Professionals Divulge Insider Secrets No One Knows About Their Profession
Reddit user pocketcrackers asked: 'What fact is common knowledge in your field, but almost unknown to the rest of the population?'
As much as we know about the world around us, we can't know everything. This is especially true when we think about a field or profession we're not directly involved in or with,
The film industry is a good example. Unless we're directly involved, we really know nothing about what it's like to make movies. How much of that computer hacking scene is based in reality? Is that a real disease? Did the actor do that entire stunt himself, or was there a stunt double helping?
Reddit is full of professionals who know the secrets of their industries and are ready to share.
It all started when Redditor pocketcrackers asked:
"What fact is common knowledge in your field, but almost unknown to the rest of the population?"
Let's Get Out Of Here!
"People almost always try to exit through the same door they entered. In a crowded venue ALWAYS take a second to find your exit and then find a second exit. Mark them in your brain just in case. In an emergency most of the crowd is going to go for the main door they came in through. Knowing where another exit is can save your life."
– Spiritual_Worth
Be Aware Of Symptoms
"UTIs will often cause confusion in people over 70."
– silly-billy-goat
"I work in the mental health field. Often I’m told a loved one has dementia, Alzheimer’s, etc. I will ask about symptom onset and they’ll say “a couple days” or something similar. A round of antibiotics later and the loved one is usually back to their baseline. UTIs in older folks are wild."
– ChicagoOwls
Stronger Than You Think
"When you're taking Imodium you're actually taking an opioid. But it's designed to only interact with the opioid receptors in your digestive tract to slow down your intestines. Scientists were like hey. You know that anti-diarrhea medication heroin? Well what if we made a version of that without the pesky side effects of getting you high?"
– NotMyDogPaul
Come On, Stand
"Your calf muscles act as a pump for your lymph fluid, which is basically the garbage pick-up and immunity doordash of your body. Without flexing your calf, the fluid has no way of moving against gravity. Each time we walk, the muscles contract, squeezing the fluid back up towards the core for processing.That's why sitting for long periods causes swelling in the legs."
– Orange-Enough
If We Could Only Speed Up...
"Trucker here and we don't want to be anywhere near you either."
"Go around or stay back don't just ride right beside us. We can't see you very well when you are beside us and if sh*t happens you're gonna go splat."
"It is very very very rare that any driver wants to slow you down it's not like we get our rocks off on making you late. We work extremely long hours on very little sleep and we just wanna get where we are going without getting in an accident and killing someone."
"Trust me if we could go faster we damn sure would."
"Also if you give us the fist pump to honk our horn you just made our whole week. That's one of the greatest joys in a truckers life."
"Be safe out there!!"
– MissPatricia024
Not Your Fault
"Bed bugs don’t make you a nasty person with a nasty home. An infestation isn’t due to a sanitation issue. They’re an imported pest, which means they hitched a ride on something you brought into the house. Usually luggage or furniture."
– LosPetty1992
Real Or Not Real
"In any given nature documentary, the protagonist animal you’re rooting for is ‘played’ by several different ‘actors’ - i.e. that one brown bear’s story is patched together from footage of a bunch of different bears. And in about 90% of the ‘animal reacting’ shots they’re reacting to the camera crew. Nature documentaries are heavily constructed."
– BootsyRootsy
"Also all those amazing closeups of bugs and small critters burrowing and stuff are done on a set in a studio."
"Honestly, when you learn about all the work that goes into creating such a documentary, it's even more impressive."
– donkeyhawt
"I refuse to believe that one iguana running from all those snakes was multiple iguanas. Little man (woman?) ran its little heart out and earned its place in this world!"
– nozer12168
Gathering Info
"The point of most loyalty programs isn't to give you points so you'll shop more (though that isn't a bad thing) it's to gather data (i.e. where do you shop, how often, how much do you buy there, what sort of things at what price points, etc etc.). For us marketing types, data is king (even small things like if a cashier asks for your zip code)."
–inostranetsember
Grey's Anatomy Lied
"When a person “flat lines” you cannot shock them out of it."
– unassumingtoaster
"Chest compressions!! Chest compressions!! Chest compressions!!"
"- Dr. Mike"
– thedanishgirl02
The Movies Also Lied
"Movie hacking: "I've decrypted the firewall and begun a brute force method on the internal systems, but they have a quantum lock on the googleplex, I'll be sure to upload a dinglehopper and slay the Jabberwocky.""
"Real hacking: "I called a random employee and pretended to be IT, they gave me admin privileges in 5 minutes.""
– wererat2000
Ick.
"When I worked as a barista: how much f**king syrup is in flavored drinks. At the cafe I worked at, we measured flavoring by grams. If you got a large mocha, that motherf**ker would have like 110 grams of chocolate sauce in it."
"If you want a little bit of flavor, I suggest only 1 pump. 2 max."
– miss_queeferson
Verify, Don't Trust
"Historian here: everything you read, regardless of source, has the biases of whoever wrote it woven throughout. I will tell a much different account of a Roman Battle if I am a Roman citizen than if I am a Gaul. Same goes for modern times, I will tell a much different account of an event as a liberal woman than if I was a conservative man. That's why checking and vetting sources is our biggest advice, remember the context that the author is writing from when you're reading!"
– Chutzpah3
"The world runs on MS Excel."
– Boulavogue
How very true!
Do you have any tea to spill? Let us know in the comment below.
In college, I worked as a hostess and server at my favorite restaurant. I thought it would be fun to be a waitress, and doing it at a place where I would see my friends (since they ate there all the time), seemed like an extra perk.
Would I recommend everyone work in the service industry to build character and learn respect? Yes. Would I recommend anyone work in the service industry if they want to continue liking life? Absolutely not!
Working as a server made me realize how entitled people can be. Some people asked to sit at tables that were clearly reserved and then tried to seat themselves when we told them ‘no.’
Others decided to tip less when their bill was too high, and servers ended up losing money.
During football games, people even walked right past us to go into the bar area even when the area was full, and we tried to tell them we were at capacity. Half the time, I felt like screaming at customers, “Why are you coming in here? I don’t want you to!” And I wasn’t the only one.
One of my co-workers kept trying to win the lottery, so she could split her winnings with all the employees, and we could all quit. I had to recite pop culture lists in my head just to keep sane (like listing the first 151 Pokemon in order -- I actually shared this talent with my co-workers, which lead to the first and only fun night I had at the restaurant).
This isn’t the only job people should steer clear of. Redditors are ready to share which professions they wouldn’t recommend people go into.
It all started when Redditor HalosOpulence asked:
“Why would you not recommend your career?”
It's All Your Fault
“Call center tech support. Need I really say anything?”
“The whole job is trying to help people who treat me like I'm the person who broke their sh*t.”
– Korrin
“I work in an incoming call center as a tier 2 person, and holy sh*t have you noticed that people are way more mean the last few months? We're literally there to help them, but due to the nature of our work, sometimes we have to tell them no and omg you'd think we were killing them.”
– stellaluna92
“But have you tried turning it off and on again?”
– FrostyBallBag
Emotions Run High
"Pediatric cancer scientist. A lot of the kids that end up on our research protocol are going to die. Fewer of them are going to die than if they were not on our research protocol, but the prognosis for the "we've tried everything else" cases that get to us is not great."
– DrSuviel
Never Did Expect
"Librarian. The pay is sh*t, especially with the fact that you need a master's to have any meaningful advancement. Master's degree, to make $40-50k."
"Also, depending on where are, libraries are just where homeless people go during the day. And a lot of homeless people are perfectly nice and respectful! But enough of them are not."
"I normally work in a fairly nice suburban branch where the worst I get is old men coming on to me. I'm pretty lucky. Coworkers at the downtown branch have been grabbed, punched, screamed at, spit at. They find bodily fluids all over the place. They find people overdosed in the bathroom."
"I'm sure any customer service position is like this. People think librarians sit and read in a nice, quiet library all day. We do not. We are expected to act as untrained social workers as much as we're expected to recommend books."
– baby_yaga
Not As Rewarding As You Would Think
"If you want to live in Japan and don't care about not earning very much money, come "teach" English. Literally the only real requirements are 1) be alive and 2) at least kind of speak English. If you can read this comment you're probably overqualified."
"Reasons not to do it:"
- "Pay is sh*t."
- "No benefits."
- "You will either spend your days sitting around doing f*ck all but waiting to or being worked to exhaustion."
- "No advancement, this is it."
- "Feels utterly pointless. The curriculum is garbage. Most students don't give a f*ck and won't learn much of anything. The few who do give a f*ck and have some degree of aptitude will be f*cked over by a combination of the sh*t curriculum, their classmates weighing them down like an anchor, and the Japanese English teachers may not even actually speak English themselves and/or teach weird and wrong sh*t as a result."
- "You'll probably get shunted off to some random mountain town that's been hemorrhaging population steadily for decades with an average age of 48 and absolutely f*ck all to do there unless you like hanging out in smokey old people "snack bars" or smokey pachinko parlors."
– Ryoukugan
Ruined Reading
"Book Editor."
"Well, I used to love reading. I joined a book club while in college and even voted as one of the committee. Now I see books as work and never touch them outside my work hours. sigh"
– pangcukaipang
Good Advice
"This is a perfect example of what I tell every high-schooler during career week."
"Do a job you are good at, not a hobby you like. Save the things you enjoy for a hobby and use the thing you are good at to pay for the things you enjoy. Turing your hobby into a job will make you hate your hobby."
– Diabolo_Advocato
My Poor Nose
"Zookeeper."
"Have you smelled lion spray? Otter crap, oily and fishy and laced with territory-marking musk?"
"Yeah, you don't want to. You probably can't even imagine how badly you don't want to. Certainly not for close to minimum wage. You have to be a little crazy to get into this line of work."
"My nostrils have never forgiven me."
– okicho32
Elle Woods Was Wrong
"Lawyer"
"The field can be thankless and the stress is unrelenting. There can be days that make it worth it, but you can have all the work caught up to be blown up and have several days in a row ruined by something dumb. Law school was insanely clicky and people are hyper-competitive, a sense of community can be hard to find while superiors take no hesitation in reminding you that you work for them"
– Wide_right_
Ageism
"Advertising"
"Most people in advertising get aged out of the profession between the ages of 35 and 40."
– copyboy1
If Only I Could Be Permanently Invisible
"Working in IT means most of the time people barely know you exist, until something goes wrong then you become everyone's worst enemy. Then, the moment you fix it you get months of complaints that "it no longer works right because of whatever you did" even though you didn't actually change anything. You need to grow a really thick skin, especially if you work in technical support, which everyone in the IT industry does at some point."
– zerbey
Eureka!
"I'm a scientist. That means you don't make much money, and no-one listens to anything you say."
– EmotionalTruth3477
How Depressing
"After reading this thread, not being born is the best way to go apparently."
– unexpectedomelette
"No no no. Being born to a billionaire and becoming a trust fund baby still looks high up there."
– LuckyMacAndCheese
I Hate Humans
“I'm a retail store manager. Pay is good. Hours are sh*t and I suspect it may have something to do with me hating people.”
“If you want to see the worst of people, work a face position with the public. They have absolutely no consideration for you, your life, your job, whatever.”
– GaryBuseyWithRabies
Yeah. Retail gave me a, “Ew, People” outlook on life too!
People Break Down Which Professions They Believe Are Completely Overpaid
When I interviewed for a copy editor position a few years ago, I was asked how much I made at my previous position. Now take note, employers and interviewers are NOT ALLOWED to ask you this, but since I didn't know that, I answered her honestly.
To say she was shocked was an understatement.
My previous position was a writing position, and she couldn't believe how much I was making at a writing job just out of college when people who had several years of experience above me were making less at similar positions.
Basically, she thought I was being overpaid and made that clear when she told me how much I would get paid at her company for a higher position.
We are all aware there are plenty of people that do important work who don't get paid enough. However, there are also people who do important work who also get paid too much. It's not something talked about often.
At least, it wasn't until Redditors broke that dam.
It all started when Redditor oeiswa asked:
"Which job is definitely overpaid?"
It's All Fun And Games
"I'm not sure what the position is but I have a buddy that worked at Dell and his job was to sit at a computer and press a button to accept and send forward IT service tickets. $100k salary and he said he spent his day playing games on his phone or watching youtube/netflix."
– wetworm1
"My old roommate had a cushy job like this that required a security clearance and he was careless and lost it while telling the other 3 of us that it was NBD because he wanted to be a teacher anyway."
"All 3 of the other roommates were teachers and we were horrified that he'd throw away $100k "play League all day" job for f*cking teaching"
– Badloss
"The sign of a good IT department is when they're all playing halo on their servers."
"If the IT department gets calls every five minutes, the loss of productivity of the entire company greatly overshadows five dudes playing halo."
– Ashi4Days
"I Moved My Mouse Today
"As someone in cyber security... cyber security. They are throwing around tons of money."
"Shhh. As someone in that field as well, don’t let them know that lol"
– Jamize
"As someone also in cyber security, who works from home and installed a mouse jiggler..."
"I have gotten so much sleep, I have no stress"
– throwaway129655
A Dangerous Game
"Politicians! Anywhere in the world are overpaid. Should have their salaries set to be equal to public servants such as teachers for example. Whatch teacher salaries increase"
– MJK75
"Underpaying politicians makes them a lot more susceptible to bribery"
– artichope
That's The Dream
"If I’m being honest, I’m probably overpaid. I'm a customer success manager at a tech company. My job is very straightforward and I don’t have to exert a ton of effort. It’s not super stressful and I get to travel quite a bit on the company’s dime. The only real skill that is required is emotional intelligence. Understanding the basics of tech and marketing is a plus, but you can learn that as you go. I make 6 figures."
– Dpg2304
"I'm a client of customer success managers and you guys do jack sh*t. You spend most of your time badgering me for meetings, and then making to-do lists that fulfil (I assume) some internal target but add zero value to my business. You hiring?"
– jolloholoday
We Decide
"Board of Director."
"Often get 6 figures for so little work that you have plenty of time to sit on multiple Boards!"
"Oh, and did I mention that it is often other companies' C-suite execs that sit on Boards? Being on the Board of Directors takes up so little time and involves so little work that you can sit on multiple Boards ALL WHILE BEING A C-SUITE EXEC!!!"
"BTW, who decides how much $$ the CEO gets? The Board does."
"Who's on the Board? C-suite execs, like CEOs, of other companies!"
"Anyone see a problem here?"
– S-Wind
Unsurprising
"Government. I asked some of them what they do and they couldn't even really describe it properly and if they don't come in to work for a week they don't get fired."
– Far-Side3272
"I used to work for a government run national laboratory... The amount of people that actually do nothing, take 2 months of vacation every year, and cannot even come close to telling you what their job entails is atrocious. A lot of the stigma surrounding government workers being lazy and unproductive is absolutely accurate."
– -B-K-
It Pays To Be The Boss
"I learned this week that vice principals in the school districts here get paid between 90-100k a year. The average teacher in the same school districts get paid around 35-40k. I’m not sure how this is legal."
– pwa09
But They're On TV!
"Morning show TV anchors."
"Back in the day they ere giving people like Matt Lauer $25 milion a year."
"GTFO of here."
"Sports broadcasters….they are paying these NFL guys huge bucks….do you ever tune in to a game because of who is doing the play by play?"
– plytime18
What Do You Do?
"Anyone on Wall Street. At this point, algorithms do all the research and work, yet you make a small fortune. Not to mention that even the most well-known and established firms are hella shady and are constantly involved in scandals, fraud, and morally bankrupt practices. All that doesn't even include the sexist, racist, and unacceptable environment Wall Street has and actively encourages. And yet when asked, I still can't get a straight answer on what exactly they do or how their salaries are justified."
– four-eyed-crow
I Want These Positions
"The recruiters, HR and marketing people at major tech companies who make Tik Tok videos about their easy “work” days. Maybe 2 hours of work and 6 hours of delicious food, gym, and other perks"
– Such-Echo6002
Sounds Interesting...
"Mine… cause I barely work these days 🌝"
– LillithsDream
"You're in IT too??"
– go_hyuck_yourself
They Said Clear Skies!
"Any meteorologist. They cannot get it right"
– Responsible-Handle19
Huh, I Never Knew!
"School bus drivers. They make around 40k a year, while school teachers only make around 30k. And to add to that special ed teachers get paid even less than normal teachers."
– AggravatingJury476
Sounds Pretty Nice
"Probably mine."
"I work nights as a line service tech for a private jet charter company. If we have no flights coming in or going out during my ten hour shift, I do next to nothing (I'll spend 30 minutes doing fuel QA as well as any odd jobs I can find, but that's it.) Instead, I tend to sleep for 5-6 hours- and management both knows this and does not object so long as we take care of any flights we may have."
"I get paid $22/hr for this, work eight days on, six off, and have the option to deadhead on a private jet if I want for free. I'm also being trained as a mechanic for free."
– rmp881
"The cost is that it's Night shift. No one wants it but it's gotta get done. Enjoy yourself."
– TempAcc64
Ouch!
"Football."
– TTVBirch2354_
"I don't know, man. It's tough being a football. Getting kicked around all day."
– troelsbjerre
These sound great if you're lucky enough to snap one of them up!
Do you have any to add to the list? Let us know in the comments.
People Break Down Which Things May Look Easy But Are Actually Quite Difficult
Some things are deceptively simple.
Oh, skydiving? That's easy.
Love yourself? Simple.
Who can't open a can of pickles?
ME! ME! That's who. I can't do any of the above simply.
It's all hard. And you know it too.
It's just designed to" look" easy only to bamboozle us.
Approach everything as a burden and live by a motto...
Redditor pterv2112 wanted to hear about the things that are truthfully not so simple.
"What looks easy peasy lemon squeezy but is actually difficult difficult lemon difficult?"
Monopoly. For the life of me, I can't get the hang of that game. I don't care anymore.
Play it...
Saturday Night Live Happy Dance GIFGiphy"Playing the triangle. A lot of my non-musician friends joke about how easy it is to play it. Then they actually hold the damn thing and look stupid."
phamtasticgamer
It's A Lot!
"Work. I'm a lawyer and had a client call saying she needs a help with a merger, but 'don't worry, it's super easy peasy lemon squeezy.' That project took 6 months and I almost had a breakdown. She didn't understand why the bill was so high since it was SO easy."
moekay
"Gotta love how the layman lumps all lawyers together as the sleazy snakeoil salesman type without realizing or appreciating the sheer complexity of the legal work involved."
cotidie_abide
Body Moves
"Dancing. I wouldn't say it looks 'easy,' but when I see people do it, they're so good at it and it flows so well it looks easy. But damn, I just CANNOT get my body to do anything more than a bop and maybe some stupid arm moves. I'm 25 and dance like a 50 year old at a reunion. Dancers are so delicate and make it look so easy, it's honestly amazing. It's just hilarious when I try to do literally anything and fail horribly."
MiloAlbertsky
Fingered
"Whistling with your fingers."
SimplySolstice
"My cousin taught me when we were in our tweens. It's come in very helpful whistling for the dogs and horses at feeding time."
"What I always wanted to learn was how my grandpa whistled without having to stick dirty fingers in my mouth. Nothing like cleaning stalls, then trying to whistle for horses with sh*t-covered hands. Washing them in near-freezing buckets of water wasn't a first choice either."
flecksable_flyer
It's a...
Studying Hand-Made GIF by Philippa RiceGiphy"Drawing something from memory. Like a bird or something. In mind - yep that's a bird On paper - that's... a bird?"
KayGlo
Drawing birds is impossible; mine look like mules.
Go Deep
Digging Blue Collar GIF by JC Property ProfessionalsGiphy"Digging. Anytime it's shown in movies or TV it looks easy AF but the second you have to grab a shovel and break dirt... bleh."
justaboredfarmer
Hello Doc
"A basic physical exam at the doctor. Looks like a simple 'look at the throat' - 'listen to the chest' - 'yup they have a heart all right.' When in actuality Doctors spend thousands of hours practicing it so that when you come in with a murmur or 'Funny-looking-kid-syndrome' they can recognize it immediately."
"And yes, there are entire class sections on how to respectfully ask your patient to turn their head and cough as you push on their testicles (they're looking for hernias)."
RobheadOW
Variations
"Street names. Everyone thinks it's great fun and likes to offer suggestions but every tree, lake, and other natural feature has at least a dozen variations which you can't repeat for emergency service reasons. That and you get cities which want a street name change anytime the road changes direction regardless of a logical break point like an intersection."
blue_fox_13
Being Regular
"'Natural' makeup. More work than 'regular' makeup."
Lockshala
"To be honest this reminds me of a video I watched of a visual effects artist explaining his job, If no one notices your work on the footage you've done your job well, its only when you mess up do people notice."
EON199
"This is painfully true for a lot of jobs. When nobody notices, it means you did an excellent job but no one will give you credit because they aren't even aware there is credit due. But the moment you slightly f**k up, you're the worst person in your profession."
BreakfastCheesecake
The Squeeze
As If Lol GIF by MOODMANGiphy"Making lemonade. Sure squeezing one lemon is easy peasy, but do you know how much juice that makes? Not a lot."
PrimaryOstrich
Psssh simple...
"Pretty much anything that a professional does. They make it look easy cause it's their job. Throw a football 65 yards accurately? Psssh simple if you're an elite athlete. Cut open a chest cavity to fix a few coronary arteries? It's just another day at the office for a surgeon. Frame up a structural wall within a 2000 sq ft house?"
"Just a bunch of wood and nails is all you need. Make crowded teeth perfectly aligned? Surely it's just a matter of wearing trays 1 through 55, voila! It's all straight. In reality, each of these tasks takes someone who trained for years to visualize the problem, solve it, and execute it to the T. It looks easy, cause they practiced the hell out of it."
buttgers
3 feet off the floor...
"Flying remote controlled helicopters. It looks so effortless when watching seasoned flyers but in reality it’s like balancing a marble on an upturned bowl."
Michael_Stone_UDA
"I'll never forget the time I went out and bought a decently priced helicopter."
"5 minutes into setting it up, i didn't even get it 3 feet off the floor before i smashed it into a chair destroying the rotor blades."
"I tried maybe like 5-6 more times before i gave up and now it hangs in my garage as a monument to my failure."
Deseptikons
Relationships
"Maintaining friendships from high school/college after you graduate. People get so busy with work and starting their own families that friendships get put on the back burner. You stop talking to someone for a few months, then it suddenly hits you that you're no longer friends with the person."
DeathSpiral321
"The mark of a good friendship is one in which you can go a long time without seeing or talking to someone, and the moment you see or talk to them again, it's like you saw them just yesterday."
Moonchopper
Comfy
GIF by Vulture.comGiphy"Folding fitted sheets. I've watched instructional videos that make it look so easy but I always just end up with a crumpled up mess, and that's how it gets put away."
AngryGoose
On Wheels
"I use a wheelchair and people usually don't believe me when I say that getting around can be difficult, because many of them think that pushing a wheelchair is easy. (They literally tell me this.)"
"The thing is when you use a wheelchair all day and it is basically your only means of transportation, it looks more natural."
"This becomes a problem when I point out accessibility problems. They often don't believe me because they see how I can navigate and assume that it's easy – just because *I* make it look easy."
buckyhermit
Payments
"Finding a career you’ll want to go to every day that won’t crush your soul. Remember when you were young and teachers told you that you could be whatever you wanted to be... yeah, not so realistic when you want to pay bills and maybe have a little beer money too."
"I didn’t go to college and struggle with the thought of not being able to have a lateral career move without a degree, but then I see my friends absolutely floundering with their student loan payments and think maybe I don’t have it so bad after all."
goldengirlsmom
I See Living People
"Socializing with people. I have severe social anxiety, and even small interactions with strangers, and even some people I’ve known for a while are really hard for me. I don’t hate people or dislike being around them, but I’m just awful at keeping conversations going or initiating them. Outgoing people make it look very easy, for me it is not."
I love Lemonade... the drink and the album... but I have no patience to make it.
Not everyone loves their job.
And as a result, on particularly slow or demoralizing days, these people might dream of working another job.
Likely one that they've seen glamorized on film or television, such as a doctor, lawyer, pilot, or actor
Jobs that appear to be as fun as they are lucrative.
But if one were to ask people who actually work these jobs for a living, they might discover that they aren't always as fun as they may seem.
"Which job is a LOT less fun than most people expect?"
Rewarding, But Exhausting
"Preschool teacher."
"Especially with new COVID-19 regulations."
"Ever try social distancing 3 year olds?"- sociallyawkextrovert
Not Worth The Joy Building Them Brings...
"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."- BabyMalks
Not Exactly CSI
"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."- Altephor1·
discover bbc GIF by britboxGiphyLove Books? Look Elsewhere...
"Barnes and Noble."
"Your job has literally NOTHING to do with books and it obviously attracts a lot of that type, myself included."- tenbladejen
Picnic Basket Loving Bears Are The Least Of Their Problems...
"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 meth head 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!"
"These jobs are so varied, and I just happened to work for an underfunded agency with too few staff."
"Honestly, I still loved this job and would have kept doing it forever if a higher-paying outdoor environmental job hadn't pretty much fallen into my lap."
"Being a park ranger taught me so much, and most importantly, I got trained as a wildland firefighter, which is still my favorite part of my job!"
"If you've always dreamed of being a park ranger, PLEASE go for it." -Reddit
One Can Watch Too Much TV
"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."- jessjess87
closed captioned GIFGiphyNot Always Coming Up Roses
"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."- ZakkiraJuneAiko94
"Under The Sea"... Some Of The Time...
"I'm a marine biologist."
"I spent the last week measuring defrosted fish heads."- smileedude
Might Not Surprise Everyone...
"Well I’m a scientist."
"I don’t know if people usually think of that career as fun, but I think people think it’s a lot more 'Eureka!' and a lot less 'this data’s has to be manually processed for 600 hours before I can analyze it'."- JeremyTheRhino
Bill Nye Scientist GIF by NETFLIXGiphyTravel Isn't For Everyone
"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."- bazerkas_bodyguard
It's very easy to dream about working another job after watching a movie or reading about it in the newspaper.
But those cases are far more often the exception, rather than the rule, and after working one day in a job you imagined was fun, or even witnessing someone working it, you might find the illusion instantly shattered.
Making one think it's probably more fun to imagine ourselves working these jobs than to actually work them.