CuriositiesDEC 24, 2021

30 People Speak The Truth About Careers Everyone Thinks Are Great

Mindaugas Balčiauskas and Liucija Adomaite

140

You think of an average office job which is way more boring and not even close to as entertaining as the one we’ve seen at the Dunder Mifflin office, and you wonder… What would your dream job be like? Let me get this one for you. Sommelier? Travel photographer? Private investigator? Video game tester? Each has their own vision of what that job would be like, but most definitely, everyone has one.

So let me just tell you that this viral thread on AskReddit may ruin it all. Maybe even in a good way. You see, someone asked “What is an overly romanticized job?” and the people who dedicated their lives to such romantic careers spill all the tea.

The responses may strip them of their accolades, but they also show that the grass is always greener on the other side, and you may as well stick with your job because hey, no job was made perfect.

#1

30 People Speak The Truth About Careers Everyone Thinks Are Great

Working at an animal shelter. Everyone thinks that you get to sit around and love on animals all day, but in reality you are exposed to alot of death and the worst of human nature. And the pay sucks because people just can't quit it because they want to help.

traveler45246, pexels

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151points

#2

Teaching. Yeah you get summers, nights, weekends, and holidays off but it’s the most frustrating, mentally and emotionally draining job I’ve ever had. You aren’t paid enough for what you have to endure.

Affectionate_Body_53, pexels

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146points

#3

Military. It's 99% standing around waiting to hear orders from a bordering-on-inept superior. The paperwork is Neverending. You'll long periods of time away from home and will probably get divorced. Also, your knees and back will go to sh*t.

JimmyTheOtherCat, unsplash

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143points

Bored Panda spoke with Redditor ColSurge who is a video game developer about why so many people romanticize their job and what it is that they don’t know about it. “Most people look at this as a dream job because they have a picture in their minds of MAKING a game. Like they think about making a story, or cool levels, or cool weapons. They have ideas! And they want to use the amazing ideas they have,” ColSurge told us.

However, the reality couldn’t be more different. “The reality is that it will be a long time before you get any creative control in game design. The overwhelming majority of people will spend the overwhelming majority of their career doing things like making tree textures. Then being told that the green on the trees they made is a little too green, then being told that the shadows aren't quite right and you need to make them ‘better,’” ColSurge said and added that this is a very far cry from what most young people think when they want to get into game design.

#4

Journalist. Long hours, weekends, holidays, middle of the night. Pay sucks (especially in non-profit journalism) and being so plugged into the news every day is depressing. I worked in journalism for 16 plus years, maybe I did it wrong but never once did I sleep with sources to get information nor did I ever blow some giant story wide open, and worst of all - I met zero super heroes. Tv and movies lied.

GoldenGrlz, unsplash

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137points

#5

Librarian. It's not quiet, we don't read all day, we clean up our fair share of bodily fluids, plunge many toilets, and interact with homeless/mentally ill patrons fairly regularly depending on our location. Sure a bulk of our job is recommending books to readers and coming up with fun programs, but sometimes I feel like a community secretary who had to get a Masters to have any chance of a decent salary. Or a social worker, which I did not sign up for. One day I'm looking up phone numbers for psychics for a man who called around to police stations and threatened to kill cops in our town and making 60 copies for a rude lady who's rushing to get ready to teach a yoga class and I'm thinking what have I done?! But then the next day I'm getting picture books for an adorable kid and their appreciative mom, or 3D printing a missing piece from one of the board games we lend out instead of having to charge the patron to replace it, or helping a lonely old woman with no children nearby with her phone and having her look at me like I'm a genius, or helping a lady with her sister's visa so she can come to the US from a war zone (she made it here by the way and the lady told me she loves me for it). I love my job, but it is absolutely exhausting and gross and stressful and scary sometimes.

_s_p_q_r_ , unsplash

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134points

#6

Chef. It involves getting screamed at, and it takes a really big person not to pass that down the line to younger chefs. It's lots of work and lots of expertise with little pay and little appreciation.

Kennethrjacobs2000, unsplash

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124points

The video game developer confessed that they don’t think their job is very creatively fulfilling at all. “It's almost no different than making burgers at McDonalds. Your job is to churn out burgers the exact way your boss tells you to, just the burgers are digital assets.”

For anyone who is considering a job in the video gaming industry, ColSurge suggests realizing that you are not going into the video game industry. “You are actually going into the graphic design/computer programming industry, and choosing to apply for jobs in game design. When you get into the industry you quickly realize there is no difference between making a digital asset for the new Halo game or making one for Allstate insurance.”

ColSurge continued: “You think it would be so cool that you are working on Halo, and that it would be awesome to tell people you are making Halo, but that glow wears off after about a week.” According to them, “if you can't see yourself being happy making digital content for an insurance company app as your day job, DO NOT get into video game design,” and added that it’s “because they are the exact same job.”

#7

How has this not been said already: Video Game Developer.

So many people want to go into video games thinking they will get to design a game. The reality is 99.9% of people that work on video games get no creative input at all. That just make/place/test assets exactly as they are told. All the while being forced to work 60-70 hours a week in a terrible work environment.

ColSurge, unsplash

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123points

#8

Fashion.

"Why dont you have your own brand?" "B***h, do I look like I can afford to ship a container of tshirts made in Pakistan for 3 cents to compete with some fashion conglomerate?"

Everything abt fashion sucks...anyone can do it with no degree, pay is sh*t, hours are sh*t, people are b***hy and souless, the industry is shameless and zero concious abt sustainability.

You will work and study very hard to lose a position to a model looking daughter of some rich guy.

Its basically become a profession for rich girls who dont know what to do and like consuming goods.

The very few people who make it, usually do it for reasons other than talent.

After-Woodpecker-595, pexels

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117points

#9

Airline pilot. People think you area like Leonardo Dicaprio in Catch Me if You Can; swaggering through the airport, wearing sunglasses, surrounded by hot flight attendants. In reality, we're like glorified bus drivers whose job is 1% excitement and 99% absolute boredom just sitting in a cockpit waiting for life to pass by.

Essex1820, unsplash

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111points

And when it comes to challenges of work in the video game industry, there are plenty of them. “The challenge comes from burnout and the burnout comes from two different places: deadlines and monotony,” ColSurge said. Moreover, “Projects are always behind schedule for reasons way beyond your control. So you are being pushed harder and harder to hit deadlines to fix the delays. This has gotten a little better, but the 24-hour workday leading up to an important deadline is still a very real thing.”

The other challenge you gotta tackle is the monotony. “You are constantly doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. For people that got into this line of work to be creative, that really can drag people down,” ColSurge concluded. No wonder the Redditor considered changing their career many times, since according to them, “everyone in game design has.”

Having said that, they added that just like “any career, the longer you stay in the field, the further you move up the ladder, you start getting that creative control you probably wanted from the beginning.”

#10

Film worker. Hours are gruelling, production doesn’t give a f*ck about you, good luck spending time with your kids, and most of us are addicts/drunks.

Ok-Preparation-5804, pexels

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101points

#11

Private Investigator. I worked for a PI a little bit. It was nothing but sitting in a car watching people who were supposed to be on disability, doing stuff they claim they can't.

middleagethreat, pexels

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92points

#12

Video game testing. I had a boyfriend who did it for several years, so I know all too well that it's a horrible job. You play the same five minutes of game over and over again, hundreds of times (sometimes thousands). The job kinda killed his passion for gaming, and as far as I know, he still doesn't play anything for fun.

QuinnRMonroe, pexels

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88points

Another job industry that’s been constantly idolized in our society is working in the fashion industry, so we spoke with Redditor After-Woodpecker-595 who said that fashion jobs are very overestimated these days. “Well, in the '90s, the only people in the industry were weirdos, really, the intent was mainly making clothes and there wasn't a proper career path like other professions. Around the 2000s the universities started catching up to the fact they could cash in on it, making it a bachelors and teaching people nothing, basically,” After-Woodpecker-595, who’s also the creator of r/Toxicfashion, told us.

She added that “around 2008/9 things went awry... we're talking Devil Wears Prada, Gossip Girl, Project Runway… The industry was filled with people who had no interest in sitting behind a sewing machine.”

#13

Ultrasound tech

You don't look at babies all day.

KarthusWins, pexels

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85points

#14

Architect. Seems like lots of good romcom boyfriends are architects. In reality, the hours are long, the stress is extremely high, and pay is really poor for a skilled profession.

RandomRavenclaw87, pexels

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84points

#15

EMS(I.E EMTs and Paramedics). We're not some heros who save lives. Saving lives is about 10 percent of the job. The other 90 percent is dealing with a broken Healthcare system, getting paid minimum wage, dealing with patients who don't need help and abuse the already broken Healthcare system, and if your lucky working for a company that doesn't give a sh*t about you.

SporadicSporkGuy, pexels

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82points

One of the most common misconceptions about working in fashion according to After-Woodpecker-595 is “that you will draw clothes or use creativity or be famous and so on,” she said and added that “truth is, most fashion jobs are pretty standard office jobs these days.” According to the Redditor, what makes working in fashion particularly demanding is the people in the industry: “It is competitive and cutthroat. Much like you saw on Devil Wears Prada, except you don't get to go to Paris in the end.”

For anyone who’s still considering working in fashion, the Redditor urges you to do it, “because you're going to do it anyway, like I did.” However, you have to realize “it's not easy money and you have to have very thick skin to even stand a chance.”

#16

Trucking. In over 42+ years I saw the finest warehouses in 43 states and 2 Canadian provinces. There are ZERO shows/movies accurately showing trucking for what it is. It's a soul sucking exercise in frustration. There are positive aspects in that you can generate a decent paycheck without extensive education or advanced training. All it will cost you is your soul, your friends, your family, and your health.

DocHickory, pexels

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76points

#17

Academia. First of all, most people undergrads call "professors" aren't at actual professors (by rank). And people who aren't professors are likely not getting paid a whole lot above the poverty line, have few to no benefits, have little to no input on what they teach or how, not to mention having to put up with nonsense I've not seen or heard of in any other field. The amount of unpaid labour that goes into getting a single article published is unreal.

greensandgrains, pexels

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75points

#18

FBI Special Agent.

I dated a woman who was with FBI and she enjoyed what she did most of the time but wow was it dry.

Imagine sitting in a car watching a house for 6 hours then going back to the office and spending a few hours writing a report. Or looking through 10 years of purchase records and receipts that you pulled out of the trash to build a case. Or sitting in a room at midnight listening in on a dude having phone sex with his mistress.

The overwhelming majority of her job was writing reports, status updates, and reviewing financial documents in an office. The hours were terrible, the work seemed boring, and the bureaucracy was thick.

L_Bart0, FBI

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75points

#19

Zookeeper. You spend most of your time cleaning poop and you're paid like sh*t.

Coc0tte, unsplash

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68points

#20

Writer. You picture yourself at a typewriter in a cabin by a lake, crackling fire in the fireplace, a golden retriever asleep at your feet and a glass of lagavulin in your hand dreaming up the next great American novel. Contrast that to reality where the writing jobs that actually pay the bills usually involve long nights and weekends sitting in a cube farm writing the instructions that come with a toaster that nobody will ever read while your spouse f*cks her coworkers.

[deleted], unsplash

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62points

140