On the outside, so many professions and careers look glamorous, financially enticing, and fun.
Often we sit back in our own lives and wallow in our dead-end jobs with that "wish I could do that for a living mentality!"
But if you look a little closer or, much like Dorothy Gale in OZ, just wait for a Toto to push the curtain back, you'll see that a lot more is going on behind the scenes.
And the shenanigans we don't see, make all that fun... evaporate.
So many careers and high power industries are built on a foundation of lies, backstabbing, and stress. And not in that fun "Dynasty" way.
That quiet, dead-end gig may not be so bad after all.
RedditorMethodicallyDeepwanted hear all the tea about certain careers, by asking:
What is a secret in your industry that should be talked about?
I swear if every single person was forced to work in the hospitality industry for at least one month in their life, y'all would be beside yourselves. The amount of craziness and laziness could keep you eating at home for every meal until death.
Play Big
martin scorsese casino GIFGiphy"Casino dealers really do want the players to win. We don't work for the house. We get paid crap hourly rates and rely on tips. Unless the player is super nice they only to tip if they win so we really do want you to win." ~ thedevilsgame
Not the Good Stuff...
"That you can take a gallon of paint and give it a different label, price point, and warranty depending on the store it is sold in." ~ big_d_usernametaken
"My professor told me the same thing. He was a job coach and erased the due dates on food products with I believe acetone or some product in nail polish remover."
"Would slap a new date on it, and the food would get shipped to poorer neighborhoods. That crap blew my mind." ~ Additional_Bar_2013
"Oh crap, I may actually go to jail."
"That if everyone being charged with a crime insisted on it going to trial, no plea bargaining, the system would crash." ~ mikenyle
"When I was a juror, the judge also commented before everything started that trial by jury is the only thing causing people to plea bargain and "getting the system moving."
"Many trials sit in limbo for years, and it's only the threat of "Oh crap, I may actually go to jail."
"That really negotiations start. That's exactly what happened in my case - jurors got selected, and that afternoon (after being 2 years in the system), the defendant pleads out." ~ zealeus
Fake Care
"Safety. It's not really about your health and well being. It's about saving the company money from medical expenses, lost time, lawyer costs, etc. Very rarely does your company actually give 2 craps about you, no matter how much they preach safety, they just don't want to pay if you get hurt/killed." ~ WhenThePiecesFit
"pen to paper"
New Girl I Give Up GIFGiphy"TV/screenwriter here. If you're established and well connected, it's very easy to coast and be a TV writer for YEARS and do very little actual writing. Most of TV writing is just talking in a room with other writers spitballing."
"This is why there's so many old, unfunny dudes still "writing" on TV shows. They're hired by their friends and in TV, a lot writers don't actually do much "pen to paper" writing. Plus everything gets rewritten to death." ~ GardenChic
So much mess. Someone hire me to write for TV. Why are you just giving away jobs to unqualified people? Life is so unfair. This list makes me mad. Let's continue...
Carbon Copies
mail GIF by RabbidsGiphy"I work in the print industry, we print cheques for companies and there is so little security involved in hiring, or keeping the materials secure, or running the actual work, or shipping the work to customers. I'm shocked we haven't had a problem with stolen cheques." ~ Jeff_Cunningham
Followers
"Advertising. I keep reading that advertising is leading people to be more woke, or multicultural. Companies don't lead, they follow. They do lots of research and know where the future markets are."
"I worked for a very conservative global brand. 5 years before gay marriage became legal, they told us it would happen and we needed to start targeting the LBGTQ community." ~ leftside72
"connection"
"Visa agent and I've seen people be refused because the manager didn't like their face." ~ Ok_Albatross9395
"Omg this happened to my sister. She couldn't start her semester in time because she kept being refused a visa even though she fulfilled all conditions."
"Finally my parents found a "connection" in embassy to see what's going on; turns out someone just didn't like her when she came to give her papers the first time. I never knew if I can fully believe that story." ~ animal7239
So much typing...
"I'm a writer, among other things. I used to ghostwrite. You'd be amazed how many popular books are partly or fully ghostwritten. I specialised in taking people's crappy first drafts and rewriting them so they were actually good. Not "good" according to people's taste, which is subjective."
"But objectively better in the sense of being properly spelled, not having gaping plot holes, making sure characters were consistent. By the time I was done there was often very little left of the draft the "writer" had created, but there was a marketable product."
"Pisses me off no end when I see all the bull the publishing industry comes out with about how writers submitting a manuscript must make sure it's perfect because only excellence will get you anywhere."
"I don't know how they can say that and still sleep at night, knowing full well that they're hiring people like me to do large-scale rewrites (or to take a half-baked plot and create a draft from scratch)." ~ iwillckingbiteyou
Thieves
Joseline Hernandez Facepalm GIFGiphy"I work in payroll. The number of payroll reports I see where people are conned out of their overtime is saddening."
"Also, taxes paid by a business shouldn't actively dissuade them from paying employees less. The system shouldn't be based on paying a percentage of employee salary in taxes (FICA, Workers Comp), in other words." ~ ThongofSekhmet
I think some investigations need to be launched. I always knew payroll departments were running a scam. Too many people are being ripped off. Time to expose some people.
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Just the other evening, I was walking home, and I barely survived.
I tripped on a dead tree branch.
The next thing I knew, I was flying in the air and landing on my back.
My belongings were strewn about.
And my to-go burger was dead.
A simple walk.
A simple dead branch.
And almost lights out.
Redditor Typical_XJW wanted to hear about the times people eluded death, so they asked:
"How did you almost die?"
Don't even get me started on any and every car ride.
We're always moments from the end on highways.
Back in the Day...
Hunger Games Student GIFGiphy"Almost drowned when I was 5 or 6, been hospitalized twice for sepsis between 2016 and 2019, and had a stroke this year. I'm 29."
ChristmasKid88
On the Disk
"MRSA infection in the disk on my lower spine between L5 and S1. Showed up two days after a cortisone shot but the hospital said it was from something else. Was in hospital 25 days multiple emergency surgeries."
EatA**FromBack
"I worked for a doctor who did these in-house and other procedures, and it 100% made me not trust medical facilities, cleanliness, and sterilization procedures. Had about twenty patients all come down with the same gut infection, 'coincidentally,' the same patients who came in for endoscopy procedures the same day."
dimlylit_
Saved
"Saving a younger friend from drowning, he panicked and almost took me out."
loztriforce
"Had that happen with a younger cousin when we were kids. His brother and I went to save him, he climbed on both of us and pushed us under. Lifeguard didn’t even see us until he pulled younger cousin out of the water, then we popped up gasping for air."
coffeejunki
Shucked
"16-year-old farm kid me, stepdad told me to go pick up a load of corn seed for planting. I had gone with him many times before, and driven the truck (full ton dually diesel) and hauled light stuff with it. Nobody told me how different it is to haul 10,000 lbs of seed on a big flatbed trailer on gravel. I had a lot of common sense and was driving slowly and carefully."
"Still… 10,000+ lbs pushed me down a gravel hill skidding, praying to god I stopped before the stop sign at the T intersection to a busy highway. I came to a grinding halt JUST as the front of the truck crossed the plane where the gravel turned to asphalt. A semi was coming from one direction and regular cars from the other. I shudder thinking about what if on that one. Don’t let untrained kids tow potentially deadly, heavy trailers, with zero training."
datnetcoder
Finding Tracks
College Sports Sport GIF by Sealed With A GIFGiphy"Was backwoods camping in Yellowstone and if I hadn’t considered for 30 seconds if I REALLY needed to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would have walked out of my tent headfirst into a brown bear, which I heard before leaving and found tracks of next to my tent in the morning. Spookiest moment of my life in hindsight."
danvo5
Bears are a no go for me.
Camping is an even bigger HECK NO!!
Several Strikes
Reassuring Jimmy Fallon GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonGiphy"Twice. 1. Woke up to my apartment on fire."
"2. Hit head-on by a drunk driver on a small bus, just after everyone got off bus exploded."
lizard_king0000
Oh Barb
"Lmao okay, so I was getting my teeth cleaned, and I got nitrous oxide because I have so many exposed roots. Well, my hygienist at the time was this lovely lady from Minnesota. Kinda flaky, but super sweet, and talked about her family all the time. So I'm in the chair and she hooks up my mask, and away we go. I actually fell asleep! Except not so much."
"Turns out Barb had forgotten to turn the oxygen on and had been feeding me straight nitrous. She only noticed because I started gasping for air while unconscious. So that's how I almost died at the dentist. I never saw Barb again, but I tell you, that was the best nap of my life!"
CharismaticAlbino
Climb Up
"I was snorkeling. I had my other stuff stored on a rock by the water, about 3 meters high. When I got out, I decided to climb straight up. Almost at the top, the rock I was hoisting myself up on came off and I fell back first onto the coral. If a friendly wave hadn’t come in, I would have broken my back, at least."
Yugan-Dali
Blood Loss
"I was diagnosed with a rare fatal blood disorder from birth, doctors projected I’d live till about 6 and then die from massive blood loss. As this was the mid-90s, they tested the idea of using stem cells from my sibling's umbilical cord; administering the first successful stem cell transplant from a sibling donor and I’m still here to tell the tale!"
Material_Cry1697
These were some tremendously close calls.
Do you have any near-death experiences to share? Let us know in the comment below.
