How is your career portrayed in the media? The biggest misconceptions

[StillCoughingandLaughing]

Does the TV version of your career match up to the reality? Or do you cringe every time you hear a reference?

I work in marketing and, on TV (particularly soaps and dramas) it seems to be shorthand for ‘very well paid with very little real work’. I can assure you this is most definitely not the case for most of us! In fact I find marketing tends to be a dumping ground for extra work most of the time - not to mention blame. When a product sells well, it’s a good product; when it doesn’t, it was poorly marketed.

Another one that springs to mind is duty solicitor. On TV they’re bumbling, disorganised and only mildly more articulate than your average village idiot. The character in trouble will be begging their partner/friend to get them ‘a proper solicitor’. One of the smartest people I know is a duty/legal aid solicitor who’s brilliant at what she does!

What really annoys you about how your job is portrayed?

Teacher- I second the pp on here- portrayed as lazy, clueless, useless leaches that get plenty of holidays

I'd like to add that TV and film representations are much kinder
In fact, I got in to teaching because I loved some of the character portrayals; compassionate and dedicated.

Not keen on the sexy teacher portrayal though!

I do university research in science.

In broadcast fictions we're either rogue genius mavericks (Independence Day) or neurotic social-skills deficited geeks (Big Bang Theory).

In reality we're like everyone else. Some clever, some slow. Some charming, some athletically gifted, some geeky, some fashionistas, some liberals, some right wingers, some chatty, some quiet, some diffident, some Egos Size of Planets (etc).

Childcare young stupid girls who dont have qualifications playing with babies all day and chasing after Dads when working in the home.

Fully qualified at degree level early years practitioner.

Celebrity/Talent Managers are ruthless, pushy maniacs who never sleep. Oh wait...

HR

I am portrayed as wearing a nasty Next sharp suit with a I want to speak to the manager haircut. Then I ruthlessly sack people.

My job is considered so dull (accountant) it doesn't really feature anywhere!

Lawyer.

In real life I haven't been inside a court room in decades.

I am actually really organised and am never surrounded by papers and files. Everything is put away.

Also, one of my specialisms is sewage & drainage. Oddly, that never gets portrayed on TV

Dentist

We are money grabbing psychopaths, living in big, very clean houses because we are very very rich from all the money grabbing. We also like causing pain and are normally very creepy

Everyone is scared of us and its not at all about how we are portrayed!

I dunno @topcat2014. I've seen the Ben Affleck film, you clearly uncover insider theft for gangsters and terrorists while informing on any criminal who breaks your moral code and you can take down a team of assassins...

Retired now but my career was portrayed on Full Monty and Bread as a sarcastic cant be arsed waspish woman who sits pretty on a great pension pot.
Reality is a bitch.

We are all hoodie wearing socially inept geniuses typing on two keyboards and instantly writing madly complex algorithms (which for some reason installs debian...) on the fly.

In reality none of us know what we are doing and spend 50% of our time looking things up on stack overflow and the rest of the time fannying around on hackernews.

I’m a journalist. On TV I stand outside people’s houses with a pack of 30 journalists. I also have superpowers to somehow be the first on the scene of incidents, often before the police have got there, and I’m also a horrible bastard who enjoys ruining people’s lives. I also attend press conferences where people just scream out questions randomly.

In reality, much of my job is desk-based, centred around reading council agendas and in 20 years I’ve only once been in a press pack of more than 10 journalists.

Press conferences are very sedate affairs where people ask questions in turn and then go and thank the people answering them at the end.

Our pay is also more terrible than you’d ever imagine.

We are all sex-crazed shaggers who are joining the mile high club with hosties the second we are off the ground and you couldn’t trust us as far as you could spit so only marry us if you want a sleazy spouse you never see.

I used to work with a women who was a flight attendant in a former life and that was pretty much her description of the male pilots!

"It's just playing" and the staff too stupid for anything but "hair or care" jobs. And any men doing it are probably paedophiles.

I’m a criminal barrister. Main different between tv deprivation and reality is to do with ethics. Professional ethics is in our marrow - watching tv you’d think we were all dishonest self serving tossers.

Deprivation should have read depiction.

Also marketing. It’s super glamorous and we organise events all the time.

To be fair You’d struggle to make an interesting film about proofreading catalogues for electrical cables whilst redoing presentations because they’ve used the wrong shade of green again.

Social Worker, so I obviously look for good looking babies to snatch for my big bonus when they get adopted I can also just walk into your house and take your children without a court order or police protection

I’m an engineer and when people refer to ‘engineers’ in tv (and real life) what they’re thinking of is someone who fixes your car or your boiler. A real engineer is someone who’s been to university, quite likely has a post grad in my side of the career, and we design and analyse...not fix things! It drives me crazy.
I think they also assume we’re all men, but I have to admit, that’s why I like it...it’s very male dominated which suits me fine. Less bitching!

Barista.

Apparently I’m able to serenely make coffee, serve it, and have a gloriously long conversation whilst staying very clean with hair and make up all in place.

Reality is I’m serving three people at a time, nursing a burn from the steam wand and mentally adjusting next weeks rota so that a team member can have a requested day off.

Creative industry. I thought Mad Men really close in many respects. The split between creative and accounts, the pitches, the CD

Am I the only one here reading the responses and thinking "actually, I know someone EXACTLY like that!" ?

Special Needs TA here.
So obviously I'm too thick to be a teacher (have a decent degree actually) and spend all day washing paint pots and playing.
And I do the job because it's sooo rewarding looking after all those poor little angels (which compensates for the absolutely dire pay?!)
Yes some days it IS rewarding and I genuinely love most of 'my' kids... but we rarely have the funds for paint, we definitely don't have time for much pot washing and I'm more likely to carring out physio, tube feeding, caring for someone who has just had yet another seizure, or alternately fending off someone who is throwing furniture at me!!!!

I never get bored tho

I used to teach antenatal classes. Apparently I tell women to imagine their vaginas opening up like a flower, teach them to pant like a dog, and am completely thrown by anyone non heterosexual attending.