Professionals Are Debunking Myths About Their Professions Because They’ve Had Enough

I’m a Financial Analyst. Not all of us work on Wall Street And we aren’t involved in sinister corporate greed operations. We don’t wear suits, ties and fancy watches to work every day. It isn’t all men . Currently, the majority of my fellow analysts are women. Math Wizardry: Although most FA’s have decent math chops, we don’t sit in front of big screens, conjuring advanced equations to beat the markets. My Advice: Finance is a great career path, particularly if you have solid quant. There's tons of growth potential. It is the most common background of many types of executives, including CEO’s.

I’m a flight attendant. However.. I’m not your personal assistant/bellboy. Don’t expect me to pick up your luggage on the aisle and put it in the overhead compartment all by myself. I’m not a heavyweight champion and I obviously don’t respond to people snapping their fingers to get my attention. Especially if you are twice my size. And you managed to carry that luggage all the way from drop off to the departure hall. Here’s the common ground: Let’s do it together, shall we? I’m not living the high life. I don’t have boyfriends in every single destination I fly to. Catching up on my sleep is more important. Being fully alert while I’m on duty is my main concern. Sorry, guys. I hate delays just as much as you do. If a delay is predicted before hand, I could have taken my own sweet time to get my brain loaded with caffeine, walked a little slower, woke up a little later. Shouting at me just because you are frustrated won’t help. Just so you know, I’m not being paid for all those extra hours of waiting. I’m not at liberty to give you cheaper tickets. I don’t own the airline. You want a good deal? Check the website for latest promotion. So stop looking all flattered when you heard about what I do for living. And for the love of God, do not ask me anything about cheap tickets when we are out on a date. Its just plain annoying and you will lose all your brownie points.

The derogatory terms applied to diplomats give a pretty good idea of what they think diplomats do and are: Cookie-pushers, striped-pants, people who lie for their country.

While diplomatic service usually does involve official entertainment -- as in cocktail parties, receptions, dinners, etc. -- these are not entertainment for the sake of entertainment. They are working affairs where contacts are made, networking is done, and substantive business is undertaken in an environment outside the office.

The clothing choices are more or less dictated by the country in which one serves, but always on a professional level. 'Striped pants' (and the accompanying formal wear) are actually worn on occasion, like when the Ambassador presents his credentials to the head of state or for particular social events hosted by the local government. But usually, it's just suit-and-tie. In some places, it can be a bit less formal, but that is up to both the local culture and your own ambassador's rules. In Saudi Arabia, open-necked shirts were never permitted in the office... it was always jacket and tie, if not suit and tie. India was less formal, but when calling on ministers of state, suits were required.

A diplomat's job is to explain and express clearly the policy of one's government. It's not at all productive to lie about it because there are far too many other sources of information -- including the host government's own embassies -- to show the lie. While friendly relations are almost always the goal, diplomacy isn't about making friends at any cost. At most, one might be asked to put a policy in a favorable light, but, as the saying goes (also used in diplomacy), "You can't make shit smell good." Sometimes diplomats have to present a plate of shit and just stand there while the recipient tells you what he thinks of it.

People also seem to be unaware that US law only applies in the US. Rights that Americans take for granted are not always (or usually) available in other countries. This presents problems when people get in trouble and find out that what they learned in Civics class, from Law & Order, does not apply to them in a foreign country. Many people are dismayed to learn that an American embassy cannot simply ignore or supersede local laws. Often, they get angry and write or call their congressmen about it. Too frequently, the congressmen are surprised by this fact as well.

Warehouse work and forklift OPERATOR. The biggest misconception is anyone can do it. Yes, anyone could probably DRIVE a forklift from point A to point B, move a few levers to lift a pallet, and move the pallet across an open floor to set it down. People don't realize the level of spacial awareness and finesse required to stack product, inside a trailer, on an incline, with less than an inch of space on any given side, and do it all WITHOUT DAMAGING THE PRODUCT. Over the last several years I have discovered that even stacking boxes on a pallet is something that some people just cannot figure out? If all of the boxes are facing in the same direction, and stacked in a group of columns, say twenty columns, stacked five high… they are going to fall over and someone (not me) will be stacking them again. But if you turn one group at one end 90 degrees, and alternate the turned group from one end to the other each layer, they form a brick house pattern that DOESN'T FALL OVER IF YOU LOOK AT IT WRONG… Six team members communicating together to simultaneously lift a very heavy (40,000 pound/20,000kg) piece of equipment off of a flat bed and set it down together requires a major level of trust, especially if you are the one on the smaller price of equipment. Loading or unloading something valued at millions of dollars, and not getting so much as a scratch on it adds a whole New meaning to the phrase “pucker factor..”

As an OB/GYN:

That I am the enemy of natural childbirth - that I recommend induction to suit my schedule, want to start pitocin because I’m in a rush, urge c-sections so I can go home and push epidurals to make life easier for myself and my nurses.

I love a nice natural, unmedicated delivery - I’m happy to do it lying, squatting, sitting on a toilet or let you do it yourself. I love skin to skin, immediate and exclusive breastfeeding and if you want to wrap up your placenta and go full lotus method then more power to you.

But there can also be consequences to non-intervention as the countless Bolivian women I’ve met who unblinkingly answer the question of ‘how many children do you have’ with the number ‘vivos’ and ‘muertos’ and as the amazing doctors and midwives at Edna Adan Hospital in Somaliland who staff the fistula repair clinic can attest.

That OB/GYNs can be judged by their c-section rate - the rates compiled by the hospitals where I work included all c-sections I do in the numerator and all patients I deliver in the denominator. Problem with this is the denominator doesn’t include all the patients of the numerous midwives and Family Medicine physicians I back up… but the numerator includes all their patients who end up needing a surgical delivery. I could also make my rate look better by refusing to take care of high risk patients who we know are more likely to need intervention and delivery via cesarean (obese, diabetic, older first time mothers etc) but my conscience won’t allow that.

That anyone can safely have a lovely, vaginal delivery. This is just not true. Especially not in a country like ours where our mothers are older, heavier and have many more chronic health conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes than ever before.

I'm a cleaner/janitor. I'd like to clear up the following misconceptions: we are not all highschool dropouts, I completed high school through to Year 12. We are not all criminals or have recently been released from prison, I've never done any time behind bars. It's not just sweeping and mopping, there are dozens of other responsibilities a cleaner/janitor has on any given site. The stereotype of the cleaning lady is dead and gone, most of the other cleaners I know are male. And last but not least, no, I will not clean your house for free, this is my job, not a hobby

We are not charging you too much. Dental stuff is expensive. Be it that setup or materials. Of course, we do keep the margin but that's not much. You gotta stop blaming every dentist for over charging because in return, you're being provided the treatment. If you don't hesitate in paying thousands of rupees for getting CT scan or MRI done just because your Doctor asked you to, know that your dentist isn’t buying a property by charging you 500 for an xray. You gotta trust him or her. Roadside quacks are equal to dentists. No. We aren't foolish to spends lacs of money and precious 5–10 years of our life to be compared to some quack. Know and understand the difference. Not just degree, knowledge matters as well. Their claims to make a complete denture in 100 rs is as useless as claims made by Modi. That there is no scope in Dentistry. Well, to be frank, there is no scope in any field. All are saturated. It's up to you how you survive. Same thing happens in this field. So if you claim that there is a dental clinic at every corner of your city, take a deep breath and realize that they are still open. They are stil...

I'm a parking assistant. It's a part time seasonal job, simply for the purpose of making money. My job mainly consists of customer interaction, handling the registry (figuratively, we don't have a registry), and answering questions. At the end of each shift, I do some accounting, and sometimes I'm asked to hand out tickets, usually to the abled who park in a handicapped space. Let me just say this: * I'm not stupid
* I'm not uneducated
* I'm not wasting my life
* My colleague isn't necessarily better at the job, just because he's older and male
* My colleague doesn't necessarily have seniority, just because he's older and male
* Complain all you want, but nothing will come from it because my bosses know I'm right.
A short clarification: I've worked there for five years, which makes me the person who's worked there the second longest, meaning I know the answers to your question, and if I tell my colleagues to do or not do something, they follow. I'm significantly better at my job than most of my colleague, which is evident by the fact that I'm the fastest one at the accounting, and almost never have money lacking or in surplus. And I'm just working there until I get my degree or a more relevant job.

I work as a software engineer with an American product-based start-up company. There are several misconceptions that people have regarding a career in IT and while some are understandable, something are absolutely hilarious! There is a common myth that everyone in IT earns handsomely. That's not entirely true. While a career in IT is rewarding and provides you with a fair enough salary to sustain a family, the packages that you see with people earning 30 LPA, 40 LPA or 80 LPA are only offered to the top engineers. They probably constitute only 1% of all the IT employees, or probably less than that. The majority starts their career between 3–5 LPA only. Not every IT employee that you see is rich. A lesser misconception is that software engineers only code. Their day revolves around coding all the time. The truth is that coding doesn't even take up 50% of the day; I guess an average software engineer spends more time in meetings than writing a code.

Misconception- Doctors prescribe tests to make money yet they cannot make accurate diagnosis. Also, people think private doctors charge too much(in India). This is because There are multiple diseases responsible for same symptoms and he needs to be sure before treating you for some rare disease. He doesn't want you to SUE him for not prescribing a particular blood test. He couldn't make accurate diagnosis because it's really difficult to do so, you couldn't explain your symptoms well enough or your body didn't respond to standard treatment. If you think doctors charge too much, go to a government hospital and stand in queues for hours. You don't just pay for medical treatment, you pay for luxury of getting treatment in time. Stop blaming doctors, if you think they are overcharging, go to someone else.