It's impossible to know what something is like until you throw yourself into the thick of it. Even something as predictable as a job can be unknowable until you arrive. Years of college and on-the-job training go out the window the moment you're left without your supervisor or you encounter an unruly customer. Just listen to these stories below about how their dreams devolved into nightmares.
*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.
Reddit user, u/TonyWitDaBigCojones, wanted to hear how things weren't what you pictured when they asked:
When Emotions Mix With Business
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I wanted/want to be an illustrator or graphic designer. I enjoy illustration but it's a lot more emotionally labor intensive than I thought it would be. Graphic design SUCKS
Punching Way, Way Down
When I was 16 the manager of our local GameStop liked me. I was personable and extremely knowledgeable on the subject. He offered me a job when I turned 17. On my birthday I had an interview and was hired. My first day I realized all of the upperclassman nerds who were bullied in school like myself had jobs at that GameStop. And they seemed to cope with the bullying at school by bullying younger employees.
My first week in I had a kid in the class above me throw all the Xbox game cases off the display on to the floor right after I spent a hour alphabetizing them. He grinned, called me a retard and told me to do it again. That was the first but not the last time I've cried at work.
Yes, Chef.
Being a chef/cook isn't all it's made out to be. No creativity freedom unless you open up your own little business where you have all the freedom to sell and make what you like. Plus serving tens or hundreds of people is fun to a certain point. It's tiring and physically and mentally draining; but every once in a while hearing a customer say your food tastes amazing is very uplifting and almost makes it worth all the hassle.
When It Looks Flashier Than It Really Is
Might be a bit too late, but Investment Banking
Loved finance from a really young age and got a finance major in college. Was lucky enough to join a bulge bracket for a Summer internship.
That's when I realized that it was nothing like what I had imagined. While I knew they had long hours, regularly working 100+hours a week is something else. More importantly, it was really just a bunch of b-tch-work that I found uninteresting. It became quite clear to me why everyone seems to want to leave banking for Private Equity (which isn't THAT much better IMO)
Oh...I calculated how much money I made hourly. It came to about $8.50. The compensation looks decent until you realize you're working 100 hours a week and getting paid for 37.5 of them. Luckily I also got a computer science major while in college and now I'm working in software engineering.
Billing As Opposed To Healing
Working in healthcare in the US: I thought I would get to make a real difference and help people, a dream come true!
The reality was my managers expected me to bill for more services than medically necessary, and squeeze extra "units" of billable time out of every patient, whether they needed or wanted it. I quit that sh-t after I started having chronic nightmares and insomnia
Less Trench Coats With Fedoras And More Paperwork
I got a job working for a private investigator. I was so excited about starting, assuming the whole job would be fascinating. Christ on a bike it was boring. It was 90% paperwork and not any kind of interesting detective work happened at all. The boss was a d-ck too.
Teaching Alongside The Terribles
dream job —> professor. turns out people in academia are extremely toxic.
When I was looking into getting my PhD (grandfather was a professor), every single professor I knew or knew my grandpa talked me out of it.
Yeah, Horses Stink
When I lost my job as a waitress when COVID hit, I saw a job posting to assist as a horse breeder. I eagerly applied. Horses are cool! And I'd ridden them on occasion growing up.
The job...is not cool. It is slimy and stinky and disgusting as f-ck.
I too have worked with horses briefly and oh it's too true. They are beautiful to look at but they are nasty, mean, dirty a-- motherf-ckers to take care of.
You're Not Training For The Right Job
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I feel very fortunate to be as employable being a doctor, but it definitely isn't what anyone thinks it'll be.
When you're pre-med, or even in medical school, you aren't prepared appropriately for the job you're actually taking. I don't think most people really understand that.
I'm a primary care doc, but I won't gripe about that in specific...I'm just gonna say that, no matter who out there glibly says "you know what you signed up for"...no, most med students didn't. There's just no way to quite understand how much bureaucracatic BS and insurance BS there is inside the US until you actually have to dedicate the majority of your work to it.
SsutuanjoeNot What They Show The World, But What They're Hiding
I never actually got a job there but as a teenager I would always hear about how amazing the offices and benefits were at Google and dreamt of working there. It wasn't until I was my late 20s (depressingly enough) that I realized the reason their offices are so nice is because they want people to work absurd hours and never have to worry about like where they're going to eat or who's taking care of their kid.
My current employer does a lot of work with Google and we've visited their offices several times - no one is ever using those amenities. A lot of them just seem like they're there to show off to visitors. One of the buildings has a small arcade in it and the games are always powered off.
Still Getting Paid To Put Letters Together
When I was younger, I've always wanted to be a writer. Just like Jane Austen or something...
I write vacuum-cleaner reviews for a living.
When Customers Ruin The Thing You Love Most
I'm big into the Jeep life. I left the sh-t hours of a sound and life tech to work at a jeep shop. I learned a lot but customers are a--holes and it wore me out. Especially after COVID!
If I didn't have to talk to self [centered] customers all day it would have been a awesome job!
Never Let Anyone Make You Feel Bad For Needing A Break
I dreamed of teaching English in Japan, but the job was mostly grading (finding all the SPAG errors in 600 essays :/), I didn't get the student breaks off, and was constantly pressured to stay late and take sick days out of my VACATION (not sick leave).
I hated never having any free time and felt like my coworkers were criticizing me for being an inferior person for wanting to have a life outside of work. I actually wanted to kill myself because I thought I was a sh-tty person for wanting time off more than I wanted to help students and that the rest of my life would suck because of having to spend it all at work.
Asking For More Than They Bargained For
I dreamed of working on sustainable buildings, turns out it's about 50% getting yelled at by contractors because they don't want to do the things they signed a contract to do, and another 50% begging the contractors to give documentation proving they did the thing they're contracted to do, after you finally got them to do it. It's infuriating. Still doing it though.
Edit: to those telling me this is just what construction is, sustainability is an EXTRA step beyond those normal things contractors don't want to do. Asking them to do something they don't want to in normal construction is like asking them to jump through a hoop. Now ask them to do sustainability stuff, that's like asking them to jump through a flaming hoop half the size over a bed of nails.
Teaching Isn't For Everyone
I wanted to be a teacher. I student taught for three months, I got called a dumb mother f-cker on my first day. Later I was stabbed by a pin from a kid who was just going around stabbing kids with pins. I never got my certificate.
About 5 years later I started working at a day care and I love it.
A Well Remembered Lesson
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Paleontologist. Living the dream, right? Boss slowly got more controlling until (eight years in) they stated "I pay you, do as I say". Not exactly a lot of available paleontology jobs and now with Covid I'm just treading water with temp jobs until museums start hiring again. Sent out some resumes last week.
People don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.
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If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
But we should also be prepared and ready to ask the right questions to have a leg up on the competition.
"What is THE best question to ask on a job interview?"
A company's history or information about a past employee were suggested subjects appropriate for questioning.
Prior Knowledge
"When you were interviewing here, what would you have liked to know before you joined?"
"This worked for me. I asked my interviewer a question about how she had personally dealt with a company policy she had just explained. She bragged about her stellar adherence to the policy. I nodded my approval. I got the job."
A Previous Employee
"One that has always gone over well for me:"
"What were some qualities that the previous employee in this role brought to the job that you would like to see carried forward?"
"Another good thing to do is research the company you are interviewing with and you can ask things about what they may be involved in or you could drop that while reading about the company, you wondered this."
Hypothetical questions were suggested as helpful examples of inquiry.
Indicators Of How Companies Treat Employees
"A question that landed me a job once was: 'If I asked your direct reports about your management style, what do you think they'd tell me?' Stumped a hiring manager and he emailed me personally to tell me about it, no one ever asked him that question but got the job.
"In my current interviews I'm asking 'what did your company do for its employees during [the virus] to improve their day to day, work life balance, etc.' and I ask 'Is there anything your company adopted during [the virus] that they plan to keep post [the virus]?"
"These questions give a lot of insight into whether a company treated their employees well."
Past Performance & Adjustments
"If we were currently sitting in my 1 year review, what would I have done in this year for you to say I excelled in my role?"
"If I could snap my finger right now and change anything about your job or the company, what would it be and why?"
The following questions about a prospective company may not be answered from initial digging on their website.
Measure Of Success & Career Trajectories
"How is success measured in this role?"
"What are some possible career trajectories within the company that could stem from this position?"
Being A Solution
"Ask them what is the biggest problem you can solve for them in your first six months with the company. Similar to 'don't think of a purple hippo,' this forces them to imagine you succeeding in the position."
Simply The Best
"Who is your best employee and why is he/she the best?"
"You will then face 2 situations mostly:"
"panicking CEO who can't answer you 'Bob who works 17 hours a day for a slice of bread' so the fear in their faces must be a big nono for you"
"entusiast CEO who actually follow their business and can tell you who is an added value for the company and why."
– ThePiz91
My experiences with job interviews are different than others seeking work in office environments.
Having had a years-long career as a dancer, my "interview" was the dance audition, where hopefuls dance in small groups of people at a time after learning a routine and then awaiting their fate after the panel evaluates their performances.
The question I may or may not have asked in such a scenario earlier in my career was: "Did I make the cut?"
I did not make the cut. And I learned never to ask that again.
I remember the worst date I ever had. My biggest regret is that I stayed for the entire thing. I should've left as soon as I realized this was not going well, which was basically at hello. But he was paying so I drank, a lot. I'll keep names and dates to myself to protect the innocent.
0/10
Big Brother Reaction GIF by Big Brother After DarkGiphy"Went to brewery, date said I had hairy arms and that meant I was horny, said "you look really awful in this light" and then tried to dig out of that hole by saying in his native language that was a term of endearment long term couples said to each other. 0/10 did not date again."
Lucky 13?
"My wife wanted to plan our 13th wedding anniversary. I was excited because usually, I plan it. She bought us some new disc golf discs and after a quick supper, we went to play. We hadn't played in forever. We were laughing and I had a great time. She served me with divorce papers and told me that the date was a test to see if she still had feelings for me. I also learned that she was having an affair that started well before our anniversary."
- rmorlock
Two Hours from Home
"Not necessarily a date but a person I was dating invited me to his parent's house for the afternoon. He wanted to introduce me to them and show me the house he grew up in. I thought it was super sweet and had no problems going. He was also in the middle of moving and needed to pick up a few things, so it really didn't seem that unusual."
"Yeah, we got there and it was awful. His entire family was there. They traveled from hours away too. This was not just meeting the parents, it was meeting the ENTIRE family. Even worse? At some point, this idiot told his parents that he had proposed. We had been dating TWO months. I spent the entire afternoon dumbfounded and just playing along."
"We were two hours from home and I had no cell service, no way to leave at all. We ended up spending the afternoon brainstorming wedding ideas and planning an Alaskan honeymoon that his parents planned to gift us. His brother even called to say congratulations! We drove back to his apartment in silence. When we got there, I got in my car and left, didn't even bother grabbing my stuff. Weirdest experience ever. I have no idea how he broke it to his parents that we weren't getting married."
You're Cut Off!
"Got set up on a blind date once between mutual friends. She shows up to the restaurant already a little tipsy, orders multiple appetizers and only takes like one or two bites from each one. Then she proceeds to order 3 or 4 more drinks and is visibly drunk at this point. She gets up and says she's going to the bathroom and staggers off. About 15-20 minutes go by so I try to call her several times but no answer."
"Finally I decide to pay the check and just leave. About 2 hours later I'm sitting at home and I get a call from an unknown number. It's the police department. She was picked up on a DUI on her way home after she ditched me and gave the cops my number to see if I could go bail her out!"
- mox44ah
Sorry?
Bbc Three Idk GIF by BBCGiphy"Well, I gave this answer on a different topic, but it ties in with this. We were out on a date, we had been seeing each other for a while, close to a year maybe. She gets a phone call. Suddenly she looks destroyed. Her fiancé had just died in a motorcycle accident."
What in the world? I mean how can we ever expect to pair off with the dating pool being inundated with liars and nut jobs? I'm going to delete my apps.
Girl, Bye.
Sassy Beyonce GIFGiphy"Had a girl openly flirt with the bartender in front of me. She says she wasn't. But handing him her own phone and asking for his contact info in front of her date seems like it to me."
Crazy!
"Came out from a movie, late at night, and date's Camaro was stolen. Apparently, he called his WIFE (that I did not know he had) and let her know where he was and what happened. She showed up and realized he was on a date! She started chasing ME around the parking lot telling me she was going to kill me. Saved by the cops who showed up just in time to take the auto theft report."
Hey Mom
"Met a girl at a country bar one night in my 20s. We were both pretty drunk but hit it off pretty good. Ended up getting her number and we agreed we'd go on a real date. Fast forward to the date, she gets in my vehicle and... she looks almost identical to my mom. I was mortified. I was polite and we went for lunch where I found out she also had a boyfriend she "wasn't sure if she was into". Never talked to her again."
- SgtGo
Liars...
"When I was in college many years ago, before the advancement of cell phones and social media, I was chatting with a girl I met on a BBS who lived on Long Island, NY. I was 18 at the time, but lied and said I was 22 because she said she was 25. We spent a few weeks emailing each other, as well as calling each other."
"We even exchanged pics. When we finally met up, things blew up. Turns out we both lied about our ages: She was really 33, and lied because she thought she looked younger. She admitted she sent a college photo to me. We still had dinner together, but it was awkward as hell. We never spoke again."
Doubles
Kill Me Now Season 1 GIF by FriendsGiphy"It was a double date. She was more interested talking to the other girl throughout the whole thing. Found out later from the other guy that his girl cheated on him with my date."
Ummm... I think I'm just going to stay single. That is a handful of crazy. Why can't people just be honest? I swear the search for love warps people's brains. Be careful out there people.
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