The most common jobs you're told about when you're little are the obvious ones: Fire Fighter. Police Officer. Doctor. Teacher. So on so forth. However, once you grow up, those career options may not be the most appealing. The job market is grander than you could possibly imagine in the days of recess and cubbies, so maybe it's time we start informing the youth about these job opportunities a little more often.
WARNING: Some jobs include collecting farm animal...samples.
Reddit user, u/Praughna, wanted to hear about:
Redditors that work jobs most people don't know exist: what is it and how do people react when you tell them your job ?
"What a lovely thing to do," said Thomas
Train Controller.
People ask me if I drive trains. I am in the habit now of just pre-empting people and saying "It is like air traffic control but for the rail network". In the U.S.A. I believe it is called Train Dispatch. People are generally sort of impressed and want to ask questions about the railway.
Helping People Work
Dunno how unknown my job is as a whole, but it isn't well known in my area. I'm a job coach. I help people with disabilities do their jobs. I can aid in physical tasks they cannot do properly, teach them occupational skills, be there for moral support and supervision, and other stuff like that. I also make sure they aren't exploited in the workplace by people without disabilities.
It's a really fulfilling job, tbh. It's wonderful seeing clients learning how to do things and just enjoying their jobs. All of my clients are wonderful people and I can't wait until the world stops ending so I can go back to work and see them again. I miss them terribly.
Navigating The Cinematic Waves
I used to work as a film festival consultant/strategist. Filmmakers would contact our company, send their films in and we would assess its fitness for the festival circuit. If we thought it'd do well, we designed a strategy (1 or 2 year) with all of the festival's it will be submitted to keeping in mind premiere statuses and submission deadlines.
Film festival submissions are weirdly complicated and there's a lot of stuff you have to know about the festival landscape in the first place. But I also think that company was running a bit of a scam in hindsight. Also we helped an anti vax documentary get onto the festival circuit, which signalled my cue to leave.
Something Small To Something Large
I work in R&D at a company that makes resins for OSB boards and plywood. Let's say that we create a resin which will still hold the board together at 2.8% resin instead of 3.1%. Or it will hold together after being cured for 110 seconds instead of 125. That makes a huge difference when you're a company pressing 1 million boards a year.
It sounds really boring and most people zone out when I start talking about it, but it's pretty exciting when we patent an improved resin and sell it to another company for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Something You've Never Considered
I work in sterile services. You know all those instruments used in medical procedures and surgery? Well, they need cleaning, inspecting, packing, and sterilising. My department is for a small hospital, so we only recieve mostly dental and podiatry, but a few other one off instruments also. The worst is coil insertion kits, they're covered in bloody minge goo. There's also forceps and luxators that tend to get quite bloody, and on more than one occasion have had pieces of human gum attached.
Most people have the exact same reaction when I talk about my job, usually it's "oh yeah, I never really thought about that".
Written In Ectoplasm
I'm a ghostwriter. It's not necessarily an unknown career but people are usually interested when they ask about my work. Basically, I write books for people (autobiographies, memoirs, some fiction) and when it's complete they publish it in their name.
Ah, So You're To Blame?!
I'm in VDP—variable data printing. Basically, I put your name and address on personalized junk mail, letters, certificates, invoices, etc. I usually get a blank stare when I tell people this, so I switched to "programmer," even though I feel like that's an overblown title for what I actually do, though it does require programming knowledge. Most of my day is putting a salutation on a letter, but it is enjoyable when something more complex comes in that requires a lot of conditional logic!
Getting Paid To Read??
Audiobook Proofreader
Reactions were "Wait, you get to listen to books all day and be paid?" Yup. "That can't be a full-time though?" It is. "I bet it's temporary with no paid time off or benefits." I get benefits and more pto than I've had in all other positions.
This exists!? My long standing joke is my dream job being paid to read!? (Or listen!) How does one go about switching to such amazing career?
Monitoring Other People's Work
Sometimes I literally get paid to watch paint dry. I'm a security escort for secure areas where contractors must be escorted. My job is boring AF but, I get paid to watch other people work.
Examining Seeds At A Close Level
I'm a seed analyst. I do purity and germination testing. Every time you purchase seed, or seed is sold for commercial production, if there's a label on it that says "X% pure seed, X% Weed seed, X% Inert material, X% Germination"- that information came from a lab where people specialize in seed testing, germination, and identification. I can ID hundreds of species on sight by the seed, but if it's bigger than about 2 inches, I have no idea what plant it is.
How Else Will We Save On A 3 Taco Plate?
I make coupons on the back of receipts.
You know that Mexican place coupon on the back of the Kroger receipt? You're welcome.
You Have To Study For This?
I had a brief stint as a "junior cheese evaluator." People loved hearing about the cheese tasting part, but what is less known is the business analytics side of things — we have to know what good cheese is and what consumer tastes are like and how to influence those tastes to make room for company products that maximize profits for the cheesemaker and retailer.
There's a whole national certification exam I was studying for before I decided to take a drastic career shift because the whole cheese thing wasn't paying the bills and it was too much work holding down three jobs.
Don't Blow It...Blue It...?
I'm an operations manager for the Blue Man Group show, a lot of people don't realize how many people it takes behind the scenes to put on that show!
How many "Blue Men" are there in reserve for each tour/show? Is it the same folks out there on stage every night, or is there a pool of people that rotate?
My location (at time of closing) has 7 full time guys and 3 part timers. Sometimes they'll even change in between shows, so if there's two performances in one day it may be different performers for each show. Once or twice we've gotten stand-ins from other locations, but this is usually a last ditch save as every show has a unique scene. This means every location has one piece of the show that no other location has. To have a stand-in from a different location's show means filling them in on a section of show they don't normally perform at their home venue!
I Know They're Only Dummies But...
I work on a truck doing simulated emergencies with high fidelity mannequins . The mannequins have pulses they breathe, you can listen to lung sounds, and their eyes move back-and-forth. We take the truck to fire departments and critical access hospital's in our state to provide emergency training at no cost to the fire departments and hospitals. There are only five states that I know of in the nation that do this training.
Typing Up What Everyone Says
I produce subtitles, for TV and now for online learning at a university. It's been amazing how many people have thought that either A, a computer does it or B, I'm a sign language interpreter.
I was also a teleprompter / Autocue operator for a while, when I first left uni, and it was one of the best jobs I've had. Though again, people thought a computer did it. And I've had likes of actors literally laugh in my face because they consider it beneath the lowest of the low apparently (until it breaks...)
Buy. BUY. BUY!
Im a procurement officer for an airline, I order parts for planes.
No one seems to realise my job exists but everyone gets it when I tell them what I do.
Reaction is generally wow that's so cool! In reality I raise purchase orders all day. But it's pretty cool to wander out to the hangar when a plane is in
The Art Of Foam
Not me, but a longtime friend of my dad's was/is(?) a professional carbonated beverage pourer. (Spellcheck's not happy with 'pourer', is it 'pourist'? ...'pourmaster'?)
It was for closeup shots, mostly for commercials for sodas or beers, and sometimes for movies or TV shows.
At one point I asked my dad (not wanting to be rude to the guy), "Is that one of those jobs where some studio exec just picks one of their buddies to get paid a salary for basically nothing?"
According to my dad, this was NOT the case - apparently it was very specialized, precision work. They'd be like "Okay, we need a 5-second pour with a 1-inch head that settles into a 3/4" head in 2 seconds," and he could make it happen. Mistakes were a big deal because studio time's expensive, if he messed up too many times one of the crew would be drunk, etc.
As a kid I always imagined this guy at work to look like someone diffusing a bomb or something, dramatic music, everyone staring anxiously, bead of sweat on the forehead etc. As far as I know, that imagining is completely accurate.
You Have One Job And You Do Very Well At It
I was an enucleator.
When people passed and wanted to donate their corneas I would retrieve their eyes from their body and take them to the lab to process for transplant. When people found that out they were either completely grossed out or thought it was really interesting.
Best "Job" or Greatest "Job?"
Once upon a time I worked at a boarstud. I got hired in the lab preserving semen for sale. Dull, morning headachy work staring at semen under a microscope.
Buuut the shed often needed help collecting semen and a fun, well paying, easy job. Go get the pig, get him to mount, grab a penis and then nap as they ejaculate for ten to fifteen minutes. Repeat.
I got paid $27 an hour to sit on a stool and hold a curly penis three days a week. I now work 6-7 days, collect blood samples, monitor surgery, take phones, do inventory and handle angry clients with a smile for $16 as a vet tech. Hmm.
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "" to +1 (310) 299-9390 to talk him about it.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.