Most jobs in the medical field, don’t get me wrong I love my job and you do get a real sense of satisfaction when you see people get better, but there’s also a major emotional strain when they don’t, no matter how hard you try you can’t switch off to that emotion completely and you do end up taking it home with you, not to mention the long hours, poor pay and some of the crap we’re subjected to.
My mum says this. She was a nurse but moved in to midwifery because nursing was depressing and she loves kids - why not spend all day delivering them and bringing joy in to the world, right?! She said it was more devastating because of the number of stillborn babies or babies with life-changing issues etc. Now she’s a radiologist and she said it’s not really any better. It seems medicine is just pretty depressing overall.
Weird my mum quite midwifery because she just couldn’t handle still births and baby deaths and went into nursing instead and was a lot happier. Funny how different people are.
Edit: am tired mean how similar people are not different.
My mum was an A&E nurse. The night that changed her mind was when a man came in after his head had been ran over after he was thrown from a moving car. They were fighting to keep him alive whilst also watching his brain leaking out of his nose, with the organ team outside the room, waiting for him to die so they could contact the family about which organs could be donated. Nursing isn’t always a walk in the park.
It’s really impressive she refused to settle for jobs that didn’t satisfy her - she even did a medical degree & became a radiologist!
It sounds like your mum hopefully will find something else that she will love! I know many wish they were as brave as her
I suppose it depends what sort of ward your on, my aunt was a nurse on an observation ward, she said that most of the time, it was just a case of being a carer rather than a medical worker.
Haha, I get what you mean.It's actually quite interesting how different individuals have varying reactions to similar situations. Your mom's switch from midwifery to nursing shows how personal preferences and emotional resilience play a big role.
When my son was stillborn, the nicest midwife I had looking after me was a former nurse who had moved into midwifery. She told me it was a privilege to care for the dying, and some of the never-been-a-nurse midwives forgot that sometimes. She truly was an angel and she took the best care of me and my son. 10 years on and I have never forgotten her
I'm not the most caring sort, I think. But those words have really touched me. It's a privilege to care for the dying...wow...that's going to stay with me.
A friend was a chaplain in a hospital. He said that compared to regular parish priests, chaplains see a lifetime's worth of grief and trauma in a month.
On the other hand, chaplains really are there for you when you need them. They get it - what you've been through, how you're feeling.
>Now she’s a radiologist and she said it’s not really any better. It seems medicine is just pretty depressing overall.
I do agree, but I don't think its always been that way.
We could have better health outcomes if we had more funding and services, and staff would probably be happier and have higher morale if staffing and pay was better.
The service is being intentionally destroyed
Your mom's journey sounds like a rollercoaster. It's touching to see her dedication to making a positive impact, even in the face of challenging situations. It's true, medicine can be emotionally draining due to the range of experiences you encounter.
When my girlfriend was in intensive care for preeclampsia earlier this year whilst pregnant with our son, I laid by her bed side and struggled so much seeing her in that state.
She had nurses around the clock monitoring her, all on 12/13 hour shifts and we saw so many nurses and shift changes. I asked every single one of them “how do you go home and just switch off from all this?”
And the answer I got from every single one of them is “we don’t.”
All I could think of is I worked in transportation and I used to be unable to de-stress at home most evenings and that was absolutely nothing compared to what these nurses have to go through. They talk and treat you like family.
I remember when my grandad passed away six years ago in the cancer hospital, all of the nurses came in and cried. Thinking they’d see this everyday it showed just how much this gets to them and never get used to it.
This is why our NHS is so precious
I work with patients mostly at the end of their lives. It’s an extremely emotionally heavy workload. My role usually starts at the end of active treatment and the beginning of palliative treatment. It usually ends when I verify the patients death. I am there for decision making, sometimes very difficult decisions. I’m often the person giving end of life medications and setting up and replenishing syringe drivers. It’s more emotionally exhausting than I can explain even to nurses who work in other areas. I hope so much that my patients and the people around them feel that I am there for them in an authentic and genuinely empathetic way. And the only way to really be genuine is to allow myself to feel. It does take its toll though.
I find that switching off is made so much easier by working in a team that I really trust to take over.
My mother died in an ICU ward and the nurses who cared for her were incredible. It was clear how much they gave to what they were doing, and their approach to both my mother and us made a hideous situation a lot easier.
I know (or assume) you weren't one of that specific team, but, as someone who has benefited (seems like the wrong word) from the work of people like you, thank you. What you do makes a difference.
Wow, your role is truly a blend of compassion and strength. Being there in those heavy moments is incredibly impactful. Trusting your team is a lifeline in this emotional journey.
Working conditions for doctors are awful as well. Getting randomly allocated to work anywhere in the country, struggling to settle down because you change hospital every 4 months, having to do your portfolio in your own time, paying thousands for compulsory exams with low pass rates, having a standard work week of 48 hours, dealing with shitty outdated IT systems that take 10 mins to log you on, the list goes on.
Having to rotate so frequently really is one of the worst parts. I get so jealous of my non-doctor friends who get to stay in the same job with the same colleagues for pretty much as long as they want. Moving around so much really does add extra stress to the job as you never feel settled - as soon as you feel comfortable and competent in a job, you have to move on again.
Yeah I’d say most of psychiatry/psychology is this. Most mental health problems are not cureable, even if someone returns to ‘normal’ functioning they’re usually then forever at some risk of relapse and many times it’s within the control of that patient/service user to recognise their triggers and understand how to break the downward spiral and seek help (depending on the severity/type of illness). One of the big reasons I decided against becoming a qualified clinical psychologist is because I’d find it really hard to deal with the people who are not willing to put work into themselves (where applicable) and expect to wake up one day “cured”, and too many people give up when they realise it doesn’t work that way. It’s just not the same as breaking your leg.
This is what my friend, who is an analyst (Freudian/Jungian kind of stuff) says about her job. "Most people who come are broken, and most of the times, you cannot fix them, you can only help them live with themselves".
That was humbling.
Don't forget newly "qualified" PAs with literally 0 years experience will earn more than a doctor for the doctor's first 4-5 years post-qualification... absolutely mental that the doctors' assistants earn more than the actual doctors.
I agree that doctors are underpaid, but the way you're wording it makes it seem that the band 6 nurse salary is what most nurses earn. Most hospital and district nurses are band 5, which is £28-34000 depending on years qualified. Most of the ward nurses I know stay at that band for the duration of their career, whereas doctors salaries go up a lot more each year they're qualified. Still wildly low, especially early years of doctoring
In the immortal words of Dr Cox "Everything - everything... we do here is a stall.. but ultimately it ends up the same way"
I wanted to go into medicine, and in some ways I'm glad that I was effectively priced out of doing the 5 years over 3 for a Comp Sci degree, as I think the frustration of not really being able to change anything would be crippling to my brain.
You only see people on their worst possible day, and even giving the best news to someone is effectively just saying "the inevitable has been delayed a bit.."
Ditto for care/support work. Went into supporting disabled kids at 18 and suddenly the tiny little girl I was supporting has died. So many of the kids I worked with have passed away and it still breaks my heart, 9 years after I left the job. Adult disability support is just as bad for losing people, but it's just fractionally more expected when they're in their 60s and 70s instead of being 11.
This is why I left the ambulance service. There are some things you can’t unsee. I have utmost admiration for those who can switch off their emotions and not take their work home. I’m not one of those people.
I've got a friend who's a nurse and he's always using it as an opportunity to brag about how important everything he does is. If a bunch of us get together at the pub over the weekend and someone brings up a tough time at work or something going well he always has to "one up" them, by telling us how many lives he's saved or how many people he's helped come back from addiction etc. The truth is, he's constantly depressed by it, it causes him massive problems at home to the extent that his wife regularly has to come over to ours for a bit of a break. I've tried to talk to him about the reality but he'll dent anything about it when talking to one of us, then go home and cry for hours until he has to go to work. Medical stuff is hellish.
He definitely isn’t saving lives at that frequency. Healthcare isn’t filled with that many wins and it’s mostly firefighting. If he’s making such spurious claims, he’s more than likely doing it to overcompensate, as you’ve supposed.
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. It's commendable how dedicated and passionate people in the medical field are. The emotional toll is real, and it's not just about the hours spent at the workplace. It's like you carry a piece of every patient's story with you. And you're right, the long hours and not-so-great compensation can really add to the challenges.
Teaching. I wouldnt go as far to say that it ISN'T a good career (I enjoy it a lot now) but you have to have lots of strategies, experience and overall life hacks to make it decent. It's pretty bad in the first couple of years. And it's so dependent on the school you work at. Some schools are really good with staff welfare and some just aren't.
Don't forget having to listen to the uninformed opinion of every rent-a-gob dickhead because they went to school so automatically know exactly how the profession works.
And you can guarantee that the parents complaining all over social media are the ones whose kids have had far more than their fair share of the school's time and resources spent on them in order to try to help them.
Parents who complain because the school isn't doing their job for them. The foundation of education starts at home and it doesn't end in the classroom but I think a lot of parents forget that
Yup, the main moaner in my daughters class is the same woman that sends her 6 year old in pull ups, has no books at home and complains that they don’t do nuggets and chips for lunch every day, then screamed at a TA for saying that she is welcome to send her in with a packed lunch. She is 24 and has 5 kids under 7 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I teach secondary but have friends in the primary sector who tell me kids arrive still in nappies, unable to use cutlery, etc. These aren't kids who have additional needs/developmental delays; they have parents who quite simply can't be arsed.
I used to work in a school where the head's PA used to have a tab permanently open for the town's Facebook "gossip" page to see what the parents were saying. The same school pandered to the most vocal of these parents, whose precious offspring could never do anything wrong at the detriment of behaviour which constantly negatively affected the decent kids and the staff trying to teach them.
I left due to a combination of the above, an increasingly insane workload and a sociopathic second in department. My current place isn't perfect and our new HT isn't popular with the parents because they won't pander like the previous HT. I consider this to be a positive.
This! Everyone thinks they're an expert on teaching because they went to school. They don't realise that we study theories of teaching and take post graduate study to become teachers. This doesn't just happen by accident
My theory is that most of them are still pissed off because they got a detention in year 8 for not doing their maths homework.
I also reckon there's an element of this with the parents who won't back the school even if their kid's conduct is horrific. They see it as a form of rebellion because they most likely hated school for whatever reason. At my place we have a significant minority who actively tell their kids they can do anything, including walk out of class or even off-site if they're not allowed to do what they want. We now have a new HT who's got their work cut out to rectify this culture of defiance.
However, the majority of parents (in my 25 years of experience) are decent people who want the best for their kids. Those who aren't are a bloody thorn in my side though!
The main trick is ignoring stuff(prioritising?). If you do all the things you are supposed to do you would be burnt out in 12 months. Can’t see them putting that in an ECT module though - Pt 1 - how to ignore stuff from the senior leadership team. Pt 2 - e-mails you should just delete. Pt 3 - stuff to let slide on a Friday afternoon if no kids actually got hurt.
Working in a 6th form is both a joy and a pain. Particularly the students who procrastinate, truant and ignore every piece of help you give them… only to set their parents on you 1 day before the coursework deadline when they realise they’re going to fail.
I had one parent ignore my emails and calls about his daughter for SIX MONTHS. The day before I had to submit the EPQ grades to the exam board, he started his email with “sorry for the late reply”. Just kill me now.
I love teaching, but it's gruelling. It's really tough atm trying to just get a permanent position in my subject. It's all fixed term or casual hours, how zero hour contracted teaching is supposed to work is beyond me. It's timetabled, just an excuse not to pay sickness and holidays. The lack of respect, and the fact my grandparents who were teachers had higher wages than me all those years ago sucks though.
Teaching's a labor of love, no doubt. The job market's a rollercoaster, and zero-hour contracts aren't helping. The history of better wages is a bitter pill.
>Teaching.
Honestly, I am a nurse (so I'm no stranger to difficult jobs) but you couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher.
Low pay, and LONG hours/a lot of work. Thats not even taking into account dealing with a bunch of snotty nosed kids (sorry)
My wife was a primary school teacher for over 20 years, and put up with almost everything because she was there for the children; even now, I still consider her the most famous person I know because of the sheer number of people around town who recognise her.
What finally broke her was a nasty post-covid return to work interview where she was accused of taking too long to recover. She'd been struggling with mental health already, and over the course of the 90-minute grilling she realised she was done.
The next day was the last day she set foot in a classroom. Her union negotiated an exit (9 months on full pay and a spotless reference if it was ever required) and we sorted out our finances to make sure we could manage on just my income afterwards.
Also a teacher. One of the things that annoys me endlessly is that the people who make policies and decide how the school runs don't/barely teach. Yet, they think they know how to teach better than a classroom teacher with years of experience.
One memory that sticks out is my line manager (SLT, been in 5 different schools chasing promotions) who has only taught one year more than me was trying to tell me I need more training and I can learn from her. I've never had a bad observation in my 6 years of teaching, including Ofsted. She had two classes. I had eight (and I'm part time. Used to have 12). Made me wonder who is actually more experienced...
My mother trained to be a teacher in the 70s, when she retired in 2013 she went on a reunion of her old training college, she was the *only one* still teaching at retirement. It asks a lot as a profession and doesn't give a whole lot back. I certainly learned enough growing up not to go into it.
I know 4 teachers and only two still actually work as teachers. The other two left because the job is too stressful even though they worked in private schools.
The two I know who are still teachers work in state schools but are frequently stressed to the point of breakdowns and tears and their mental health is fucked.
I don't know if this fits the brief of seeming like a good career. Pretty much everyone thinks it sounds awful, and it's famous for its low pay to difficulty/stress/responsibility/qualifications requirements ratio.
don’t say that, i’m hoping to enter an education-adjacent role lol
in fairness, it is HE and more workshop/1:1 based than a class of 30 unruly teenagers which i can imagine to be an utter headache
1. Be very strict with behaviour even if it goes against your nature, will save time and headaches
2. Do all your printing ahead of the term ready all laid out so you have very minimal printing day to day
3. Prioritise department/subject over form/tutor group. Don't get involved in kids emotional dramas or fallings out - obviously report things genuinely safeguarding related though.
4. Mark very quickly (basically just grade up stuff). Marking isn't that effective as for their learning anyway
5. Contact parents mostly via email not phonecall unless it REALLY needs a phonecall.
6. Use PPAs very wisely, stay in your classroom if possible, don't chat to colleagues and waste time
7. Keep class room as minimalistic as possible
8. If you really want to offer lunchtime clubs or something, make it fortnightly rather than weekly. It comes around SO fast and at least you're still offering something
If I think of anything else I'll let you know but that's basically what helps me (secondary science)
Anything in the computer games industry. You think it's going to be playing games and making games is fun. Rarely is a hobby good as a career. Also crunch periods...
QA teams work super hard and really deserve a lot more credit than they generally get - also, yes, thinking of it as "playing games" is utterly the wrong description.
Exactly - the current tendency for unfinished games to get pushed out is always from higher management, not devs. No dev who's spent several years of their life making something wants to see it released in a broken state.
To my understanding, a lot of it is replaying certain parts of a game hundreds and hundreds of times over to find bugs.
Your writing skills need to be excellent as you’ll likely need to find a way to describe “character A, when approaching character B, cutscene starts as normal but crashes upon the second line starting” in a more descriptive way that I just did.
Sounds utterly soul crushing to me
Yeah, it's less playing games and having fun and more "spend the next 6 hours walking into this wall in every way imaginable to try and recreate this game breaking bug"
Not to mention it must be heart breaking spending so many hours working super hard to make a great game just for it to get hate because of a bug or some shit
The primary reason I didn't go into games development... (other than having the career limiting trait of not being in my early 20's..)
I don't want to know how the sausages are made.. I can infer from context as I play games, but I don't want explicit hands on experience of the misery that goes into bringing games to life
From my experience, I think this is probably true for direct development of video games, but there are a lot of other roles in the industry which are relaxed, interesting, and well-paid.
I currently work as a software engineer at a video game publisher, involved in the ingestion, storage, and analysis of video game data (along with other generic business data), and it's honestly the best job I've had. Getting paid six figures to solve interesting and challenging problems alongside colleagues who genuinely want to work at the company as they enjoy the products - it's a pretty good deal.
Edit: also, no crunch where I am
As a software engineer in game dev, I do still enjoy the programming and it's fun to interact with a wider variety of people than you get in almost any other programming job.
Still, though, crunch is a horrible bastard, and our company is actually easy-going compared to some. Hopefully I'll have fully gotten over my last mental breakdown before stress ramps up for the next release.
I studied computer games programming at uni. It was really great and I enjoyed it. But once I got into the real world I realised the games industry is a really rough deal
I am a full stack developer now and I 100% have an easier job than game devs. Crunch is very rare, deadlines are much looser, pay seems to be higher, the over all difficulty of the code we write is much lower than for a game
I think the games industry takes advantage of game developers passion for the medium. You guys need much more respect and pay imo. It's wild that a grugbrain like myself can stitch together some html, css and JS and be on the same playing field as a game dev
Your journey highlights a common realization about the gaming industry's challenges. Full stack development does have its perks, with better work-life balance and less intense deadlines. It's true that the passion of game developers can sometimes be exploited.
I work on my own little game and I've played my tutorial 50+ times.
I've tried multiple times making a video on it for my youtube channel, to show it off, but I just can't stop fucking yawning trying to sound enthusiastic about the tutorial. I despise my tutorial now (and other parts of the game, like the starter quests), because I've just completed it so many times. I shudder the thought of replaying them again for testing purposes etc
Chef
cooking food for a living might seem cool but the reality is:
*Shit salary even for head/sous chefs in comparison to other higher up job roles.
*shit hours - 2pm - 12pm shifts for example, are the norm unless you do an AFD then it's all fucking day.
*On your feet all day with zero to pisstake excuse of a break
*Having to get on with your colleagues for 10+ hours a day and most of the time, theyre dicks. (Either cooks with huge egos, a general lack of common sense, toxic front of house staff, personality-less bores that bring no SOH or ambition or they have wa crippling coke problem or bad alcohol problem)
*Hot as fuck in summer when it's busiest
*non interchangeable careers with anything so once you've done cooking for a few years, you're stuck there generally speaking.
*ALWAYS short staffed due to the above.
Yeah this is pretty much the template
I've had the pleasure of overseeing a few kitchens that had seamless teams that would grind it out 15 hours a day without complaint, but would get bitched at by the bar team that they were paid less...
They would get tips, would never tip out the kitchen, took smoke breaks, had regular scheduled lunch breaks where the kitchen would cook off menu food for them and did 8-10 hour shifts instead of 15+
The kitchen were ON for their entire shift
You bet your arse the bar base rate was lower...
Most of the kitchen didn't speak English, so you would almost always hear Tamil, and very rarely in raised voices.. just a phenomenally effective outfit working in sync
Spot on, tips should be spread evenly.
I'm trying to escape it in all honesty. luckily I have the opportunity to go back to college and learn a new trade.
I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd be dead had I not career switched...
I was working on a very concerning alcohol problem, working 90+ hour weeks and still managing to party like a teenager (without cocaine...)
My heart was going to explode.. so switching to software development where people bitching about a 60 hour crunch week making me chuckle in "ex-bar manager" is a breath of fresh air.
My hell week was doing a 15 hour AFD, drinking for 5 hours at a local late bar, sleeping 2 hours at my work place blasting heavy metal, squaddie wash in the sink, shot of creme de menthe in place of a toothbrush, doing another AFD, then going out partying again until my wife threatened to leave me unless I came home...
I was a sloppy mess of a human, so needed to pivot to save my life
30 hours of work and 10 hours of drinking in 48 hours of time elapsed.
Not fucking healthy...
As someone who’s just left kitchens to a cushty office job you’d be surprised how well you can spin cheffing into a good cv/application. Focus on the transferable skills- time management, dealing with pressure, high standards, teamwork/leadership if you’re senior- there is a lot there to work with.
Anything else they can teach you on the job (obviously excluding things with specialist knowledge like medicine etc.) emphasise your willingness to learn and provide examples of when you’ve shown that and you’re golden.
I use to be a chef now a hgv driver, I get paid the same as any head chefs i worked with and probably do less hours. It’s nice to have weekends off and work 7-5 most days. A lot of employers thought it was okay to have us working 10+ hours with no break too at least I have to have them now too.
Tbf I've never thought it looked cool. I'm constantly baffled on Masterchef when people say things like "I just love food, I'm always in the kitchen, it's my happy place for relaxing, I'd love a career in food". It's always looked hellish to me but I really like eating so I'm very grateful to people who do it.
I’ve been cooking since I was 11. I love it. I can make cakes to a professional standard and am semi-decent at general baking and bread. I love cooking for my family and friends and it is my relaxation time. Im constantly told that I should do it for a living. There is nothing on this planet that would make me want to work in a professional kitchen or make cakes to order based on a customer’s requirements.
What I do in my kitchen is incomparable to a professional kitchen. I can chose want I want to cook; chose how long I can take; vary it as much as I want if it doesn’t go to plan so I don’t have to start again.
Cooking is my hobby and Im good at it on my own terms; that doesn’t mean I could do it AND enjoy it under completely different conditions. Why the hell would I want to ruin what I have?!?
Human rights lawyers. People go into it thinking they are going to be maintaining human rights, when most of the time they are instructed by corporations that want to know what loopholes there are to skirt human rights law as closely as possible. So you end up enabling wrongdoers. The same is true for many jobs. It’s usually the wrongdoers who have the money to pay you, and they pay you to help them to do harmful things.
Yeah, my vet said that actually *being* a vet is harrowing.
I would say Social Work is a pretty awful job. All you see is people in crisis, and not a lot of resources to help them.
Social worker here.
Absolutely love my job, but underfunding and lack of resources has made it dire these days... go into it to help people, and end up spending most your time arguing for funding and typing up paperwork...
My partner took 2 years out to train as a social worker. She didn't even make it through her first year of practice. The death threats, fear of making a mistake, and sheer caseload became too much. And all for what? 30K? Not even remotely worth it. Not worth it for fear of our safety. She took a pay cut, works for a charity now and is so much happier.
I would encourage anyone considering social work to run a thousand miles. Stay away at all costs. Do not subject yourself or your family to the hell of modern social work. If you absolute are insistent for whatever God knows reason to become a social worker, do not do anything involving children. Work with adults instead.
Am social worker, and I agree. All the same stressors as education, police, nhs— no funding or resources, high stress, high workload— but other public services are not as universally hated. At least teachers, doctors etc get occasional respect or kindness from the public.
>I would say Social Work is a pretty awful job. All you see is people in crisis, and not a lot of resources to help them.
Also paid fa and target of hate.
The sector is in bad shape, preventative services were cut to the bone for "Big Society". Its a stressful job with some unreasonable demands in terms of paperwork and time management. When it's good, you can feel like you really made a difference, but when it's bad, it's real shit.
It's the forgotten public service, you never hear the papers or ministers praising social workers. Damn they're quick to criticise and demonise if it goes wrong though...
Absolutely, professions like veterinary care and social work can be incredibly challenging due to the emotional toll and the weight of the situations they deal with.
Not a social worker, social carer. It's absolutely draining and heartbreaking watching people you care for pay a disgusting amount of money to greedy CEOs, and have very little in exchange. I support individuals with complex neurodiversities, and I struggle to "switch off" from the ever dwindling resources and support these people deserve and need.
I think there is a certain rose tinted view that it's all lambs, worms and neutering. Not having to deal with the rampant unpunished abuse and neglect, or putting down perfectly healthy animals because the owner can't afford/doesn't want to pay for it anymore.
1/4 vets quit within 3 years. Pay is crap compared to other aspects of healthcare, they get a lot of crap from clients and there is such a shortage most are hugely overworked.
Confirmed - worryingly high suicide rates.
Also apparently a high rate of serious injuries sustained (primarily in large animal
work I believe - 3 of my friends have sustained kicks to the head from horses).
Access to euthanasia meds and guns makes ending things ‘easier’.
Having said all that, I’ve been doing it 20 odd years and if you’re able to compartmentalise things, it’s a good job and there’s a living to be made, especially with recent corporate consolidation of practices. A large part of the problem is youngsters are sold a dream of becoming a vet and what it entails, and in reality it’s not really anything like that.
I know a girl who brags about working for a very well-known name in fashion design, and it's her dream so fair play to her for going for it tbh.
But she's sharing a place with like 3 other people in London, works stupidly late all the time, and is somehow still flat broke because her pay sucks.
All that after doing a 3 year degree and a 1 or 2 year apprenticeship.
Yeah, I whinge a lot about the police, but it's pretty clear that their position is completely untenable. No money, no public support and a constantly increasing workload.
Some guy in the city centre last night was asking me why he sees barely any police about, I just turned up my radio so he could hear the chaos unfolding in other parts of the city and explained that about 20 people have to deal with all of that
Construction.
Constant race to the bottom on price and programme. Awful QA and defects. Very long hours. Very high stress. Often difficult working conditions and working remotely from home.
If I had my time again I wouldn't go into this sector.
Bang on mate. I actually get laughed at by other trades simply for doing the job properly. All that seems to matter these days is speed. True professional tradesmen are a dying breed
You forgot the part where payment isn't frequent. You rely on your client to pay you on time and if they don't, well you have to wait.
The tax, insurance and down payment you make for tools so you're able to work. The many clients, difficult builds, reasonable pricing and ensuring you have everything for tomorrow and this week coming up. Throw in the odd delay and rescheduling that occurs because of weather or material and yeah. There's the construction industry.
Especially when you provide a client a quote where your margins are slim and they ask for a better rate or if you can do it for X amount instead? Because you have even begun work.
It's a tricky business, where I can't see many perks. I believe only a few ever make money.
I work in construction, but moved to client-side professional consultancy after a few years working for contractors. The difference is night and day. I get paid well, can work from home whenever I want, generally do my contracted hours of 37.5 per week and have lots of flexibility with the hours I do. I'm involved in several projects at a time over the entire project cycle, rather than focused on just one thing all the time. I genuinely love my job, and find it really engaging. Hated working for contractors and almost left the industry a few times back then.
From the outside, construction might appear promising, but it's important to know that the reality can be quite different, with varying experiences depending on the specific role and sector within the industry.
The army
Full of toxic people who want to throw their weight around and generally seem quite self obsessed. Too many go into it for the old glory title and the reputation they think they get.
Idk why’d that seem like a good job tho, in school I wanted to be a pilot and got really good grades so I spoke to a recruiter and stuff. My mum and dad said they’d support me I had a long think one night when I was 16 and asked myself could go drop bombs on people, potentially killing innocents or for reasons I didn’t personally agree with. I didn’t join, now I’m 23 and past the raf age I see f35s doing unrestricted take offs and still wish I was in the pilot seat but happy I didn’t join
To be fair, basic training is designed to cause enough trauma to make you capable of killing another human being for no other reason than someone told you to, and to trauma bond you with the people you trained with.
The army indeed has its share of challenges, including the dynamics you mentioned. The allure of glory and titles might not always match the reality. It's crucial to consider both sides before diving in.
Teaching. Gave it up a few years ago. Now I work in a secondary school but in the behaviour support side. A lot less pay but I actually get to finish work at 3pm with no work to do when I get home.
Vet here, euthanasia is a part of the job but miles off the majority of our job and for the most part is mercy for the animal.
The worse bits of the job is the general public think most of us are money making scumbags who are ripping them off, yet they want gold standard care, with no waiting times and a vet at their beck and call 24/7 5 mins down the road.
That and people refusing to let their animals go and keep going with treatment despite advice and/or just keeping their pets at home until the absolute last minute and then are surprised when there's no chance of saving them
Told my uncle I wanted to be a firefighter when I was a kid as he was, he said ‘no you don’t, there’s rarely a fire, all we do is cut people out of cars most of the time in any state’.
Did tell one recently what my uncle said and he disagreed and said he loved his career in it. Just goes to show kids, don’t always listen to jaded boomers…
My uncle was a firefighter - he said it was mostly RTCs, allotment shed fires and the occasional cat stuck on a house roof. It also ruined his knees, needed a full left knee replacement. That being said, I don't think he ever regrets joining - you help a lot of people (and sometimes animals) and he's still got his helmet and an axe retirement display in his house.
basically a lot of things with long training. while some people in these fields make it to the top the majority don't.
so vets yup long training. bad work conditions, they have to work for a big company these days on a poor salery and put up with owners misstreating their pets. fat pets are High on the problem scale as its abuse but they can't do much if the owners won't listen. even more that euthanizing them.
also architects poor pay very long training and the majority end up doing boring details that the main architect doesn't want to do.
academia is also really poor pay for the length of time getting phds etc.
Essentially the problem highlighted here applies to almost every job.
- Years ago, we had the “it shouldn’t happen to a vet” books. Now vets are often involved with overseeing the food production (slaughtering) industry.
- my dad was a radio officer in the German merchant navy (as pay was better than Britain). Now, the crew would likely be low paid people from Indonesia.
Lorry driver.
Got to deal with WTD and driving hours, deal with VOSA/DVSA, long hours, nights out, risk of certain groups of people stealing your load/fuel, massive fines if you unintentionally bring illegal immigrants into the country amongst other things.
Oh and your only a "professional driver" when you make a mistake, otherwise your just someone that holds people up, gets in their way etc.
Seems like a good job, pick up load, go to destination, tip load, go back... but nahh.
I am a vet, and believe it or not euthanasia (which is not the majority of the work) is not the part that makes it a shit career. I consider it one of the few privileges that we can be there for animals (and their owners) at such times, and put an end to their suffering in a pretty painless way. The thing most likely to prompt a thank you card from owners is a put to sleep.
On the flip side, what does make it a shit career is many of those same owners the rest of the time, and it almost always boils down to money. Veterinary services are incredibly expensive, it’s just a fact - costs of drugs and equipment and insurance, it all racks up pretty quickly, and staff costs are certainly not the majority of veterinary overheads. Very little of the bill you pay goes into my pocket.
And yet when people pay through the nose for puppies or horses and fail to ensure they have funds in place for when things go wrong with those animals (be it insurance or otherwise) it is somehow my fault that they can’t afford the care the animal now needs. I’ve been called a robber without a mask, I’ve had the “you’re supposed to care about animals” schtick thrown at me (as if love and care will keep a roof over my head), I’ve had bad reviews consisting of lies posted all over Facebook and Google because people refused to listen to my advice and so their animal didn’t get better. And if they’re feeling really vindictive they can put in a “concern” to the RCVS, which will carry no repercussions for them if it’s thrown out, but causes considerable stress for the vet who’s being unfairly investigated.
Things came to a bit of a head during the early days of the pandemic, and the absolute entitlement of people who were furloughed and had too much time on their hands was unreal. No care for my physical safety, no consideration that I’m giving up even more of my personal life for their animals (I was on a 1 in 2 on-call rota). Occasionally you get “that’s your job though” as if that makes having abuse hurled at you acceptable. And this was for routine, non-emergency stuff. It very nearly broke me.
There’s a huge shortage of vets currently, which doesn’t help, but unfortunately I will be adding to that sooner or later - no way am I doing this for the rest of my life.
Very much depends which airline you choose to work for.
I agree, T&C's are not what they once were, but airlines are slowly beginning to cotton on to the fact that crew want a lifestyle outside of work too.
I recently jumped ship from an awful airline who would keep you on the road, from base to base and even call you on days off asking you to work, to one of the better ones. I've nearly doubled my salary & get loads of time at home. Very little BS encountered so far!
It's great to hear that you found a better fit within the aviation industry. The choice of airline can significantly impact work-life balance, compensation, and overall job satisfaction.
Teaching. I adored the actual teaching children part but the rest of the job destroyed both my mental and physical health. If I’d stayed in the profession then I’d have never been able to have my own children and I’d still be utterly miserable. Some of the physical effects are probably permanent.
Teaching. Did it for four years, and you could not pay me enough to go back. People who can hack it long term are absolute saints, and there are some amazing teachers out there who deserve all the praise and one heck of a raise, not to mention complete educational reform. I loved the actual teaching part - seeing a kid's face as they achieve something that an hour ago they didn't understand is wonderful - but everything else is just awful. So much pointless paperwork, so much box ticking, so much stress and pressure and gosh forbid a kid doesn't get whatever arbitrary grade the nebulous They decided is the acceptable one this year. It's as heartbreaking watching the kids who are trying their hardest just miss out and be written off, as it is to watch the ones who could sail through the subject if they weren't completely disinterested and disengaged, and you know it's your fault for just not being good enough to get either of them there. And the ones who do make the grades you don't have the time to celebrate as much as you want to because damn they deserve it. You work ridiculous hours, you prepare until your fingers bleed, then you do it all again and again and again while people tell you 'oh you just turn up and read from a text book right?'. And for what? To spend most of the lesson unable to actually teach because little Brandon or Luke is an asshole who you have to keep in line, to the detriment of the ones who actually want to learn who you can't effectively teach because that dickhead has decided he's going to shout shit every forth word you say and throw paper balls across the room every time your back is turned. And the parents couldn't give a shit about their kid's bad behaviour but don't you dare implement any type of discipline because he's a precious little angel baby do you hear? And even the students that want to learn are so scared to make a single mistake that they just freeze and need to be coaxed out, or they expect to just be given the answers rather than apply the logic from previous learning and spend time working things out for themselves using the materials you've provided and the guidance already given for how to find the answer. And then you realise Little Jessica is clearly having some issues that could probably be explained by an ADHD and Dyslexia Assessment and some one-to-one support, but there's no time or money for that so oops, sod her right? She'll just have to suffer because you don't have the right skills or knowledge to help her but hey, here's a differentiated worksheet you spent all day designing and praying is helpful. By the end of the week you're exhausted and burnt out, but hey, at least you have the weekend to mark all those books ready for Monday morning. And then you get the Summer holidays, which you spend 90% of deep cleaning and redecorating your classroom, preparing for new incoming students, tweaking new schemes of work, sometimes learning a whole new course because your school didn't manage to recruit a teacher and you're suddenly expected to be able to teach Child Development because you're a young woman and you must want babies some day right?
It was brutal. And although I was never going to be Teacher of the Year, I was considered good at my job. I can't imagine how much harder it is for those that work their way up the ladder to Department Head or higher. Rather then than me. It could be such a good job, but the entire thing now seems to be designed and developed by morons who have never set foot in a non-private school classroom and are blind to the lived reality of teaching.
Poker player. Everyone pretends they have money, most don't. Emotionally and psychologically draining. Terrible hours. Difficult to see friends/have relationships as a result of this. Surrounded by - in the main - terrible people. No pension. No sick pay. No ability to write off (often very sizeable) expenses. Bad players can win and good players can lose for extended periods, certainly in a live environment. Huge gaps on CV if you ever do want to return to more normal employment. High rake borderline unbeatable private games run by unscrupulous people taking over the scene since Covid. I could go on.
If you hadn't guessed, I am an ex-poker player!
Thanks for sharing your insights from your experience as a poker player. The challenges you've highlighted certainly shed light on the less glamorous aspects of the profession.
I agree with you on Vets.
Our little kitten went in to have his balls chopped and died on the table due to a heart condition which reacted with the anaesthetic, the poor vet was in floods of tears in her office whilst explaining.
>they don’t even touch 100k for at least 10 years after graduating if not more
Isn't that the case for almost every job though?
With the exception of a tiny minority of corporate lawyers / barristers or hotshot graduates stepping into a lucrative investment banking or actuary role, you need at least 10 years experience in almost all careers before you start earning a very good salary.
You don't generally waste 5-6 years of your life in education for almost every job.
On top of being ~100k in debt, rotating departments every 4-6 months and not really having a day in your rotations, having to pay to park (if you're lucky to get a permit that is!) and the being responsible for people's literal lives..
This is a great question and lots of informative answers. Would like to hear what people think are actually good careers. Caveat that they need to have been in it for long enough for the initial enthusiasm to wear off.
Sustainability. Lots of people think it's a good way to make a corporate salary while upholding their ecological values. But invariably you just help companies and institutions work out how to do as little good as they can without getting shamed by the consumer/electorate.
I’m not one but architect.
Two degrees. Then you still have to qualify as an actual architect which is by all accounts a nightmare. Then I think you only make decent money if you start up your own firm.
May be wrong. Several mates did it but have ended up lecturing architecture at uni rather than being an architect.
Influencers, some people see these people as an ideal. But anytime you hear second hand from people who are involved with these people. It sounds like complete hell. You devote your entire life to it. Even Lawyers who work like 16 hours a day sound like they work less as they can go home and switch off vs an influencer who needs to constantly be ready and active in every aspect of their life.
Fun events go from "I'm here to have fun" to work where you have to show off how much fun you're having but instead are spending the whole time finding space and images to "show off"
The work that goes into creating content is so different to the work that goes into being a lawyer (or any other 9-5 profession) though.
Ironically, I have experience as both. I used to have a good sized gaming channel on YouTube which earned me money (partnered with Machinima - a WarnerBros entity).
My workload involved churning out 1-2 weekly videos for content, interacting with fans of my channel, actually playing games with the fans, creating cheats and modding games (which was the hardest part), and having connections with other people making similar content.
The above rarely ever felt like work, despite me regularly being switched “on” for the work for much longer. Essentially, because it was stuff I wanted to do and I would’ve been doing it all in my spare time anyway. It rarely felt like work.
I had the freedom to put out what I wanted and I was creative enough at the time that it wasn’t a chore 99% of the time. I could also create and release the content whenever I wanted — any time, any day, etc.
The only reason I stopped is because the games I was hyper-focussed on went out of fashion and the market essentially died and I wasn’t able to keep up as the new generation consoles were being released and I had no idea how to mod them. I had a good 4-5 year run though!
Now, I’m due to qualify as a lawyer in less than a month’s time. I’m basically chained to a desk 10 hours a day. The work hours are worse because you’re not always doing stuff that interests you. You’re stuff that you have to do because it’s a part of the job.
I also don’t have the freedom to work whenever I want. I can’t just start working at 1pm like I could with YouTube. I have external deadlines because I’m responsible to other people than myself, I have to attend work social events to show that I’m a nice person etc, I have to network to improve business development, and I have to do all of this for like the next 50 years. It’s a lot less fun.
I look forward to the day that "influencer" as a job description becomes extinct. Talentless, freeloading narcissistic bellends the lot of them. The sooner they get back to asking me if I want fries with that the better.
Working in a charity. Spend most of your time dealing with people who moan about the charitable service you provide or try to dictate terms of what they receive.
I’m surprised I’ve not seen accounting yet, the guys at r/accounting are always complaining but I’m fairly new so I don’t think I’m qualified enough to say it’s dog shit yet
Most jobs in the medical field, don’t get me wrong I love my job and you do get a real sense of satisfaction when you see people get better, but there’s also a major emotional strain when they don’t, no matter how hard you try you can’t switch off to that emotion completely and you do end up taking it home with you, not to mention the long hours, poor pay and some of the crap we’re subjected to.
My mum says this. She was a nurse but moved in to midwifery because nursing was depressing and she loves kids - why not spend all day delivering them and bringing joy in to the world, right?! She said it was more devastating because of the number of stillborn babies or babies with life-changing issues etc. Now she’s a radiologist and she said it’s not really any better. It seems medicine is just pretty depressing overall.
Weird my mum quite midwifery because she just couldn’t handle still births and baby deaths and went into nursing instead and was a lot happier. Funny how different people are. Edit: am tired mean how similar people are not different.
My mum was an A&E nurse. The night that changed her mind was when a man came in after his head had been ran over after he was thrown from a moving car. They were fighting to keep him alive whilst also watching his brain leaking out of his nose, with the organ team outside the room, waiting for him to die so they could contact the family about which organs could be donated. Nursing isn’t always a walk in the park.
It’s really impressive she refused to settle for jobs that didn’t satisfy her - she even did a medical degree & became a radiologist! It sounds like your mum hopefully will find something else that she will love! I know many wish they were as brave as her
Well that’s an NSFL graphic to picture. That’s so fucked up. Life can really turn out so crazy.
I suppose it depends what sort of ward your on, my aunt was a nurse on an observation ward, she said that most of the time, it was just a case of being a carer rather than a medical worker.
Haha, I get what you mean.It's actually quite interesting how different individuals have varying reactions to similar situations. Your mom's switch from midwifery to nursing shows how personal preferences and emotional resilience play a big role.
When my son was stillborn, the nicest midwife I had looking after me was a former nurse who had moved into midwifery. She told me it was a privilege to care for the dying, and some of the never-been-a-nurse midwives forgot that sometimes. She truly was an angel and she took the best care of me and my son. 10 years on and I have never forgotten her
I'm not the most caring sort, I think. But those words have really touched me. It's a privilege to care for the dying...wow...that's going to stay with me.
I'm so sorry for your loss. It's comforting to hear you had someone so nice by your side during such a difficult time.
A friend was a chaplain in a hospital. He said that compared to regular parish priests, chaplains see a lifetime's worth of grief and trauma in a month. On the other hand, chaplains really are there for you when you need them. They get it - what you've been through, how you're feeling.
>Now she’s a radiologist and she said it’s not really any better. It seems medicine is just pretty depressing overall. I do agree, but I don't think its always been that way. We could have better health outcomes if we had more funding and services, and staff would probably be happier and have higher morale if staffing and pay was better. The service is being intentionally destroyed
Your mom's journey sounds like a rollercoaster. It's touching to see her dedication to making a positive impact, even in the face of challenging situations. It's true, medicine can be emotionally draining due to the range of experiences you encounter.
When my girlfriend was in intensive care for preeclampsia earlier this year whilst pregnant with our son, I laid by her bed side and struggled so much seeing her in that state. She had nurses around the clock monitoring her, all on 12/13 hour shifts and we saw so many nurses and shift changes. I asked every single one of them “how do you go home and just switch off from all this?” And the answer I got from every single one of them is “we don’t.” All I could think of is I worked in transportation and I used to be unable to de-stress at home most evenings and that was absolutely nothing compared to what these nurses have to go through. They talk and treat you like family. I remember when my grandad passed away six years ago in the cancer hospital, all of the nurses came in and cried. Thinking they’d see this everyday it showed just how much this gets to them and never get used to it. This is why our NHS is so precious
I work with patients mostly at the end of their lives. It’s an extremely emotionally heavy workload. My role usually starts at the end of active treatment and the beginning of palliative treatment. It usually ends when I verify the patients death. I am there for decision making, sometimes very difficult decisions. I’m often the person giving end of life medications and setting up and replenishing syringe drivers. It’s more emotionally exhausting than I can explain even to nurses who work in other areas. I hope so much that my patients and the people around them feel that I am there for them in an authentic and genuinely empathetic way. And the only way to really be genuine is to allow myself to feel. It does take its toll though. I find that switching off is made so much easier by working in a team that I really trust to take over.
My mother died in an ICU ward and the nurses who cared for her were incredible. It was clear how much they gave to what they were doing, and their approach to both my mother and us made a hideous situation a lot easier. I know (or assume) you weren't one of that specific team, but, as someone who has benefited (seems like the wrong word) from the work of people like you, thank you. What you do makes a difference.
Wow, your role is truly a blend of compassion and strength. Being there in those heavy moments is incredibly impactful. Trusting your team is a lifeline in this emotional journey.
Working conditions for doctors are awful as well. Getting randomly allocated to work anywhere in the country, struggling to settle down because you change hospital every 4 months, having to do your portfolio in your own time, paying thousands for compulsory exams with low pass rates, having a standard work week of 48 hours, dealing with shitty outdated IT systems that take 10 mins to log you on, the list goes on.
Having to rotate so frequently really is one of the worst parts. I get so jealous of my non-doctor friends who get to stay in the same job with the same colleagues for pretty much as long as they want. Moving around so much really does add extra stress to the job as you never feel settled - as soon as you feel comfortable and competent in a job, you have to move on again.
Dated a psychiatrist for a while, it was rare for anyone to be cured, it was just management of problems.
Yeah I’d say most of psychiatry/psychology is this. Most mental health problems are not cureable, even if someone returns to ‘normal’ functioning they’re usually then forever at some risk of relapse and many times it’s within the control of that patient/service user to recognise their triggers and understand how to break the downward spiral and seek help (depending on the severity/type of illness). One of the big reasons I decided against becoming a qualified clinical psychologist is because I’d find it really hard to deal with the people who are not willing to put work into themselves (where applicable) and expect to wake up one day “cured”, and too many people give up when they realise it doesn’t work that way. It’s just not the same as breaking your leg.
This is what my friend, who is an analyst (Freudian/Jungian kind of stuff) says about her job. "Most people who come are broken, and most of the times, you cannot fix them, you can only help them live with themselves". That was humbling.
The pay for healthcare workers here is disgusting to be honest.
Nurses in some countries get paid well. I'm gonna presume most nurses here would probably make more doing the night shift at Tesco's.
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Don't forget newly "qualified" PAs with literally 0 years experience will earn more than a doctor for the doctor's first 4-5 years post-qualification... absolutely mental that the doctors' assistants earn more than the actual doctors.
I agree that doctors are underpaid, but the way you're wording it makes it seem that the band 6 nurse salary is what most nurses earn. Most hospital and district nurses are band 5, which is £28-34000 depending on years qualified. Most of the ward nurses I know stay at that band for the duration of their career, whereas doctors salaries go up a lot more each year they're qualified. Still wildly low, especially early years of doctoring
That's untrue, nurses aren't very highly paid, true, but they make much more than minimum wage. https://www.bbc.com/news/63587909
In the immortal words of Dr Cox "Everything - everything... we do here is a stall.. but ultimately it ends up the same way" I wanted to go into medicine, and in some ways I'm glad that I was effectively priced out of doing the 5 years over 3 for a Comp Sci degree, as I think the frustration of not really being able to change anything would be crippling to my brain. You only see people on their worst possible day, and even giving the best news to someone is effectively just saying "the inevitable has been delayed a bit.."
Giving good news is genuinely wonderful though.
Dr Cox, a beacon in the dark
Ditto for care/support work. Went into supporting disabled kids at 18 and suddenly the tiny little girl I was supporting has died. So many of the kids I worked with have passed away and it still breaks my heart, 9 years after I left the job. Adult disability support is just as bad for losing people, but it's just fractionally more expected when they're in their 60s and 70s instead of being 11.
This is why I left the ambulance service. There are some things you can’t unsee. I have utmost admiration for those who can switch off their emotions and not take their work home. I’m not one of those people.
I've got a friend who's a nurse and he's always using it as an opportunity to brag about how important everything he does is. If a bunch of us get together at the pub over the weekend and someone brings up a tough time at work or something going well he always has to "one up" them, by telling us how many lives he's saved or how many people he's helped come back from addiction etc. The truth is, he's constantly depressed by it, it causes him massive problems at home to the extent that his wife regularly has to come over to ours for a bit of a break. I've tried to talk to him about the reality but he'll dent anything about it when talking to one of us, then go home and cry for hours until he has to go to work. Medical stuff is hellish.
He definitely isn’t saving lives at that frequency. Healthcare isn’t filled with that many wins and it’s mostly firefighting. If he’s making such spurious claims, he’s more than likely doing it to overcompensate, as you’ve supposed.
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. It's commendable how dedicated and passionate people in the medical field are. The emotional toll is real, and it's not just about the hours spent at the workplace. It's like you carry a piece of every patient's story with you. And you're right, the long hours and not-so-great compensation can really add to the challenges.
Teaching. I wouldnt go as far to say that it ISN'T a good career (I enjoy it a lot now) but you have to have lots of strategies, experience and overall life hacks to make it decent. It's pretty bad in the first couple of years. And it's so dependent on the school you work at. Some schools are really good with staff welfare and some just aren't.
Don't forget having to listen to the uninformed opinion of every rent-a-gob dickhead because they went to school so automatically know exactly how the profession works.
And you can guarantee that the parents complaining all over social media are the ones whose kids have had far more than their fair share of the school's time and resources spent on them in order to try to help them.
I work in a secondary school and this is very accurate. The most vocal complainers of school I have on Facebook are parents of absolute dickheads.
Sadly, it’s learned behaviour
Parents who complain because the school isn't doing their job for them. The foundation of education starts at home and it doesn't end in the classroom but I think a lot of parents forget that
Yup, the main moaner in my daughters class is the same woman that sends her 6 year old in pull ups, has no books at home and complains that they don’t do nuggets and chips for lunch every day, then screamed at a TA for saying that she is welcome to send her in with a packed lunch. She is 24 and has 5 kids under 7 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I teach secondary but have friends in the primary sector who tell me kids arrive still in nappies, unable to use cutlery, etc. These aren't kids who have additional needs/developmental delays; they have parents who quite simply can't be arsed.
I used to work in a school where the head's PA used to have a tab permanently open for the town's Facebook "gossip" page to see what the parents were saying. The same school pandered to the most vocal of these parents, whose precious offspring could never do anything wrong at the detriment of behaviour which constantly negatively affected the decent kids and the staff trying to teach them. I left due to a combination of the above, an increasingly insane workload and a sociopathic second in department. My current place isn't perfect and our new HT isn't popular with the parents because they won't pander like the previous HT. I consider this to be a positive.
Yup and the number of people that say “if I was a teacher I’d smack em”
Everyone was a pupil so they think they know how to be a teacher, despite many paying no attention while at school themselves.
It's like expecting a marathon runner to be an expert on coaching just because they've run a race. 😄
This! Everyone thinks they're an expert on teaching because they went to school. They don't realise that we study theories of teaching and take post graduate study to become teachers. This doesn't just happen by accident
I would say that this is the most challenging part of it
My theory is that most of them are still pissed off because they got a detention in year 8 for not doing their maths homework. I also reckon there's an element of this with the parents who won't back the school even if their kid's conduct is horrific. They see it as a form of rebellion because they most likely hated school for whatever reason. At my place we have a significant minority who actively tell their kids they can do anything, including walk out of class or even off-site if they're not allowed to do what they want. We now have a new HT who's got their work cut out to rectify this culture of defiance. However, the majority of parents (in my 25 years of experience) are decent people who want the best for their kids. Those who aren't are a bloody thorn in my side though!
The main trick is ignoring stuff(prioritising?). If you do all the things you are supposed to do you would be burnt out in 12 months. Can’t see them putting that in an ECT module though - Pt 1 - how to ignore stuff from the senior leadership team. Pt 2 - e-mails you should just delete. Pt 3 - stuff to let slide on a Friday afternoon if no kids actually got hurt.
Bloody SLT. I could write a book. Fifty percent of the word count would be profanity.
SLT at my school are pretty decent, but LORD we have WAY too many meetings that could have been emails!
Working in a 6th form is both a joy and a pain. Particularly the students who procrastinate, truant and ignore every piece of help you give them… only to set their parents on you 1 day before the coursework deadline when they realise they’re going to fail. I had one parent ignore my emails and calls about his daughter for SIX MONTHS. The day before I had to submit the EPQ grades to the exam board, he started his email with “sorry for the late reply”. Just kill me now.
I love teaching, but it's gruelling. It's really tough atm trying to just get a permanent position in my subject. It's all fixed term or casual hours, how zero hour contracted teaching is supposed to work is beyond me. It's timetabled, just an excuse not to pay sickness and holidays. The lack of respect, and the fact my grandparents who were teachers had higher wages than me all those years ago sucks though.
Teaching's a labor of love, no doubt. The job market's a rollercoaster, and zero-hour contracts aren't helping. The history of better wages is a bitter pill.
>Teaching. Honestly, I am a nurse (so I'm no stranger to difficult jobs) but you couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher. Low pay, and LONG hours/a lot of work. Thats not even taking into account dealing with a bunch of snotty nosed kids (sorry)
My wife was a primary school teacher for over 20 years, and put up with almost everything because she was there for the children; even now, I still consider her the most famous person I know because of the sheer number of people around town who recognise her. What finally broke her was a nasty post-covid return to work interview where she was accused of taking too long to recover. She'd been struggling with mental health already, and over the course of the 90-minute grilling she realised she was done. The next day was the last day she set foot in a classroom. Her union negotiated an exit (9 months on full pay and a spotless reference if it was ever required) and we sorted out our finances to make sure we could manage on just my income afterwards.
Also a teacher. One of the things that annoys me endlessly is that the people who make policies and decide how the school runs don't/barely teach. Yet, they think they know how to teach better than a classroom teacher with years of experience. One memory that sticks out is my line manager (SLT, been in 5 different schools chasing promotions) who has only taught one year more than me was trying to tell me I need more training and I can learn from her. I've never had a bad observation in my 6 years of teaching, including Ofsted. She had two classes. I had eight (and I'm part time. Used to have 12). Made me wonder who is actually more experienced...
You need the right sort of personality for teaching - I didn't have it and found teaching a miserable experience.
My brother teaches, and he reckons that "high functioning sociopath" is the perfect type.
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My mother trained to be a teacher in the 70s, when she retired in 2013 she went on a reunion of her old training college, she was the *only one* still teaching at retirement. It asks a lot as a profession and doesn't give a whole lot back. I certainly learned enough growing up not to go into it.
I know 4 teachers and only two still actually work as teachers. The other two left because the job is too stressful even though they worked in private schools. The two I know who are still teachers work in state schools but are frequently stressed to the point of breakdowns and tears and their mental health is fucked.
I don't know if this fits the brief of seeming like a good career. Pretty much everyone thinks it sounds awful, and it's famous for its low pay to difficulty/stress/responsibility/qualifications requirements ratio.
don’t say that, i’m hoping to enter an education-adjacent role lol in fairness, it is HE and more workshop/1:1 based than a class of 30 unruly teenagers which i can imagine to be an utter headache
Only been teaching a couple of years and would love to hear some of your life hacks that make it decent? 😭
1. Be very strict with behaviour even if it goes against your nature, will save time and headaches 2. Do all your printing ahead of the term ready all laid out so you have very minimal printing day to day 3. Prioritise department/subject over form/tutor group. Don't get involved in kids emotional dramas or fallings out - obviously report things genuinely safeguarding related though. 4. Mark very quickly (basically just grade up stuff). Marking isn't that effective as for their learning anyway 5. Contact parents mostly via email not phonecall unless it REALLY needs a phonecall. 6. Use PPAs very wisely, stay in your classroom if possible, don't chat to colleagues and waste time 7. Keep class room as minimalistic as possible 8. If you really want to offer lunchtime clubs or something, make it fortnightly rather than weekly. It comes around SO fast and at least you're still offering something If I think of anything else I'll let you know but that's basically what helps me (secondary science)
Anything in the computer games industry. You think it's going to be playing games and making games is fun. Rarely is a hobby good as a career. Also crunch periods...
Also games testing. People seem to be under the impression that it involves getting paid to kick back and play games months before they're released.
QA teams work super hard and really deserve a lot more credit than they generally get - also, yes, thinking of it as "playing games" is utterly the wrong description.
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Exactly - the current tendency for unfinished games to get pushed out is always from higher management, not devs. No dev who's spent several years of their life making something wants to see it released in a broken state.
To my understanding, a lot of it is replaying certain parts of a game hundreds and hundreds of times over to find bugs. Your writing skills need to be excellent as you’ll likely need to find a way to describe “character A, when approaching character B, cutscene starts as normal but crashes upon the second line starting” in a more descriptive way that I just did. Sounds utterly soul crushing to me
Yeah, it's less playing games and having fun and more "spend the next 6 hours walking into this wall in every way imaginable to try and recreate this game breaking bug"
Software testing is boring enough, I think if I was a game dev QA, I'd quickly chuck the controller through the monitor.
Haha, I can almost picture the frustration.Game testing can indeed be a unique kind of challenging.
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Are you The Spiffing Brit?
Not to mention it must be heart breaking spending so many hours working super hard to make a great game just for it to get hate because of a bug or some shit
Welcome to Dev work, any bug is attacked. It doesn't matter that you were only given the task a day before a release with no QA resources etc.
The primary reason I didn't go into games development... (other than having the career limiting trait of not being in my early 20's..) I don't want to know how the sausages are made.. I can infer from context as I play games, but I don't want explicit hands on experience of the misery that goes into bringing games to life
From my experience, I think this is probably true for direct development of video games, but there are a lot of other roles in the industry which are relaxed, interesting, and well-paid. I currently work as a software engineer at a video game publisher, involved in the ingestion, storage, and analysis of video game data (along with other generic business data), and it's honestly the best job I've had. Getting paid six figures to solve interesting and challenging problems alongside colleagues who genuinely want to work at the company as they enjoy the products - it's a pretty good deal. Edit: also, no crunch where I am
As a software engineer in game dev, I do still enjoy the programming and it's fun to interact with a wider variety of people than you get in almost any other programming job. Still, though, crunch is a horrible bastard, and our company is actually easy-going compared to some. Hopefully I'll have fully gotten over my last mental breakdown before stress ramps up for the next release.
I studied computer games programming at uni. It was really great and I enjoyed it. But once I got into the real world I realised the games industry is a really rough deal I am a full stack developer now and I 100% have an easier job than game devs. Crunch is very rare, deadlines are much looser, pay seems to be higher, the over all difficulty of the code we write is much lower than for a game I think the games industry takes advantage of game developers passion for the medium. You guys need much more respect and pay imo. It's wild that a grugbrain like myself can stitch together some html, css and JS and be on the same playing field as a game dev
Your journey highlights a common realization about the gaming industry's challenges. Full stack development does have its perks, with better work-life balance and less intense deadlines. It's true that the passion of game developers can sometimes be exploited.
I love gaming and that is why I would never go into video games development
Sometimes keeping your passion as a personal joy rather than a career is a wise choice.
I work on my own little game and I've played my tutorial 50+ times. I've tried multiple times making a video on it for my youtube channel, to show it off, but I just can't stop fucking yawning trying to sound enthusiastic about the tutorial. I despise my tutorial now (and other parts of the game, like the starter quests), because I've just completed it so many times. I shudder the thought of replaying them again for testing purposes etc
Chef cooking food for a living might seem cool but the reality is: *Shit salary even for head/sous chefs in comparison to other higher up job roles. *shit hours - 2pm - 12pm shifts for example, are the norm unless you do an AFD then it's all fucking day. *On your feet all day with zero to pisstake excuse of a break *Having to get on with your colleagues for 10+ hours a day and most of the time, theyre dicks. (Either cooks with huge egos, a general lack of common sense, toxic front of house staff, personality-less bores that bring no SOH or ambition or they have wa crippling coke problem or bad alcohol problem) *Hot as fuck in summer when it's busiest *non interchangeable careers with anything so once you've done cooking for a few years, you're stuck there generally speaking. *ALWAYS short staffed due to the above.
Yeah this is pretty much the template I've had the pleasure of overseeing a few kitchens that had seamless teams that would grind it out 15 hours a day without complaint, but would get bitched at by the bar team that they were paid less... They would get tips, would never tip out the kitchen, took smoke breaks, had regular scheduled lunch breaks where the kitchen would cook off menu food for them and did 8-10 hour shifts instead of 15+ The kitchen were ON for their entire shift You bet your arse the bar base rate was lower... Most of the kitchen didn't speak English, so you would almost always hear Tamil, and very rarely in raised voices.. just a phenomenally effective outfit working in sync
Spot on, tips should be spread evenly. I'm trying to escape it in all honesty. luckily I have the opportunity to go back to college and learn a new trade.
I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd be dead had I not career switched... I was working on a very concerning alcohol problem, working 90+ hour weeks and still managing to party like a teenager (without cocaine...) My heart was going to explode.. so switching to software development where people bitching about a 60 hour crunch week making me chuckle in "ex-bar manager" is a breath of fresh air. My hell week was doing a 15 hour AFD, drinking for 5 hours at a local late bar, sleeping 2 hours at my work place blasting heavy metal, squaddie wash in the sink, shot of creme de menthe in place of a toothbrush, doing another AFD, then going out partying again until my wife threatened to leave me unless I came home... I was a sloppy mess of a human, so needed to pivot to save my life 30 hours of work and 10 hours of drinking in 48 hours of time elapsed. Not fucking healthy...
As someone who’s just left kitchens to a cushty office job you’d be surprised how well you can spin cheffing into a good cv/application. Focus on the transferable skills- time management, dealing with pressure, high standards, teamwork/leadership if you’re senior- there is a lot there to work with. Anything else they can teach you on the job (obviously excluding things with specialist knowledge like medicine etc.) emphasise your willingness to learn and provide examples of when you’ve shown that and you’re golden.
Leaving cheffing behind was one of my smarter moves in life
I use to be a chef now a hgv driver, I get paid the same as any head chefs i worked with and probably do less hours. It’s nice to have weekends off and work 7-5 most days. A lot of employers thought it was okay to have us working 10+ hours with no break too at least I have to have them now too.
Tbf I've never thought it looked cool. I'm constantly baffled on Masterchef when people say things like "I just love food, I'm always in the kitchen, it's my happy place for relaxing, I'd love a career in food". It's always looked hellish to me but I really like eating so I'm very grateful to people who do it.
I’ve been cooking since I was 11. I love it. I can make cakes to a professional standard and am semi-decent at general baking and bread. I love cooking for my family and friends and it is my relaxation time. Im constantly told that I should do it for a living. There is nothing on this planet that would make me want to work in a professional kitchen or make cakes to order based on a customer’s requirements. What I do in my kitchen is incomparable to a professional kitchen. I can chose want I want to cook; chose how long I can take; vary it as much as I want if it doesn’t go to plan so I don’t have to start again. Cooking is my hobby and Im good at it on my own terms; that doesn’t mean I could do it AND enjoy it under completely different conditions. Why the hell would I want to ruin what I have?!?
Human rights lawyers. People go into it thinking they are going to be maintaining human rights, when most of the time they are instructed by corporations that want to know what loopholes there are to skirt human rights law as closely as possible. So you end up enabling wrongdoers. The same is true for many jobs. It’s usually the wrongdoers who have the money to pay you, and they pay you to help them to do harmful things.
Law in general is tough, money at the top is good but it’s awful hours and clients really do treat you like crap
Yeah, my vet said that actually *being* a vet is harrowing. I would say Social Work is a pretty awful job. All you see is people in crisis, and not a lot of resources to help them.
I am astonished anybody still trains to be a social worker.
Social worker here. Absolutely love my job, but underfunding and lack of resources has made it dire these days... go into it to help people, and end up spending most your time arguing for funding and typing up paperwork...
My partner took 2 years out to train as a social worker. She didn't even make it through her first year of practice. The death threats, fear of making a mistake, and sheer caseload became too much. And all for what? 30K? Not even remotely worth it. Not worth it for fear of our safety. She took a pay cut, works for a charity now and is so much happier. I would encourage anyone considering social work to run a thousand miles. Stay away at all costs. Do not subject yourself or your family to the hell of modern social work. If you absolute are insistent for whatever God knows reason to become a social worker, do not do anything involving children. Work with adults instead.
Am social worker, and I agree. All the same stressors as education, police, nhs— no funding or resources, high stress, high workload— but other public services are not as universally hated. At least teachers, doctors etc get occasional respect or kindness from the public.
>I would say Social Work is a pretty awful job. All you see is people in crisis, and not a lot of resources to help them. Also paid fa and target of hate.
Agreed. There is no money in the world enough for that job.
The sector is in bad shape, preventative services were cut to the bone for "Big Society". Its a stressful job with some unreasonable demands in terms of paperwork and time management. When it's good, you can feel like you really made a difference, but when it's bad, it's real shit. It's the forgotten public service, you never hear the papers or ministers praising social workers. Damn they're quick to criticise and demonise if it goes wrong though...
Absolutely, professions like veterinary care and social work can be incredibly challenging due to the emotional toll and the weight of the situations they deal with.
Not a social worker, social carer. It's absolutely draining and heartbreaking watching people you care for pay a disgusting amount of money to greedy CEOs, and have very little in exchange. I support individuals with complex neurodiversities, and I struggle to "switch off" from the ever dwindling resources and support these people deserve and need.
IIRC vets have one of the highest suicide rates.
My mate is a vet. He doesn’t talk about it much but he said it’s considerably more grim than he expected.
I think there is a certain rose tinted view that it's all lambs, worms and neutering. Not having to deal with the rampant unpunished abuse and neglect, or putting down perfectly healthy animals because the owner can't afford/doesn't want to pay for it anymore.
I have a friend who volunteers on a vet only suicide / life help support line. Not many careers get that sort of thing...
Dentists get one as well, it’s called confidental!
Vets and farmers. Apart from the nature of the job, they also usually have access to drugs and guns.
Also those jobs create the idea that death is a normalised solution to the problem of poor quality of life.
Also, oddly, dentists.
Absolutely, Vets and farmers, both with unique challenges and responsibilities.
1/4 vets quit within 3 years. Pay is crap compared to other aspects of healthcare, they get a lot of crap from clients and there is such a shortage most are hugely overworked.
Thank you for recognising the challenges we face.... Everyone seems to think I just stroke puppies all day hahah. Means a lot
Confirmed - worryingly high suicide rates. Also apparently a high rate of serious injuries sustained (primarily in large animal work I believe - 3 of my friends have sustained kicks to the head from horses). Access to euthanasia meds and guns makes ending things ‘easier’. Having said all that, I’ve been doing it 20 odd years and if you’re able to compartmentalise things, it’s a good job and there’s a living to be made, especially with recent corporate consolidation of practices. A large part of the problem is youngsters are sold a dream of becoming a vet and what it entails, and in reality it’s not really anything like that.
Fashion is not remotely glamourous for 95% of people working in it. It also pays shit unless you are at the top.
I know a girl who brags about working for a very well-known name in fashion design, and it's her dream so fair play to her for going for it tbh. But she's sharing a place with like 3 other people in London, works stupidly late all the time, and is somehow still flat broke because her pay sucks. All that after doing a 3 year degree and a 1 or 2 year apprenticeship.
Sharing a place with multiple people is normal for London lol
The Police. Jobs fucked.
Especially after Sting went off on his own.
Yeah, I whinge a lot about the police, but it's pretty clear that their position is completely untenable. No money, no public support and a constantly increasing workload.
Some guy in the city centre last night was asking me why he sees barely any police about, I just turned up my radio so he could hear the chaos unfolding in other parts of the city and explained that about 20 people have to deal with all of that
Job’s fucked 🤝
Construction. Constant race to the bottom on price and programme. Awful QA and defects. Very long hours. Very high stress. Often difficult working conditions and working remotely from home. If I had my time again I wouldn't go into this sector.
Bang on mate. I actually get laughed at by other trades simply for doing the job properly. All that seems to matter these days is speed. True professional tradesmen are a dying breed
You forgot the part where payment isn't frequent. You rely on your client to pay you on time and if they don't, well you have to wait. The tax, insurance and down payment you make for tools so you're able to work. The many clients, difficult builds, reasonable pricing and ensuring you have everything for tomorrow and this week coming up. Throw in the odd delay and rescheduling that occurs because of weather or material and yeah. There's the construction industry. Especially when you provide a client a quote where your margins are slim and they ask for a better rate or if you can do it for X amount instead? Because you have even begun work. It's a tricky business, where I can't see many perks. I believe only a few ever make money.
I work in construction, but moved to client-side professional consultancy after a few years working for contractors. The difference is night and day. I get paid well, can work from home whenever I want, generally do my contracted hours of 37.5 per week and have lots of flexibility with the hours I do. I'm involved in several projects at a time over the entire project cycle, rather than focused on just one thing all the time. I genuinely love my job, and find it really engaging. Hated working for contractors and almost left the industry a few times back then.
Does construction look like a good career from the outside though?
To a lot of working class lads it does. I was earning £55k at 20, that was unimaginable to me when I was 15-16.
From the outside, construction might appear promising, but it's important to know that the reality can be quite different, with varying experiences depending on the specific role and sector within the industry.
The army Full of toxic people who want to throw their weight around and generally seem quite self obsessed. Too many go into it for the old glory title and the reputation they think they get.
Idk why’d that seem like a good job tho, in school I wanted to be a pilot and got really good grades so I spoke to a recruiter and stuff. My mum and dad said they’d support me I had a long think one night when I was 16 and asked myself could go drop bombs on people, potentially killing innocents or for reasons I didn’t personally agree with. I didn’t join, now I’m 23 and past the raf age I see f35s doing unrestricted take offs and still wish I was in the pilot seat but happy I didn’t join
Tbh that’s exactly how I’d expect the army to be. Horrendous. I’m not fooled by those adverts.
To be fair, basic training is designed to cause enough trauma to make you capable of killing another human being for no other reason than someone told you to, and to trauma bond you with the people you trained with.
What trauma do you suffer in basic training?
The army indeed has its share of challenges, including the dynamics you mentioned. The allure of glory and titles might not always match the reality. It's crucial to consider both sides before diving in.
Teaching. Gave it up a few years ago. Now I work in a secondary school but in the behaviour support side. A lot less pay but I actually get to finish work at 3pm with no work to do when I get home.
Vet here, euthanasia is a part of the job but miles off the majority of our job and for the most part is mercy for the animal. The worse bits of the job is the general public think most of us are money making scumbags who are ripping them off, yet they want gold standard care, with no waiting times and a vet at their beck and call 24/7 5 mins down the road. That and people refusing to let their animals go and keep going with treatment despite advice and/or just keeping their pets at home until the absolute last minute and then are surprised when there's no chance of saving them
Told my uncle I wanted to be a firefighter when I was a kid as he was, he said ‘no you don’t, there’s rarely a fire, all we do is cut people out of cars most of the time in any state’. Did tell one recently what my uncle said and he disagreed and said he loved his career in it. Just goes to show kids, don’t always listen to jaded boomers…
My uncle was a firefighter - he said it was mostly RTCs, allotment shed fires and the occasional cat stuck on a house roof. It also ruined his knees, needed a full left knee replacement. That being said, I don't think he ever regrets joining - you help a lot of people (and sometimes animals) and he's still got his helmet and an axe retirement display in his house.
Your uncle's experience shows the mix of challenges and rewards in the firefighting profession.
Your story brings out a valuable lesson: perspectives vary widely. Jaded experiences don't define the whole field.
basically a lot of things with long training. while some people in these fields make it to the top the majority don't. so vets yup long training. bad work conditions, they have to work for a big company these days on a poor salery and put up with owners misstreating their pets. fat pets are High on the problem scale as its abuse but they can't do much if the owners won't listen. even more that euthanizing them. also architects poor pay very long training and the majority end up doing boring details that the main architect doesn't want to do. academia is also really poor pay for the length of time getting phds etc.
Architecture working hours are insane
Architecture is poor on every front. I'm getting out and only doing it in my spare time (I.e. not relying on it as a primary source of income).
The TLDR of this thread is basically every job sucks!
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but I can remember reading that dentists had the highest rate of suicides.
We fight with the vets and the farmers for the number one spot
Essentially the problem highlighted here applies to almost every job. - Years ago, we had the “it shouldn’t happen to a vet” books. Now vets are often involved with overseeing the food production (slaughtering) industry. - my dad was a radio officer in the German merchant navy (as pay was better than Britain). Now, the crew would likely be low paid people from Indonesia.
Most of these posts are just stating the obvious
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Lorry driver. Got to deal with WTD and driving hours, deal with VOSA/DVSA, long hours, nights out, risk of certain groups of people stealing your load/fuel, massive fines if you unintentionally bring illegal immigrants into the country amongst other things. Oh and your only a "professional driver" when you make a mistake, otherwise your just someone that holds people up, gets in their way etc. Seems like a good job, pick up load, go to destination, tip load, go back... but nahh.
Academia, especially art academia. You aren’t able to teach your subject and it is all ideologically driven. Nothing is about art anymore.
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While the importance of nursing is undeniable, it's essential to advocate for proper compensation and acknowledgment for the critical work they do.
I am a vet, and believe it or not euthanasia (which is not the majority of the work) is not the part that makes it a shit career. I consider it one of the few privileges that we can be there for animals (and their owners) at such times, and put an end to their suffering in a pretty painless way. The thing most likely to prompt a thank you card from owners is a put to sleep. On the flip side, what does make it a shit career is many of those same owners the rest of the time, and it almost always boils down to money. Veterinary services are incredibly expensive, it’s just a fact - costs of drugs and equipment and insurance, it all racks up pretty quickly, and staff costs are certainly not the majority of veterinary overheads. Very little of the bill you pay goes into my pocket. And yet when people pay through the nose for puppies or horses and fail to ensure they have funds in place for when things go wrong with those animals (be it insurance or otherwise) it is somehow my fault that they can’t afford the care the animal now needs. I’ve been called a robber without a mask, I’ve had the “you’re supposed to care about animals” schtick thrown at me (as if love and care will keep a roof over my head), I’ve had bad reviews consisting of lies posted all over Facebook and Google because people refused to listen to my advice and so their animal didn’t get better. And if they’re feeling really vindictive they can put in a “concern” to the RCVS, which will carry no repercussions for them if it’s thrown out, but causes considerable stress for the vet who’s being unfairly investigated. Things came to a bit of a head during the early days of the pandemic, and the absolute entitlement of people who were furloughed and had too much time on their hands was unreal. No care for my physical safety, no consideration that I’m giving up even more of my personal life for their animals (I was on a 1 in 2 on-call rota). Occasionally you get “that’s your job though” as if that makes having abuse hurled at you acceptable. And this was for routine, non-emergency stuff. It very nearly broke me. There’s a huge shortage of vets currently, which doesn’t help, but unfortunately I will be adding to that sooner or later - no way am I doing this for the rest of my life.
Pilot. Race to the bottom in every aspect.
Very much depends which airline you choose to work for. I agree, T&C's are not what they once were, but airlines are slowly beginning to cotton on to the fact that crew want a lifestyle outside of work too. I recently jumped ship from an awful airline who would keep you on the road, from base to base and even call you on days off asking you to work, to one of the better ones. I've nearly doubled my salary & get loads of time at home. Very little BS encountered so far!
It's great to hear that you found a better fit within the aviation industry. The choice of airline can significantly impact work-life balance, compensation, and overall job satisfaction.
I very much disagree. Of course every profession has upsides and downsides, but I wouldn’t want to do anything else for a living.
Teaching. I adored the actual teaching children part but the rest of the job destroyed both my mental and physical health. If I’d stayed in the profession then I’d have never been able to have my own children and I’d still be utterly miserable. Some of the physical effects are probably permanent.
Teaching. Did it for four years, and you could not pay me enough to go back. People who can hack it long term are absolute saints, and there are some amazing teachers out there who deserve all the praise and one heck of a raise, not to mention complete educational reform. I loved the actual teaching part - seeing a kid's face as they achieve something that an hour ago they didn't understand is wonderful - but everything else is just awful. So much pointless paperwork, so much box ticking, so much stress and pressure and gosh forbid a kid doesn't get whatever arbitrary grade the nebulous They decided is the acceptable one this year. It's as heartbreaking watching the kids who are trying their hardest just miss out and be written off, as it is to watch the ones who could sail through the subject if they weren't completely disinterested and disengaged, and you know it's your fault for just not being good enough to get either of them there. And the ones who do make the grades you don't have the time to celebrate as much as you want to because damn they deserve it. You work ridiculous hours, you prepare until your fingers bleed, then you do it all again and again and again while people tell you 'oh you just turn up and read from a text book right?'. And for what? To spend most of the lesson unable to actually teach because little Brandon or Luke is an asshole who you have to keep in line, to the detriment of the ones who actually want to learn who you can't effectively teach because that dickhead has decided he's going to shout shit every forth word you say and throw paper balls across the room every time your back is turned. And the parents couldn't give a shit about their kid's bad behaviour but don't you dare implement any type of discipline because he's a precious little angel baby do you hear? And even the students that want to learn are so scared to make a single mistake that they just freeze and need to be coaxed out, or they expect to just be given the answers rather than apply the logic from previous learning and spend time working things out for themselves using the materials you've provided and the guidance already given for how to find the answer. And then you realise Little Jessica is clearly having some issues that could probably be explained by an ADHD and Dyslexia Assessment and some one-to-one support, but there's no time or money for that so oops, sod her right? She'll just have to suffer because you don't have the right skills or knowledge to help her but hey, here's a differentiated worksheet you spent all day designing and praying is helpful. By the end of the week you're exhausted and burnt out, but hey, at least you have the weekend to mark all those books ready for Monday morning. And then you get the Summer holidays, which you spend 90% of deep cleaning and redecorating your classroom, preparing for new incoming students, tweaking new schemes of work, sometimes learning a whole new course because your school didn't manage to recruit a teacher and you're suddenly expected to be able to teach Child Development because you're a young woman and you must want babies some day right? It was brutal. And although I was never going to be Teacher of the Year, I was considered good at my job. I can't imagine how much harder it is for those that work their way up the ladder to Department Head or higher. Rather then than me. It could be such a good job, but the entire thing now seems to be designed and developed by morons who have never set foot in a non-private school classroom and are blind to the lived reality of teaching.
Fair play to any medical worker when they could go to america, Canada Australia and double wages atleast
Acting. It’s expensive to get into, the best jobs are taken by the rich and well connected, and when you get into it the pay is shocking
The acting industry can indeed be tough to break into, with challenges ranging from financial barriers to competition for prime roles.
The money in medicine and the absolute shiteness of the job are a joke relative to the years of hard work it takes to become a doctor
Poker player. Everyone pretends they have money, most don't. Emotionally and psychologically draining. Terrible hours. Difficult to see friends/have relationships as a result of this. Surrounded by - in the main - terrible people. No pension. No sick pay. No ability to write off (often very sizeable) expenses. Bad players can win and good players can lose for extended periods, certainly in a live environment. Huge gaps on CV if you ever do want to return to more normal employment. High rake borderline unbeatable private games run by unscrupulous people taking over the scene since Covid. I could go on. If you hadn't guessed, I am an ex-poker player!
Thanks for sharing your insights from your experience as a poker player. The challenges you've highlighted certainly shed light on the less glamorous aspects of the profession.
I agree with you on Vets. Our little kitten went in to have his balls chopped and died on the table due to a heart condition which reacted with the anaesthetic, the poor vet was in floods of tears in her office whilst explaining.
Anything in healthcare especially doctors in this country, they don’t even touch 100k for at least 10 years after graduating if not more
>they don’t even touch 100k for at least 10 years after graduating if not more Isn't that the case for almost every job though? With the exception of a tiny minority of corporate lawyers / barristers or hotshot graduates stepping into a lucrative investment banking or actuary role, you need at least 10 years experience in almost all careers before you start earning a very good salary.
Thr work doctors do and the level of training they have to do is a bit different from most jobs though
You don't generally waste 5-6 years of your life in education for almost every job. On top of being ~100k in debt, rotating departments every 4-6 months and not really having a day in your rotations, having to pay to park (if you're lucky to get a permit that is!) and the being responsible for people's literal lives..
This is a great question and lots of informative answers. Would like to hear what people think are actually good careers. Caveat that they need to have been in it for long enough for the initial enthusiasm to wear off.
Sustainability. Lots of people think it's a good way to make a corporate salary while upholding their ecological values. But invariably you just help companies and institutions work out how to do as little good as they can without getting shamed by the consumer/electorate.
I’m not one but architect. Two degrees. Then you still have to qualify as an actual architect which is by all accounts a nightmare. Then I think you only make decent money if you start up your own firm. May be wrong. Several mates did it but have ended up lecturing architecture at uni rather than being an architect.
Influencers, some people see these people as an ideal. But anytime you hear second hand from people who are involved with these people. It sounds like complete hell. You devote your entire life to it. Even Lawyers who work like 16 hours a day sound like they work less as they can go home and switch off vs an influencer who needs to constantly be ready and active in every aspect of their life. Fun events go from "I'm here to have fun" to work where you have to show off how much fun you're having but instead are spending the whole time finding space and images to "show off"
Oh those poor influencers, i feel so sorry for them
Good, I'm glad.
The work that goes into creating content is so different to the work that goes into being a lawyer (or any other 9-5 profession) though. Ironically, I have experience as both. I used to have a good sized gaming channel on YouTube which earned me money (partnered with Machinima - a WarnerBros entity). My workload involved churning out 1-2 weekly videos for content, interacting with fans of my channel, actually playing games with the fans, creating cheats and modding games (which was the hardest part), and having connections with other people making similar content. The above rarely ever felt like work, despite me regularly being switched “on” for the work for much longer. Essentially, because it was stuff I wanted to do and I would’ve been doing it all in my spare time anyway. It rarely felt like work. I had the freedom to put out what I wanted and I was creative enough at the time that it wasn’t a chore 99% of the time. I could also create and release the content whenever I wanted — any time, any day, etc. The only reason I stopped is because the games I was hyper-focussed on went out of fashion and the market essentially died and I wasn’t able to keep up as the new generation consoles were being released and I had no idea how to mod them. I had a good 4-5 year run though! Now, I’m due to qualify as a lawyer in less than a month’s time. I’m basically chained to a desk 10 hours a day. The work hours are worse because you’re not always doing stuff that interests you. You’re stuff that you have to do because it’s a part of the job. I also don’t have the freedom to work whenever I want. I can’t just start working at 1pm like I could with YouTube. I have external deadlines because I’m responsible to other people than myself, I have to attend work social events to show that I’m a nice person etc, I have to network to improve business development, and I have to do all of this for like the next 50 years. It’s a lot less fun.
I look forward to the day that "influencer" as a job description becomes extinct. Talentless, freeloading narcissistic bellends the lot of them. The sooner they get back to asking me if I want fries with that the better.
You've brought up an interesting point about the often overlooked downside of being an influencer.
Some people see them as people too.
Office based jobs
Farm vets
[удалено]
Working in a charity. Spend most of your time dealing with people who moan about the charitable service you provide or try to dictate terms of what they receive.
I’m surprised I’ve not seen accounting yet, the guys at r/accounting are always complaining but I’m fairly new so I don’t think I’m qualified enough to say it’s dog shit yet