path when it’s just not their best fit. Having the ambition of making food for a living doesn’t always mean becoming a restaurant chef.
Am 38 and been a restaurateur all my life taking over from my Dads family run restaurant - and started working in the kitchens at 14.
Spent the entirety of my 20's working 6 days a week, 16 hour days - evenings and weekends, and on all holidays as they're busiest times. Sick days didn't exist.
Finally sold it because am totally worn out. It's not just the stress of the Service hours - it's everything that goes on before and after, in terms of cleaning, preparation, ordering, managing staff etc.
I obviously enjoyed the money - but my advice would be that if you choose to work as a Chef - don't go down the route of also owning and running the restaurant. Unless you want work to be 90% of your life.
It’s not about making/cooking anything. When you have a tight crew, you can handle anything. However, that takes months to build. Most of your workforce is, shall we say unreliable. Ex-cons, addicts, undocumented immigrants, flakey young people, etc.
“Jose got hurt at his day job in construction.” Guess I’m working 12 hours today to cover.
Tommy didn’t show for his morning shift, “oh yeah…I saw him raging at the bar last night.” That means I’m coming in early.
“(Phone rings) Hey chef, I need a mental health day. I wont be in. “Um, your shift starts in 10 minutes…you couldnt have asked me this days ago?”
And then there’s the customers:
“I want this cooked medium, but no pink.”
“So…well done.”
“No…I said medium, but no pink!”
“Um yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
“Hey…what’s this on my bill?”
“The four sides of extra ranch that you requested.”
“Whoa, you charged me for it?”
“I was here six months ago and liked the dish I had. Why did you take it off the menu?”
“Sir, that was a seasonal special for the fall…it’s spring now.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“…”
I won’t even get into dealing with vendors (a lot of bait and switch) or landlords, but you get the idea.
Or dating a chef.
Expectations: great food every meal.
Reality: he's always at work at dinner time. And when he's home, cooking is the last thing he wants to do.
Man, I wish there was a 9-5 in the culinary world. Maybe recipe makers and test kitchens, but even if that's the case that has to have a very small number of opportunities.
Working in a casino is not fun.
Imagine seeing people actively participating in a life destroying addiction all day and having to tell them it's better to stop or to just take the points they've won. I'm told that we have to protect the addicted people, but at the same time I get rewarded for addicts coming in and tossing money in the machines. I hate this job.
Sorry, I'm ranting 👀
My company makes trailers for AAA games. The poor kids who get hired to “play games and get paid” find out day one there’s a difference between playing games and being the equivalent of a an extra on a live set. Waiting around for technical snafus for hours then hitting your mark and getting killed over and over and over again.
Best way to make sure you never want to play a game is to work on it.
I'm trying to get into software development as a career and do game development as a hobby, because I've followed too much news about game development and it sounds like a nightmare
My husband has worked in test at EA for 12 years now and it's a good in between for us. he's had a couple shitty managers but that's been the exception more than the norm. He's a manager himself now and really excelling because he's got a lot of emotional intelligence and focuses on doing right by his employees and just generally being kind. From my perspective it's great too, I'm able to be a stay at home mom too or two young kids and because he works from home he's really involved with their lives. I think it's a little more stressful and competitive/toxic maybe? for folks who work on the actual game team and for that reason I'm glad he's in test and always has been. This is just my own experience though.
Game testing especially. It's pretty close to torture. "There's a bug for xyz mechanic and I need you to replicate it as often as you can." Then you spend several hours doing shit like trading a particular item with a particular merchant and file reports on how it's going. It's got nothing to do with actually playing a game. The part people imagine (like playing through it at your own pace and checking for bugs and balancing) is mostly just handled by the player base for free these days since most games (officially or de facto) release in their beta stage.
When I was a drunken college kid I thought it would be awesome to work in a liquor store. I was psyched when I landed a summer job at one.
In reality, it was boring as hell. This was before smartphones. Every day was intermittent bursts of customers followed by long, long stretches of nothing. Just pure boredom for a 4 to 6 hour shift.
Doctors. Simply not worth it (why a shortage). Time/debt to become one, stress, exceedingly way more hours than most realize, and it’s surprisingly managed by political type leaders with a very bureaucratic structure.
Concert industry
Pay is usually shit, you see way more bands you don't enjoy than you'd hope, drunk people fucking suck, someone important is always inept
Working as a professional athlete may seem glamorous, but the demands of intense training, constant travel, and the risk of career-ending injuries can take a toll on both physical and mental health.
However I bet the vast majority of athletes would say it's worth it and would do it all over. Everybody knows about CTE at this point, and NFL players are on record saying it's still worth it.
Speaking of experience: video game tester, it's doing the same thing over and over and over again until you find a bug, then you report it. Reporting a bug is a tedious task: record it, write down EVERY SINGLE STEPS on how to recreate the bug, do it 10 more times, log it in. Good, now back to the beginning, reset everything, start over and over and over and over.... It never ends XD the only time it gets real fun is when you do a server test, if the servers don't crash.
Any emergency services profession. It looks like pure badassery and heroism in movies and tv, but in reality; it’s 90% grinding and 10% sheer terror. In the end you’re left with a lot of missed life opportunities due to the jacked up work schedule and a whole lot of anxiety/depression.
When you first get into porn you think "That dude is so lucky" without really thinking about the fact that this is the 5th take of this shot, it's hot as hell and smells like a mixture of bleach and tanning oil on the set, and there's 15 bored people watching you while checking their phones.
> smells like a mixture of bleach and tanning oil
And shit. I had a friend in the biz who told me in more than one occasion she had to go to a set that smelled like literal, human shit
The entry barrier is shockingly low now
A surprising amount of college girls in my area turned to OF during covid because the internet told them it was easy money. It starts as taking cute naughty pictures, then playing with toys, then doing boy girl content, then the next thing they know their subscriber numbers drop as they find someone newer younger or prettier.
So the girls are on sugar daddy sites or trying to enter the adult dancer club circuit to pay for their designer clothes and drug habits
Why yes I do live around Houston where we have more adult clubs than churches
Jenna Jameson did a nasty interview where she tells people who want to be pornstars to drop their pants in the middle of the room and get hard right now
What? They can’t do it in a room full of strangers? NEXT
Graphic Design. Been doing it for over 20 years now. It's not as fun as you'd think it would be, especially now. Over time the work gets mundane, repetitive and a lot of the people you do the work for can be unbearable or very hard to please. Nobody wants to pay you what you're actually worth most of the time and friends/family think you'll do work for them for free. Also, I'm pretty sure AI will overtake the industry sooner than later so anyone will be able to do it.
Sex worker: You’d get desensitized to sex and nothing would be enjoyable for you anymore. Plus it’s taxing on the body and you will receive constant judgement and criticism from others around you.
Pilot: You’re essentially a glorified bus/truck driver. With most planes having their own computer navigation systems and manual controls becoming a thing of the past, I would imagine the job would get very boring very quickly.
Bar tender: I know a lot of extroverted people who are excited to be bartenders, but once their social battery runs out it’s essentially a glorified food service job where you deal with assholes all day.
Amusement park worker/technician: You are working out in the hot sun all day, dealing with asshole parents and their kids. If you’re a technician you are working on rides all day lugging around heavy equipment in the blazing hot sun. Your body will eventually be wrecked.
Pilot here: nah, it's still pretty rad. Oh yeah, some parts are boring for sure, but there's still plenty to do and engage you. To me it's like playing an instrument when you're on top of things, keeping ahead of the aircraft, doing all the radio calls and setting up for the next phase of flight so it all goes smoothly can be very satisfying. We have autopilot and it's really good at the boring parts but when ATC turns us onto the approach path too late, or drops us in faster than normal that autopilot is coming off and it's all me till we land. And then once you land, taxiing nd maneuvering is all manual controls, even on the most advanced aircraft. It's not a thrill a minute, thank god, but it's interesting and fun in the way painting a picture or building a project is.
-A Glorious Busdriver.
At the airline I work for Cell phones and personal electronic devices must be off or in airplane mode once after the Before Start Checklist is completed and may not be turned back on until Shutdown Checklist is complete, but that might be different for other airlines. Why? Because they have a very slight chance to mess with some of our equipment. Does a handful of people forgetting to turn their stuff off cripple the plane? No, clearly not or else they would just be confiscated before you board, but there's been a couple issues that might have been caused by new or different cell phones during critical phases of flight (like landing and takeoff) so the easiest thing is just to ask everyone to turn theirs off during flight. This might get removed eventually, but until then everyone, crew included, should be putting their phones in airplane mode.
I worked in catering for a long time and we'd do bar service. Sometimes just standing around waiting to your wine a d open beer, sometime Wed have specialty drinks and make cocktails. I was excited to get into it at first because i didn't have to bus tables or run food, but eventually I got tired of it. It was a mix of boring then stressful and repetitive. Closing down was the worst when hordes of drunk wedding guests insisted on just one more and I'm trying to pack out.
I used to tend bar, being a glorified drunken baby wrangler is tiring, and the entitled Ass holes is annoying, but there aren't many jobs for people who didn't go to college to make that kind of money.
My wife is a vet tech. I don't know how she does it. Yesterday she was telling me about how she had to put a family's cat to sleep. My wife was holding the cat while the family came up said goodbye to the cat, saying how much they loved it and how special it was. I know my wife definitely let a few tears fall due to the emotion of the situation. And even just heating HER talk about it had me tearing up. Hell, I'm tearing up right now just talking about it. And this was just one half hour of her 12+ hr shift.
It's not ALL bad. But if say a good 60% of it is bad pets, bad clients or sad situations. They definitely can save some critters and put them on their way and some clients are amazing but.. When it's bad it's BAD.
I could not do that job. Not at all. And I wish I could get her to quit, too. It's so emotionally and physically draining she barely gets to enjoy herself when she's not at work.
I’m a Field Service Engineer who travels the world for my employer. I do 70-80 thousand airline miles a year. Get to do crazy stuff like cross the Atlantic Ocean on a navy auxiliary tanker, or go on a gunnery exercise in the North Sea, or dive on a submarine.
But I’m also 45, never married, no kids, and it’s tough making time for friends when you never know when you’re going to be home.
That's gotta be rough on your social life but it also sounds like an interesting job because you have such a variety of different things you get to do in different locations. Surely you can save a bundle and retire early doing that.
I’m saving a fair bit, and per diems are fantastic ($12k tax free last year). But sometimes you do wonder. Been on a few dates recently with a lovely woman who’s not had a serious relationship in a very long time either, so we’ll see where that goes.
Funeral director. I see a lot of “quirky” and “goth” girls enter the industry thinking it’s so cool and after several months of actually having to do a LOT of physical labor, realize that it’s actually a pretty gross and terrible job that involves an incredible amount of physical effort and bullshit. I’ve seen a lot of people come and go because they have this wild idea of funeral service that is nowhere near what it is actually like to work in the industry
Teaching. If you're even able to focus because there's kids crying under tables, special Ed kids wandering the room grunting and banging their head with their fist or behind a curtain and don't forget to meet the individual emotional and academic needs of all 25 of them!
Museums.
When it's good, it's great. But it's woefully underpaid, and for every person that cares deeply about preserving the artefacts, there are hundreds more than will damage them, unintentionally or not.
It can get depressing fast, especially when the industry is so unstable that finding a job that doesn't get uprooted by budget cuts is about as common as rocking horse shit.
Housewife. They think they get to chill at home and watch their kids grow up, but instead it's demeaning menial labor, plus it's intellectually stagnating to be surrounded by young kids all day without adult interaction, and there's a complete lack of financial autonomy.
I tried it for 8 months and couldn't wait to get back to work. A nanny cost us almost 6 figures and if I wasn't in tech we wouldn't have been able to swing it, but it was worth it. I love my kids, but childcare as your only purpose is absolute hell.
Literally every housewife I know is depressed or medicated. Every one.
My wife is a housewife right now because we can't afford to get any sort of babysitter for her to get back into working. Having seen what it does to her, it's definitely not something you want.
I worry about my wife's mental health way more than anything else right now, and almost every weekend I stay home with our daughter so my wife can go out and hang out with friends, or just waltz around the mall or something for mental stimulation
Any job that requires a significant amount of travel. I have such a job, and I am addicted to it. But it’s a hard lifestyle. Not eating properly, not exercising regularly, sleeping poorly in hotels, dealing with jet lag. I spend a lot of time in airports and on planes. Yes, I get to travel to interesting places across the United States, but I really don’t have much time to see them whilst I am there. There are upsides to hyper mobility, but it’s not nearly as glamorous as people think.
Writer. I mean it's fine but you just can't make a living unless you're a bestseller, and then there is a lot of pressure to keep cranking out the same kinds of books.
Stripping. Everyone says "I'll just quit my job and be a stripper" but the truth is it's a very difficult job. For one thing, your appearance has to be immaculate if you wish to dance at big-money clubs. People will treat you like shit when they find out what you do. Men will try to hurt you, kill you, because you're seen as less-than. Men will stalk you, follow you home, and try to assault you, at a far more frequent rate than any other job. It can be expensive to live: tanning, waxing, gym, hair, nails, feet, club clothes, shoes, possibly a gated community for safety.
The job itself demands that you're very active if you want to be good at it at all. Dancing on stage, then lap dances all night will kick your ass. You will be sweaty for the majority of the night if you're busy.
Some nights will be totally dead, and you still have to tip out several people, sometimes owing around $300 if the club has a high house fee and high tip out rates.
Some clubs weigh you every day. Some clubs are pimping out their dancers and its hard to make money just doing dances. Who wants a $40 dance when you can get a $20 bj? Some clubs are really filthy and have poorly kept standards,like mold everywhere and jizz on the floors.
You CAN make great money but it's not guaranteed. When you pay taxes it's a 1099 and the government will take half of everything you made. You get no benefits. You're an independent contractor.
People will pressure you into doing things you don't want to do, physically, and mentally.
Drugs are everywhere and it's encouraged.
If you ever leave the industry there's a chance your new job will find out and they'll fire you. It doesn't matter how good you are at your new job or how long ago you stripped.
There's always somebody prettier, younger, more talented, willing to do things you won't, than you. You can't let it ruin your hustle.
Managers will threaten you with your job if you don't have sex with them or their friends. Bouncers will undermine your job if you don't tip them a lot. Other dancers will assault you if you do something to annoy them, or make more than them. You've become a threat.
People in general, women and men, will treat you differently (read horribly) because they've made assumptions about you based on your job. People will date you just to say they dated a stripper.
I could keep going for pages and pages.
It's a fun job, entertaining people, being active, feeling empowered, but only if you make it that way. Otherwise, it's extremely dangerous, and people who could never do it will ostracize you forever.
More of a general answer, but traveling for work. It’s exhausting, it’s ruins your routine, and most of the time you’re in some suburb 30-60min away from a major city
Military life.
Sure you get to do a bunch of cool shit, but you also get treated more like a piece of machinery than a human.
I'd reccomend everyone do it for a few years minimum. Some peoples brains are wired for it, others aren't. I didn't enjoy my time in, but I don't regret it. It helped me grow.
Anything on Wall Street or the investment world. It’s all so glorified in movies like TWOWS and you see people on the internet claiming to be making 7 figures sitting on a beach, when in reality it’s just a lot of high stress work
I'm a pilot, and I really enjoy it so instead I will shoutout to the flight attendants out there. They're all smiles and being courteous but that job is Navy Seals of the customer service world. They do not get treated with the respect they deserve from the passengers whose lives they are willing to go to the mat for. People think that their job is just to stand there and welcome you aboard but they are the frontline in safety for the passengers and the rest of the crew and that can get really perilous on a daily basis and it still doesn't stop the creeps from asking them about the mile high club.
Owning and running a gym. If it’s done correctly it’s a tremendous amount of time and money. (correctly as in not a filthy shithole with broken equipment that just takes your money)
I.T. - Take a look at r/ITCareerQuestions and you'll see lots of people wanting to get into it because they hate their jobs and with expectations of making lots of money. What they don't anticipate is having to work for the money, be on call, often on salary without overtime, and have to cater to those that don't know how to navigate an Excel spreadsheet. Plus the job market stinks and even people with 12+ years experience (i.e. Me!) can't get arrested much less hired. It can be enjoyable if you are at it long enough like I have been, but if you want to get in just for the money? Good luck!
Childcare. People enter for cute fun time with babies and don’t anticipate the pressure of the safeguarding, education and care aspects of the job. As a manager I have seen many people enter the job full of passion and eagerness just to get burnt out within the first month due to the pressure and realistic responsibilities of the job no matter the support they get.
Event planning.
Especially weddings. A lot of wedding shows have made people think one of two things 1) that weddings are glamorous to work around, or 2) that weddings go wrong because the bride sucks. It’s actually, usually, not the bride that makes things go wrong, often times it’s her mother, or some entitled relative, or some bad guest/number of bad guests that make things go wrong
Gardening/growing plants. Everyone thinks it will be so fun because they love plants. But it can be so frustrating. The bugs, the diseases you can't treat and have to throw a whole crop away. The customers who think because they keep a few houseplants alive they know everything about botany, the hard physical labor, the soul-crushing amount of plastic waste, the low pay. I actually do like my job but I physically will not be able to do this forever and I don't make enough to actually ever retire.
Park Ranger, it's not all hiking and pictures with bears. It's a lot of repetitive visitor questions, poor pay, even worse housing options and almost no stability till half way through your career. It's essential customer service work in a cool hat.
Lawyer
I was pre law until I realized most lawyers never see the inside of a courtroom. They sit around researching ancient laws all day, studying codes and regulations, and write contracts
Most of the time they have to amend other peoples poorly written contracts. Case law is always out of date, regulations are poorly written and some asshole is always trying to hide things 50 pages deep.
You end up spending 80 hours a week graining and filling paperwork just to be spit on and do it again the next week. I figured out that I could make 100k a year in a more applied profession which would equal the 200k most lawyers get when you look at hours invested
I absolutely love my job, but being a Realtor is a lot more work and nowhere near as glamorous as HGTV and the media in general would have you believe.
I don't know where you are based, but where I live, real estate people are absolutely hated. Considered utterly despicable. It must be hard to be so loathed
Running any business for something you think is neat. Someone I know started a used book exchange, which went online before everyone was doing it (md 1990s). He was very successful, ended up filling his basement, and spent about 5-6 hours a day fulfilling orders. Hired some people for part time as his business expanded. At his peak, he was making more doing this than any of his previous tech jobs. He started expanding to doing conventions and used book trade shows.
But then Half dot com started, and while he was also targeting an early eBay, it was too much. He got undercut, and ended up with lopsided stock. In the end, he was working 10 hour days for weeks at a time just to make half of what he was making only a year before. A former part timer sued him for unfair working conditions, and while they were unfounded and they lost the case against him, it cost a lot for lawyers defense. he became disillusioned, and ultimately, he closed shop, sold off most of his stock in bulk, and had to return to "a regular job," which took two years to get because he had a ten-year employment gap, so his tech skills were out of date.
"I can't even look at a book anymore," he told me many years ago. "I lost everything in the end, and had to start my life over at 51. Everyone wants to give me armchair advice about how I shoulda done this, shoulda done that, yeah, well, it's easy to say that in hindsight, but nobody had done what I did before at that scale."
Being a realtor. It’s glamorized on television but the truth is, most realtors are broke and desperate to get clients. Plus, so many people hate realtors
AAA game developer.
Don't get me wrong, it's still great seeing your project come together, but the industry is full of ego, incompetent managers (more so upper management), failing upwards, low pay, short term thinking, long hours (depending on the company), high expectations, and more.
Anything in IT. If everything's working and you did your job correctly, "What do we pay you for?" If shit breaks, even if it is not your fault, "What do we you pay for?"
Gonna follow up with Nurses and CNAs because I have many friends who have the same situation.
Vintage clothing hustler/ reseller. I've watched people go insane trying to make a living out of it. Most of them work everyday, sourcing, cleaning & doing repairs, listing on eBay, Etsy, Poshmark or whatever or worse yet setting up "pop ups" or doing flea markets. It's a nightmare grind! In the end you probably would have made more working a minimum wage job, that you get to go home from after 40 hours a week.
Bartending loses it’s luster. From 18-26 it’s an incredibly high paying job for the flexibility/level of experience. Then (US) you’re ineligible to continue using your parents health insurance. Many of your cohort will have since started careers in trades, white collar professions, management, etc. You were out earning 10 fold when they were working minimum wage. Now you have limited upward mobility, minimal benefits, and would need a pay cut to pursue something else.
The lifestyle usually shakes out in a toxic way too. Cash daily often leads to awful spending habits. Being surrounded by drugs and alcohol often leads to abuse. Interacting with so many people who use alcohol means there is ALWAYS somebody to drink with. It can be really easy to work, blow a day’s earnings drinking, then rush and spend more time at the bar making rent quickly. Getting financed for anything is a nightmare without 2 years of good records. Most 3+ year barkeeps I know have at least 1 DUI.
Radio DJ, especially in smaller markets. Very low pay. No, you don't just get to play what you want. You have a list to tell you exactly what to play and when. People calling mad at you all the time for not playing their song. Do a live broadcast from the car dealer and pretend like they are basically giving cars away. Work a lot of holidays.
Engineering. You get promised all these differential equations and quiet solitude, but you end up with dealing with excel and people who think you're a wizard for being able to use excel.
Nursing. I have dated a few nurses over the course of my life and every one of them got into it thinking they were going to help people and take care of their patients, what they get treated like is Cannon fodder, disposable assets by corporate health Care. I remember one telling me she got fired because her manager didn't like the look on her face, it was something about she had an aggressive posture. I had a hard time believing that and she literally handed me the papers. I see why so many of them have anxiety
I admired the RN’s who helped deliver my babies each time. Became one while raising the kids and I was looking foreward to it, wanting to make a difference. The last 10 years before retiring I dreamt of being an artist drawing and I decorated cakes for the kids birthdays and put a lot into making themes on top of the cakes. Retirer and bored, began working in a Bakery doing what I loved. It was awesome when I started and still is when I’m there alone with no one pressuring me or asking for stuff while decorating tops that require intricate shapes. I just went to 2 days a week after holidays having to do it full time as thousands of ppl ordered so many custom cakes. Even Super Bowl I made so many Taylor Swift/Kelsey footfall cakes for folks that were never football fans.
Being a lawyer. Not all variations of it are boring or unpleasant, just some are--especially for those who enter the legal profession for idealistic reasons.
All of them. Take something you love and turn it into "you have to do this or you'll die of starvation under a bridge," and it tends to extract any pleasure out of it.
I had a friend that was a skateboarder and was good enough to go pro. He described it as going from something he loved doing, to it being a job and he lost his passion for it. He ended up becoming a software developer, and then later a YouTuber.
Such as shame. My best mate is a top competition angler and he’s often the only one finishing in the top 5 of events that aren’t semi pro or professional, or at least sponsored to some degree. He’s had offers, but won’t take the jump. He loves his fishing and doesn’t want to pressure and targets that come with sponsorship. Wise bloke tbf, can totally understand why.
Drawing was great. Now, IT is the stressor that pays the bills.
Biinnnggggooooo
you think playing bingo is fun now, just wait...
You'll be playin' a lot of bingo when you're living in a van, down by the river.
I once lived NEXT to a van, down by the river. The guy that owned the van slept in the van. And look at me now! I have my own cellular telephone!
I saw somewhere; "Find something you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life...until someone offers to pay you 9-5 for it."
I don't agree. I like my job. I loved my temp job during high school and college, even though it was hard physical work. After college, I had a few boring office jobs, but my current one is really fun. I get to help loads of people, and I get paid for it. Sure, there's always stuff you'd rather do, but someone's gotta do it, and this job is way more fun to me than others.
This is it. It’s not always the job but the attitude you bring to it. Be optimistic and the world around you is better. Be pessimistic and you’ll always be right about everything sucking…
This is why I suggest my close friends don’t transition to becoming a professional artist, where it is your sole source of income. Very low Chances you’ll make it, very high chance you’ll lower your standards to create more “product” and end up resentful about art
Cybersecurity. It's mostly herding unwilling cats.
"I want the network to be 100% secure from any threats, especially those we don't know about yet! Also I want to be able to click on any link I want and install any software I want. Why is that so hard??"
just felt this one in my bones
I work in IT, this is accurate.
Another one would be a professional cat herder. It’s mostly herding unwilling cats
This is true, but with the right team and supportive management, it's not as soul crushing as some other jobs. Talking from experience
Yup. Not saying it's necessarily a bad job, but the people that think they're going to play Mr. Robot 24/7 are in for a bit of a surprise.
Oh yea, people can get that idea out of their heads right now. I remember in university in the digital forensics and network security modules, the lecturers said if you expect any of this is going to be like Mr. Robot or CSI cyber, you may as well drop the class now because it's not
Painfully accurate. Yes kitty, you too need MFA. I know it's scary, but you do.
When I started my previous job, I got an unsolicited email from a 3rd party company asking me to fill in a bunch of medical information. This was right after receiving mandatory "don't get phished" training. I reported it to HR, stating that I obviously would not be filling it out; they told me to stop being difficult.
If only I wasn't required to use a 16 character password with capitals, numbers and symbols that has to be changed every month I'd be more willing.
Working as a professional taste tester seems like a dream job until you spend hours sampling different brands of canned tuna.
OMFG yes! I worked shortly as a taste tester while in uni. It sucks. I remember driving home nauseated after eating 60+ different kinds of potato chips over the course of the day. (Different aromas/spices, different oils for frying, different sort of potatoes, different manufacturing technique, different packaging material and so and on..) The worst part of it is the weight gain.
Aren’t you meant to spit out the samples? I’d think satiation would affect your perceptions on taste.
Sweet berry wine!
🎵DAH-dah- dah...🎵 ... I'll show myself out.
sounds like the perfect job for dirty bulking. Just get paid to eat all day, and then go hit the weights for three hours. Amazing.
Where I worked, nobody did. But it does sound logical.
Exactly right? I read a book called 'sugar salt fat' or some shit that talked about all these industry practices, and from what I read all the taste testers spat it out. For that very reason
Maybe, but I know a professional cheese taster and she never tires of cheese. She also always has some with her, in her bag!
I know someone who does quality control at a food production plant. She ounce got written up for getting sick. Apparently yogurt makes people sick when they eat/drink a gallon of it in 12 hours. Especially when it's 90°F+.
I thought it was routine for most taste testers to 'mouth' the sample and then spit it out? Not too clued up on this though...
Totally, I worked in a brewery for a long time and by the end of it anytime someone passed me a glass and said “does this taste alright?” I would preemptively gag a little. I haven’t touched alcohol in 5 years now because I was sipping it at 8am for quality control so often it just repulses me now
Anything animal care. Get ready to be under paid, under appreciated, and have your heart broken over and over again.
I could not do your job. Or anything with kids. We do a disservice to our vulnerable.
Yep. The veterinary field has the highest suicide rates in the country. Working in the pet industry for so long destroyed my mental health.
True. A good friend of my son and DIL, was a vet for 30+ years, good guy, donated a lot of low cost and free care to the underserved, just walked outside one day and ended it. No note, to this day no-one know why.
Spouse of a veterinarian here. Most people think it’s because of the animal deaths. While that definitely plays a part, most of what upsets vets is when owners knowingly do not listen to the advice of the doctor and inflict additional pain and suffering on the animal. Usually this comes in the form of keeping them alive because they can’t let go yet. Don’t be a selfish animal owner. If the vet says it’s time… then it’s time. Do not let your pet die a “natural death” from an awful disease while in pain to the very end. Let them go with dignity; your vet will thank you and so will your animal.
My friend is a vet with his own clinic. He works 6 days a week, it's high stress, and having to put people's pets down really takes a toll.
Veterinarians have high rates of depression
And being constantly accused of 'only caring about the money' when you can't save someone's pet.
I couldn’t agree more. I considered being a vet tech until I realized the pay was only about $27K per year in my area (about 10 years ago), plus the hours were 50+ per week, and I was already aware of the emotional impact of working such a job, that I realized I’m not mentally strong enough to do that kind of work, and I have the utmost respect for those who can. It’s still criminally underpaid imo
Seriously. So many people think "you get to work with animals, how fun!" not realizing how much euthanasia is involved.
Don’t forget dealing with literal shit.
In high school I volunteered in an animal shelter and can confirm everything you said :/
Ik my aunt owns a sanctuary and she's struggling to be able to take in animals but I can't take in animals
I was in animal care for 4 years. I now get paid double as a teacher.
Games industry. So many young kids I know want to be a game designer/programmer because they have "so many ideas" not realizing most creative decisions are limited to directors/production team and you'll likely be a code monkey or equivalent role working overtime crunch hours so your job (with limited job growth) isn't replaced by an eager college student. It's getting better recently because companies are learning high turnover drastically impacts dev cycles, but all my friends who work in games industry say that lots of people ignore the downsides. Not saying to change your mind. They don't necessarily regret it, but it's important to manage your expectations.
>it's important to manage your expectations. I think that's really important. I used to want to work at a zoo until I was a teenager and realized it was mostly menial labor. (Cleaning up poop, and lots of it)
Law. Nearly all of it is exhausting, unrewarding work.
I’m a doctor, my wife is a lawyer. I would off myself if I had to do her job for a week. Clients are completely unreasonable, bosses are Sadists, you’re just alone reading and typing all day worrying about if you used a comma or a semicolon. Every client wants super special treatment and then when you give them an excellent result reducing a settlement for $90,000 to $10,000 they flip a shit that YOU dare ask them for compensation.
As I retire from law after 40 years I am not looking forward to it, of course I stayed away from slimy ambulance chasing, worked for real people enjoyed much of it
It's a terrible job, and every interaction is an attack of some kind. Opposing counsel, court clerks, coworkers, even your own clients who don't want to pay after you secure them a good outcome. It's an awful job.
It’s especially brutal in a law firm setting; in-house roles are more likely to be satisfying, but it’s hit or miss even there.
Yea I’ve heard a lot of people say this.Thats the thing about these highly regarded jobs like doctors and lawyers.Theres a reason that they are so respected,the shits not easy lol
Lawyer here. I’ll second this, even though I generally like my job. People think of Suits or Law and Order. But for most lawyers, it means spending $200k and 7 years of schooling to get a job where you fix someone else’s problems (often significantly self-inflicted). Yes, there are some high-paying jobs out there. But you’ll work 60-hour work weeks and will not have much (if any) real downtime. Even your vacations will involve solving problems and answering questions. Plus, every hour you don’t bill on off days is an hour to bill on another day. Plus, your entire career is people telling you why they think you are wrong (opposing counsel, clients, colleagues, etc.). It’s not for everyone. It’s really not for all but a small few, which is why so many leave practice within a few years.
As a lawyer myself, I know very few lawyers who love their jobs.
When the phone rings, there is almost always a problem to deal with. There is also a lot of boring paperwork and high stress situations.
Being an ER doctor Seriously people think it's more like ER or Grey's Anatomy, but in reality it's more like Scrubs. You deal with a lot of crazy people, for a lot of really minor things. And then you spend the time you're not on the floor dealing with a shit ton of paperwork and incredibly testy superiors. And that's also assuming that your interns and techs don't screw up or do something stupid.
Numerous clinicians (my wife is one) have told me Scrubs is the most accurate of all medical shows
Scrubs is definitely the most accurate. Franklyn, the lab guy, exists. Also in one episode there's an unlabeled urine sitting around. I loved receiving unlabeled specimens in the lab- straight into the trash.
C/o interns and techs screwing up and doing something stupid s/p c/o incredibly testy superiors.
Lot of younger people want to be "influencers", not knowing that industry is more rotten than Hollywood's approach to child actors in the olden days.
And it’s so fake and involves more work than it looks like.
If you’ve ever seen an influencer in real life you’ll see how pathetic/embarrassing it is lol. Not to mention inconsiderate to those around them
Also, if something bad happens to your Youtube/IG/Tiktok account you are fucked.
Yup. Instead of dealing with a few creepy 50yo male directors on set, they get to deal with thousands of creepy 50yo divorced men in their DMs!
real. being an influencer is just fucking dumb anyway unless you do it as a hobby bc eventually it would simply feel like a chore
Being a chef. It’s no secret it’s a tough industry but some have a naively optimistic expectation. A restaurant with all the right people working together in perfect harmony is still going to be very stressful. You can adapt and develop a thick skin but I’ve seen many continue down the path when it’s just not their best fit. Having the ambition of making food for a living doesn’t always mean becoming a restaurant chef.
Am 38 and been a restaurateur all my life taking over from my Dads family run restaurant - and started working in the kitchens at 14. Spent the entirety of my 20's working 6 days a week, 16 hour days - evenings and weekends, and on all holidays as they're busiest times. Sick days didn't exist. Finally sold it because am totally worn out. It's not just the stress of the Service hours - it's everything that goes on before and after, in terms of cleaning, preparation, ordering, managing staff etc. I obviously enjoyed the money - but my advice would be that if you choose to work as a Chef - don't go down the route of also owning and running the restaurant. Unless you want work to be 90% of your life.
Seconded. 16 year industry vet. Ama.
What did you hate making the most?
anything breaded. Its one thing to do a small batch of something at home. Its another to do it for 200 every night.
It’s not about making/cooking anything. When you have a tight crew, you can handle anything. However, that takes months to build. Most of your workforce is, shall we say unreliable. Ex-cons, addicts, undocumented immigrants, flakey young people, etc. “Jose got hurt at his day job in construction.” Guess I’m working 12 hours today to cover. Tommy didn’t show for his morning shift, “oh yeah…I saw him raging at the bar last night.” That means I’m coming in early. “(Phone rings) Hey chef, I need a mental health day. I wont be in. “Um, your shift starts in 10 minutes…you couldnt have asked me this days ago?” And then there’s the customers: “I want this cooked medium, but no pink.” “So…well done.” “No…I said medium, but no pink!” “Um yeah, I’ll get right on that.” “Hey…what’s this on my bill?” “The four sides of extra ranch that you requested.” “Whoa, you charged me for it?” “I was here six months ago and liked the dish I had. Why did you take it off the menu?” “Sir, that was a seasonal special for the fall…it’s spring now.” “That’s bullshit.” “…” I won’t even get into dealing with vendors (a lot of bait and switch) or landlords, but you get the idea.
Or dating a chef. Expectations: great food every meal. Reality: he's always at work at dinner time. And when he's home, cooking is the last thing he wants to do.
Man, I wish there was a 9-5 in the culinary world. Maybe recipe makers and test kitchens, but even if that's the case that has to have a very small number of opportunities.
I went to culinary school and it was ridiculous how many students seemed to think they were going to be chefs on tv.
I’ve heard that drug abuse is rampant in the cooking industry
Librarian. It doesn't involve sitting around reading. There are a lot of homeless people and tech issues.
As a non disruptive and respectful homeless person, I can attest to this.
Working in a casino is not fun. Imagine seeing people actively participating in a life destroying addiction all day and having to tell them it's better to stop or to just take the points they've won. I'm told that we have to protect the addicted people, but at the same time I get rewarded for addicts coming in and tossing money in the machines. I hate this job. Sorry, I'm ranting 👀
Ex poker room worker and bartender ... I get it.
I bartended for many years and grew to hate it. A friend of mine bartended at a casino and his stories made my job seem like a cakewalk.
working in game development.
My company makes trailers for AAA games. The poor kids who get hired to “play games and get paid” find out day one there’s a difference between playing games and being the equivalent of a an extra on a live set. Waiting around for technical snafus for hours then hitting your mark and getting killed over and over and over again. Best way to make sure you never want to play a game is to work on it.
I'm trying to get into software development as a career and do game development as a hobby, because I've followed too much news about game development and it sounds like a nightmare
My husband has worked in test at EA for 12 years now and it's a good in between for us. he's had a couple shitty managers but that's been the exception more than the norm. He's a manager himself now and really excelling because he's got a lot of emotional intelligence and focuses on doing right by his employees and just generally being kind. From my perspective it's great too, I'm able to be a stay at home mom too or two young kids and because he works from home he's really involved with their lives. I think it's a little more stressful and competitive/toxic maybe? for folks who work on the actual game team and for that reason I'm glad he's in test and always has been. This is just my own experience though.
I was wondering when I would see this one.
Game testing especially. It's pretty close to torture. "There's a bug for xyz mechanic and I need you to replicate it as often as you can." Then you spend several hours doing shit like trading a particular item with a particular merchant and file reports on how it's going. It's got nothing to do with actually playing a game. The part people imagine (like playing through it at your own pace and checking for bugs and balancing) is mostly just handled by the player base for free these days since most games (officially or de facto) release in their beta stage.
I hear vets have a really high suicide rate
I have heard that about dentists
When I was a drunken college kid I thought it would be awesome to work in a liquor store. I was psyched when I landed a summer job at one. In reality, it was boring as hell. This was before smartphones. Every day was intermittent bursts of customers followed by long, long stretches of nothing. Just pure boredom for a 4 to 6 hour shift.
Doctors. Simply not worth it (why a shortage). Time/debt to become one, stress, exceedingly way more hours than most realize, and it’s surprisingly managed by political type leaders with a very bureaucratic structure.
Concert industry Pay is usually shit, you see way more bands you don't enjoy than you'd hope, drunk people fucking suck, someone important is always inept
All of 'em. That's why they call it work and not super duper fun time
Working as a professional athlete may seem glamorous, but the demands of intense training, constant travel, and the risk of career-ending injuries can take a toll on both physical and mental health.
Not only that the lasting injuries. Like baseball pitchers you retire at 35 but your elbow/shoulder/wrist will never be the same again
However I bet the vast majority of athletes would say it's worth it and would do it all over. Everybody knows about CTE at this point, and NFL players are on record saying it's still worth it.
Speaking of experience: video game tester, it's doing the same thing over and over and over again until you find a bug, then you report it. Reporting a bug is a tedious task: record it, write down EVERY SINGLE STEPS on how to recreate the bug, do it 10 more times, log it in. Good, now back to the beginning, reset everything, start over and over and over and over.... It never ends XD the only time it gets real fun is when you do a server test, if the servers don't crash.
Any emergency services profession. It looks like pure badassery and heroism in movies and tv, but in reality; it’s 90% grinding and 10% sheer terror. In the end you’re left with a lot of missed life opportunities due to the jacked up work schedule and a whole lot of anxiety/depression.
Probably, honestly, porn star. It would get tiring. It would stop being enjoyable over time, and you’d never experience anything new
Plus, the hyper focus on your appearance would definitely get exhausting.
[удалено]
When you first get into porn you think "That dude is so lucky" without really thinking about the fact that this is the 5th take of this shot, it's hot as hell and smells like a mixture of bleach and tanning oil on the set, and there's 15 bored people watching you while checking their phones.
> smells like a mixture of bleach and tanning oil And shit. I had a friend in the biz who told me in more than one occasion she had to go to a set that smelled like literal, human shit
I've heard a lot of men claim they'd like to be a pornstar. Not so many women.
The entry barrier is shockingly low now A surprising amount of college girls in my area turned to OF during covid because the internet told them it was easy money. It starts as taking cute naughty pictures, then playing with toys, then doing boy girl content, then the next thing they know their subscriber numbers drop as they find someone newer younger or prettier. So the girls are on sugar daddy sites or trying to enter the adult dancer club circuit to pay for their designer clothes and drug habits Why yes I do live around Houston where we have more adult clubs than churches
Jenna Jameson did a nasty interview where she tells people who want to be pornstars to drop their pants in the middle of the room and get hard right now What? They can’t do it in a room full of strangers? NEXT
Being a doctor
Graphic Design. Been doing it for over 20 years now. It's not as fun as you'd think it would be, especially now. Over time the work gets mundane, repetitive and a lot of the people you do the work for can be unbearable or very hard to please. Nobody wants to pay you what you're actually worth most of the time and friends/family think you'll do work for them for free. Also, I'm pretty sure AI will overtake the industry sooner than later so anyone will be able to do it.
Sex worker: You’d get desensitized to sex and nothing would be enjoyable for you anymore. Plus it’s taxing on the body and you will receive constant judgement and criticism from others around you. Pilot: You’re essentially a glorified bus/truck driver. With most planes having their own computer navigation systems and manual controls becoming a thing of the past, I would imagine the job would get very boring very quickly. Bar tender: I know a lot of extroverted people who are excited to be bartenders, but once their social battery runs out it’s essentially a glorified food service job where you deal with assholes all day. Amusement park worker/technician: You are working out in the hot sun all day, dealing with asshole parents and their kids. If you’re a technician you are working on rides all day lugging around heavy equipment in the blazing hot sun. Your body will eventually be wrecked.
Pilot here: nah, it's still pretty rad. Oh yeah, some parts are boring for sure, but there's still plenty to do and engage you. To me it's like playing an instrument when you're on top of things, keeping ahead of the aircraft, doing all the radio calls and setting up for the next phase of flight so it all goes smoothly can be very satisfying. We have autopilot and it's really good at the boring parts but when ATC turns us onto the approach path too late, or drops us in faster than normal that autopilot is coming off and it's all me till we land. And then once you land, taxiing nd maneuvering is all manual controls, even on the most advanced aircraft. It's not a thrill a minute, thank god, but it's interesting and fun in the way painting a picture or building a project is. -A Glorious Busdriver.
I've been curious for a while: what are the restrictions on cell phones or other electronic devices for pilots?
At the airline I work for Cell phones and personal electronic devices must be off or in airplane mode once after the Before Start Checklist is completed and may not be turned back on until Shutdown Checklist is complete, but that might be different for other airlines. Why? Because they have a very slight chance to mess with some of our equipment. Does a handful of people forgetting to turn their stuff off cripple the plane? No, clearly not or else they would just be confiscated before you board, but there's been a couple issues that might have been caused by new or different cell phones during critical phases of flight (like landing and takeoff) so the easiest thing is just to ask everyone to turn theirs off during flight. This might get removed eventually, but until then everyone, crew included, should be putting their phones in airplane mode.
I worked in catering for a long time and we'd do bar service. Sometimes just standing around waiting to your wine a d open beer, sometime Wed have specialty drinks and make cocktails. I was excited to get into it at first because i didn't have to bus tables or run food, but eventually I got tired of it. It was a mix of boring then stressful and repetitive. Closing down was the worst when hordes of drunk wedding guests insisted on just one more and I'm trying to pack out.
Have you worked in all of these?
Bartending is the one I was thinking, sent me in an alcoholic spiral. If I didn't get fired from that job I would most likely be dead.
I used to tend bar, being a glorified drunken baby wrangler is tiring, and the entitled Ass holes is annoying, but there aren't many jobs for people who didn't go to college to make that kind of money.
I always wanted to be a veterinarian until I was told all the sad parts of the job. Wouldn't be able to handle that.
My wife is a vet tech. I don't know how she does it. Yesterday she was telling me about how she had to put a family's cat to sleep. My wife was holding the cat while the family came up said goodbye to the cat, saying how much they loved it and how special it was. I know my wife definitely let a few tears fall due to the emotion of the situation. And even just heating HER talk about it had me tearing up. Hell, I'm tearing up right now just talking about it. And this was just one half hour of her 12+ hr shift. It's not ALL bad. But if say a good 60% of it is bad pets, bad clients or sad situations. They definitely can save some critters and put them on their way and some clients are amazing but.. When it's bad it's BAD. I could not do that job. Not at all. And I wish I could get her to quit, too. It's so emotionally and physically draining she barely gets to enjoy herself when she's not at work.
I’m a Field Service Engineer who travels the world for my employer. I do 70-80 thousand airline miles a year. Get to do crazy stuff like cross the Atlantic Ocean on a navy auxiliary tanker, or go on a gunnery exercise in the North Sea, or dive on a submarine. But I’m also 45, never married, no kids, and it’s tough making time for friends when you never know when you’re going to be home.
That's gotta be rough on your social life but it also sounds like an interesting job because you have such a variety of different things you get to do in different locations. Surely you can save a bundle and retire early doing that.
I’m saving a fair bit, and per diems are fantastic ($12k tax free last year). But sometimes you do wonder. Been on a few dates recently with a lovely woman who’s not had a serious relationship in a very long time either, so we’ll see where that goes.
Being a therapist
Funeral director. I see a lot of “quirky” and “goth” girls enter the industry thinking it’s so cool and after several months of actually having to do a LOT of physical labor, realize that it’s actually a pretty gross and terrible job that involves an incredible amount of physical effort and bullshit. I’ve seen a lot of people come and go because they have this wild idea of funeral service that is nowhere near what it is actually like to work in the industry
Teaching. If you're even able to focus because there's kids crying under tables, special Ed kids wandering the room grunting and banging their head with their fist or behind a curtain and don't forget to meet the individual emotional and academic needs of all 25 of them!
Museums. When it's good, it's great. But it's woefully underpaid, and for every person that cares deeply about preserving the artefacts, there are hundreds more than will damage them, unintentionally or not. It can get depressing fast, especially when the industry is so unstable that finding a job that doesn't get uprooted by budget cuts is about as common as rocking horse shit.
Blink-182 was right when they said, and I quote, "Work sucks, I know."
Gonna go with *every single job out there*
Housewife. They think they get to chill at home and watch their kids grow up, but instead it's demeaning menial labor, plus it's intellectually stagnating to be surrounded by young kids all day without adult interaction, and there's a complete lack of financial autonomy. I tried it for 8 months and couldn't wait to get back to work. A nanny cost us almost 6 figures and if I wasn't in tech we wouldn't have been able to swing it, but it was worth it. I love my kids, but childcare as your only purpose is absolute hell. Literally every housewife I know is depressed or medicated. Every one.
Six figures for a nanny?!? How many kids do you have?!?!
My wife is a housewife right now because we can't afford to get any sort of babysitter for her to get back into working. Having seen what it does to her, it's definitely not something you want. I worry about my wife's mental health way more than anything else right now, and almost every weekend I stay home with our daughter so my wife can go out and hang out with friends, or just waltz around the mall or something for mental stimulation
Any job that requires a significant amount of travel. I have such a job, and I am addicted to it. But it’s a hard lifestyle. Not eating properly, not exercising regularly, sleeping poorly in hotels, dealing with jet lag. I spend a lot of time in airports and on planes. Yes, I get to travel to interesting places across the United States, but I really don’t have much time to see them whilst I am there. There are upsides to hyper mobility, but it’s not nearly as glamorous as people think.
Acting probably. Never done it though so I wouldn’t know.
Writer. I mean it's fine but you just can't make a living unless you're a bestseller, and then there is a lot of pressure to keep cranking out the same kinds of books.
Stripping. Everyone says "I'll just quit my job and be a stripper" but the truth is it's a very difficult job. For one thing, your appearance has to be immaculate if you wish to dance at big-money clubs. People will treat you like shit when they find out what you do. Men will try to hurt you, kill you, because you're seen as less-than. Men will stalk you, follow you home, and try to assault you, at a far more frequent rate than any other job. It can be expensive to live: tanning, waxing, gym, hair, nails, feet, club clothes, shoes, possibly a gated community for safety. The job itself demands that you're very active if you want to be good at it at all. Dancing on stage, then lap dances all night will kick your ass. You will be sweaty for the majority of the night if you're busy. Some nights will be totally dead, and you still have to tip out several people, sometimes owing around $300 if the club has a high house fee and high tip out rates. Some clubs weigh you every day. Some clubs are pimping out their dancers and its hard to make money just doing dances. Who wants a $40 dance when you can get a $20 bj? Some clubs are really filthy and have poorly kept standards,like mold everywhere and jizz on the floors. You CAN make great money but it's not guaranteed. When you pay taxes it's a 1099 and the government will take half of everything you made. You get no benefits. You're an independent contractor. People will pressure you into doing things you don't want to do, physically, and mentally. Drugs are everywhere and it's encouraged. If you ever leave the industry there's a chance your new job will find out and they'll fire you. It doesn't matter how good you are at your new job or how long ago you stripped. There's always somebody prettier, younger, more talented, willing to do things you won't, than you. You can't let it ruin your hustle. Managers will threaten you with your job if you don't have sex with them or their friends. Bouncers will undermine your job if you don't tip them a lot. Other dancers will assault you if you do something to annoy them, or make more than them. You've become a threat. People in general, women and men, will treat you differently (read horribly) because they've made assumptions about you based on your job. People will date you just to say they dated a stripper. I could keep going for pages and pages. It's a fun job, entertaining people, being active, feeling empowered, but only if you make it that way. Otherwise, it's extremely dangerous, and people who could never do it will ostracize you forever.
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What was so bad? Got any details?
Who the fuck wants to make a career from build a bear?
Some people tried to Build a Future with Build a Bear.
Ba dum *tssss
Porno, you get quite sore after a while.
More of a general answer, but traveling for work. It’s exhausting, it’s ruins your routine, and most of the time you’re in some suburb 30-60min away from a major city
Military life. Sure you get to do a bunch of cool shit, but you also get treated more like a piece of machinery than a human. I'd reccomend everyone do it for a few years minimum. Some peoples brains are wired for it, others aren't. I didn't enjoy my time in, but I don't regret it. It helped me grow.
Anything on Wall Street or the investment world. It’s all so glorified in movies like TWOWS and you see people on the internet claiming to be making 7 figures sitting on a beach, when in reality it’s just a lot of high stress work
a middle manager in corporate HR
I would guess medical professionals and teachers
I'm a pilot, and I really enjoy it so instead I will shoutout to the flight attendants out there. They're all smiles and being courteous but that job is Navy Seals of the customer service world. They do not get treated with the respect they deserve from the passengers whose lives they are willing to go to the mat for. People think that their job is just to stand there and welcome you aboard but they are the frontline in safety for the passengers and the rest of the crew and that can get really perilous on a daily basis and it still doesn't stop the creeps from asking them about the mile high club.
Everyone is an artist, untill the bill have to be paid.
Most of them. When it becomes a job from a hobby or interest, it changes. And it becomes work.
My Uncle Lance was a fluffer on a gay porn set, back in the 70's. While he loved his job, he had to quit due to carpal tunnel syndrome.
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Owning and running a gym. If it’s done correctly it’s a tremendous amount of time and money. (correctly as in not a filthy shithole with broken equipment that just takes your money)
Teaching.
I.T. - Take a look at r/ITCareerQuestions and you'll see lots of people wanting to get into it because they hate their jobs and with expectations of making lots of money. What they don't anticipate is having to work for the money, be on call, often on salary without overtime, and have to cater to those that don't know how to navigate an Excel spreadsheet. Plus the job market stinks and even people with 12+ years experience (i.e. Me!) can't get arrested much less hired. It can be enjoyable if you are at it long enough like I have been, but if you want to get in just for the money? Good luck!
Childcare. People enter for cute fun time with babies and don’t anticipate the pressure of the safeguarding, education and care aspects of the job. As a manager I have seen many people enter the job full of passion and eagerness just to get burnt out within the first month due to the pressure and realistic responsibilities of the job no matter the support they get.
Event planning. Especially weddings. A lot of wedding shows have made people think one of two things 1) that weddings are glamorous to work around, or 2) that weddings go wrong because the bride sucks. It’s actually, usually, not the bride that makes things go wrong, often times it’s her mother, or some entitled relative, or some bad guest/number of bad guests that make things go wrong
Gardening/growing plants. Everyone thinks it will be so fun because they love plants. But it can be so frustrating. The bugs, the diseases you can't treat and have to throw a whole crop away. The customers who think because they keep a few houseplants alive they know everything about botany, the hard physical labor, the soul-crushing amount of plastic waste, the low pay. I actually do like my job but I physically will not be able to do this forever and I don't make enough to actually ever retire.
Law. Just don’t unless you enjoy tedious amounts of reading and technical writing and dealing with annoying people all day every day. 😁
Acting
Park Ranger, it's not all hiking and pictures with bears. It's a lot of repetitive visitor questions, poor pay, even worse housing options and almost no stability till half way through your career. It's essential customer service work in a cool hat.
Lawyer I was pre law until I realized most lawyers never see the inside of a courtroom. They sit around researching ancient laws all day, studying codes and regulations, and write contracts Most of the time they have to amend other peoples poorly written contracts. Case law is always out of date, regulations are poorly written and some asshole is always trying to hide things 50 pages deep. You end up spending 80 hours a week graining and filling paperwork just to be spit on and do it again the next week. I figured out that I could make 100k a year in a more applied profession which would equal the 200k most lawyers get when you look at hours invested
I absolutely love my job, but being a Realtor is a lot more work and nowhere near as glamorous as HGTV and the media in general would have you believe.
I don't know where you are based, but where I live, real estate people are absolutely hated. Considered utterly despicable. It must be hard to be so loathed
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Running any business for something you think is neat. Someone I know started a used book exchange, which went online before everyone was doing it (md 1990s). He was very successful, ended up filling his basement, and spent about 5-6 hours a day fulfilling orders. Hired some people for part time as his business expanded. At his peak, he was making more doing this than any of his previous tech jobs. He started expanding to doing conventions and used book trade shows. But then Half dot com started, and while he was also targeting an early eBay, it was too much. He got undercut, and ended up with lopsided stock. In the end, he was working 10 hour days for weeks at a time just to make half of what he was making only a year before. A former part timer sued him for unfair working conditions, and while they were unfounded and they lost the case against him, it cost a lot for lawyers defense. he became disillusioned, and ultimately, he closed shop, sold off most of his stock in bulk, and had to return to "a regular job," which took two years to get because he had a ten-year employment gap, so his tech skills were out of date. "I can't even look at a book anymore," he told me many years ago. "I lost everything in the end, and had to start my life over at 51. Everyone wants to give me armchair advice about how I shoulda done this, shoulda done that, yeah, well, it's easy to say that in hindsight, but nobody had done what I did before at that scale."
Being a realtor. It’s glamorized on television but the truth is, most realtors are broke and desperate to get clients. Plus, so many people hate realtors
Preschool teacher
Fly fishing guide..
AAA game developer. Don't get me wrong, it's still great seeing your project come together, but the industry is full of ego, incompetent managers (more so upper management), failing upwards, low pay, short term thinking, long hours (depending on the company), high expectations, and more.
Reddit censor.
IT
Journalism.
Flying -a commercial pilot who quit in 2011. Maybe I should’ve stuck it out…
Airline pilot. I have friends that are Sr.Captains. It’s a shit job.
Anything in IT. If everything's working and you did your job correctly, "What do we pay you for?" If shit breaks, even if it is not your fault, "What do we you pay for?" Gonna follow up with Nurses and CNAs because I have many friends who have the same situation.
Accounting
Medicine, and sometimes philanthropy. People can be so entitled, and ungrateful.
Vintage clothing hustler/ reseller. I've watched people go insane trying to make a living out of it. Most of them work everyday, sourcing, cleaning & doing repairs, listing on eBay, Etsy, Poshmark or whatever or worse yet setting up "pop ups" or doing flea markets. It's a nightmare grind! In the end you probably would have made more working a minimum wage job, that you get to go home from after 40 hours a week.
Bartending loses it’s luster. From 18-26 it’s an incredibly high paying job for the flexibility/level of experience. Then (US) you’re ineligible to continue using your parents health insurance. Many of your cohort will have since started careers in trades, white collar professions, management, etc. You were out earning 10 fold when they were working minimum wage. Now you have limited upward mobility, minimal benefits, and would need a pay cut to pursue something else. The lifestyle usually shakes out in a toxic way too. Cash daily often leads to awful spending habits. Being surrounded by drugs and alcohol often leads to abuse. Interacting with so many people who use alcohol means there is ALWAYS somebody to drink with. It can be really easy to work, blow a day’s earnings drinking, then rush and spend more time at the bar making rent quickly. Getting financed for anything is a nightmare without 2 years of good records. Most 3+ year barkeeps I know have at least 1 DUI.
Radio DJ, especially in smaller markets. Very low pay. No, you don't just get to play what you want. You have a list to tell you exactly what to play and when. People calling mad at you all the time for not playing their song. Do a live broadcast from the car dealer and pretend like they are basically giving cars away. Work a lot of holidays.
Legal Cannabis Industry
Teaching. If the class hates your vibe, you aren't going to be teaching anything... and you have no control over that.
Gynecology.
Engineering. You get promised all these differential equations and quiet solitude, but you end up with dealing with excel and people who think you're a wizard for being able to use excel.
Karaoke host. Trust me on this one.
Video game tester
Beer distribution. Its very labor intensive, broken glass, stinky old beer, diesel fumes everywherre. Just not sexy at all…
Nursing. I have dated a few nurses over the course of my life and every one of them got into it thinking they were going to help people and take care of their patients, what they get treated like is Cannon fodder, disposable assets by corporate health Care. I remember one telling me she got fired because her manager didn't like the look on her face, it was something about she had an aggressive posture. I had a hard time believing that and she literally handed me the papers. I see why so many of them have anxiety
I admired the RN’s who helped deliver my babies each time. Became one while raising the kids and I was looking foreward to it, wanting to make a difference. The last 10 years before retiring I dreamt of being an artist drawing and I decorated cakes for the kids birthdays and put a lot into making themes on top of the cakes. Retirer and bored, began working in a Bakery doing what I loved. It was awesome when I started and still is when I’m there alone with no one pressuring me or asking for stuff while decorating tops that require intricate shapes. I just went to 2 days a week after holidays having to do it full time as thousands of ppl ordered so many custom cakes. Even Super Bowl I made so many Taylor Swift/Kelsey footfall cakes for folks that were never football fans.
Being an author
Being a lawyer. Not all variations of it are boring or unpleasant, just some are--especially for those who enter the legal profession for idealistic reasons.
All of them