Everyone has ideas about what certain jobs entail – how fun they are, how easy or glamorous, et al – but the truth is, you never really know what a job is like until you’re the one doing it.
So there’s a good chance that you thought at least a few of these 15 jobs would be easy and cool…but according to the people who have done them, you were wrong.
15. I never really thought about it that way.
Working in a flower shop. It’s just like any other retail job, but people constantly tell you how fun your job must be.
Also helping grieving families chose funeral flowers is not fun.
14. I never really thought “teaching” 3yos sounded fun but to each his or her own!
Preschool teacher. Especially with new COVID-19 regulations.
Ever try social distancing 3 year olds?
13. I still think this would be a fun job.
I’m a marine biologist. I spent the last week measuring defrosted fish heads.
12. Not like it is on television, I guess.
I’m a Forensic Scientist and it’s literally the only thing people ask me about on dating apps.
It’s very technical work and it’s extremely routine.
11. If you love it you love it.
As a bioscientist it’s never really “Eureka” and much more
“Are my cells dead?”
“Are my fruit flies okay??”
“Are they going to fix the microscope?”
“Will the microscope ever be free to book??”
“Is 6 coffees too many??”
And a large part of my day is spent just doing tasks I need to do to keep my work running. Ie making buffers, sorting fly stocks, splitting cells, cleaning things, etc….
And yet I miss my lab!
10. This is hilarious; it really does seem like it would be pretty fun.
Oh my gosh, BUILD A BEAR.
Weirdest and most frustrating thing.
Granted I didn’t make it a super long time in the job and seeing kids so happy is great.
But they are really strict and the bad times get pretty bad.
9. It’s not the same as traveling for fun.
Not a specific job but traveling for work. I’m in tech and a lot of people starting out talk about wanting to go to customer sites and get “out in the field”…
I love to travel for fun but it’s hard to fit in the fun stuff when you have presentations and stuff to worry about and a lot of times your customers aren’t in the fun cities anyway.
I also think I prefer the stability in day-to-day schedule of traveling less frequently.
8. Working with the public is rarely fun.
Professional photographer.
Not like, hobbyist, but business-owning photographer. Sucks the love right out of your work.
Because you started the business to take pictures.
Then Karen doesn’t like the way she looks in one of them so she wants the whole set for free plus a reshoot for free plus those images for free.
Then the two high school kids getting into a very ill-advised marriage at EXACTLY 18 years old wants to book you for their wedding but their budget is only $50.
Then Karen calls back because she loves your work and wants to pay for another shoot, but only if you agree to do her friend’s daughter’s destination wedding for free.
Then you get a call from your last bride. It’s been two weeks since their wedding. WHERE THE FUCK ARE HER PICTURES?
Then you get no leads from a bridal expo.
Then a client finds out you don’t support their candidate and tries to take you to court to get her money back.
Then some insta thot who thinks she’s influencing people offers a “collab” where you take pro photos of her and she adds shitty insta filters to it and claims her friend took them. And she’s not gonna pay.
And then you get some entitled mom who wants you to photograph every day of her newborn’s first year of life for $100.
I went back to being a hobbyist.
7. It must be heartbreaking work.
A pediatric nurse, being a nurse for children and adolescents. Everyone in nursing school talks about how much they want to work with kids. The reality is that a pediatric nurse sees more cases of abuse and neglect than any other specialty. Doesn’t matter where you are in a pediatric hospital, it’s the thing you see most.
I’ve seen so many DCS (Department of Child Services) caseworkers that I’ve gotten to know some of them and became acquaintances with them. Sure working with children and adolescents is great, but people don’t think about the most essential piece of that puzzle which is their families.
It doesn’t matter how good of care you give to those kids, if you don’t loop the parents in to that care you may as well just not be doing anything for them.
6. Yeah I did this for a very short while as well.
barnes and noble, your job has literally NOTHING to do with books & it obviously attracts a lot of that type, myself included
5. It’s so not worth the pay.
Video editor.
The more I do it the more I can’t be arsed.
4. That is not enough money.
Park Ranger. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it, but a lot of days it was less “talk about cool animals while wearing your ranger hat” and more “the toilets are overflowing again, go clean the septic tank filter and stir the tank with a shovel.” With a little bit of “hey there’s a methed out guy down by the bridge, can you convince him to leave without killing anyone.” All for the low price of $26k/year with a college degree!
3. Why would you do this if you were allergic to bees?
Although not necessarily bad, Beekeeping.
Get used to the constant sound of buzzing during hive inspections/swarm removals plus wearing the protective suit in hot ass weather for hours on end (give or take the situation). Also, there appears to be a large number of beekeepers allergic to bees so epipens are a must.
2. I feel like this could depend on the day.
I do closed captioning.
While I joke that yes, I get paid to watch TV, it’s actually very tedious. And if you don’t actually enjoy the programming you’re being forced to watch something you don’t care for.
Or worse, if it’s something I do enjoy like a long form drama, we usually chop those up into 15 minute increments and split between everyone so I only see chunks and not always even in order it actually ruins the show for me.
1. You have to know what you’re getting into.
TV/Film production. I think most people dream of being the actor, the director, the people making the creative decisions, or the big shot producer calling the shots, but most of the people working in tv and film production are part of a machine, the grind, working in a system, trying to climb up to wherever they want to be.
Many don’t get to actualize their creative vision. Also the industry can be project based (job security concerns) and location limited (NY/LA, maybe other cities). Pay can be low starting out too, though it can be good if you work way up. But I did enjoy the type of people that work these jobs, a little more fun than the business folk I work with now.
I was definitely surprised by a few of these, how about you?
Which one shocked you the most? Share it with us in the comments!
