Misconceptions around your job or working hours...

[MajorMujer]

Inspired by the going back to work after maternity leave thread, I had something like this when I worked nights, friends who used to assume that I would be free in the day to meet up/ go shopping /babysit ect. Er, no I'll be asleep!
My present job is live in week on / off. So 168 hours - can sleep( obviously) but always on call & do get disturbed nightly. Pay is good & what I signed up for. But because of the week " off" ( after travel time) some people have made comments about me being part time .
What strange opinions have you heard about your own job/ working hours have you heard ?

I'm a nurse and people assume I'm some sort of self sacrifing angel who works every hour under the sun, nights and weekends etc.
In reality I work part time, 3 days of standard office hours.

A family member once saw me writing school reports on a Saturday and asked me how much overtime I got paid for doing that

@Babysharkdododont my Aunt was a district nurse and used to hate it when family & friends would thrust an ill child or their manky toe at her at social events, obviously in the opinion that she was always on duty.
@TheBitchOfTheVicar I also have teachers in the family , overtime, that's a laugh.

DH is Army. People seem to think he spends his time crawling around fields, shooting things or marching around.

He's pretty much 100% office base and can even work from home sometimes.

(And yes, we did pay rent on that house. He pays for food. No, we don't have guns in the house. No, the children are not separated by parents rank. No, Officers wives are not busybodies telling other wives what to do. No, we don't get batmen.)

People think I'm there to tell their children what to do when they leave school. There's a fair bit more to it than that and theory and practice (and the world of work!) have moved on a fair bit since those parents were in school themselves.

I'm a lunchtime supervisor at a primary.I haven't got a blue rinse,I haven't got "dinner lady arms" and I don't wear a tabard

I’m a social media manager working remotely, except for one day a week. People have said I work ‘one day a week’... I do not - I work several hours every day of the week setting up posts and content, interacting and responding to enquiries. I only really take Sunday ‘off’. My boss thankfully gets it ... as I work bloody hard, and my toddler only goes to a CM two days a week.

I work as "just a cleaner ", part time...I'm pretty well qualified but this is what works for me at the moment and gives DH and I a good work/life balance and saves my mental health!

Airline crew, especially Long Haul....

Neighbours rarely registered the night shifts/days away/weekend/bank holiday/Xmas days worked, but they sure as heck noticed when you weren't working..

For example park up on your drive at reakfast time after finishing wok and having spent umpteen hours out of bed and as sure as night follows day some wag was almost bound to comment " oh, I see you're at home again, yet another day of, alright for some..."

That because I'm self employed, I'm a plucky go-getter. In reality, I do as much as I can be arsed with and then knock off for the day.

The much, much worse assumption, I work from home, on my laptop... I must be a #bossbabe and about to sell them some lippy!

I'm a teacher but not in a school. I work in an adult learning centre.

For some reason people assume that I get school holidays. I get a lot of "alright for some" type comments. I get 5 weeks holiday a year.

I was a hospital pharmacy technician; and if I didn't specify, and just said I worked in a hospital, it was assumed I was a nurse.

@loginfail oh yes, "you off AGAIN !" , and my personal favourite atm ( from BIL) " there is a part time job going at such and such, seeing as you're off work so much" No BIL, I work 336 hours per month, I dont need a pt job on top .

I'm a civil servant, I don't have a final salary pension and never have had, despite being here nearly 15 years. We can't claim 'sick days' if we haven't used our 'allocation'. We aren't highly paid. (Significantly below average wage). Also we aren't all 'important' civil servants- most of use are just run of the mill administrators. Stop making out we do sod all for our (meagre) wage!

The favourites for my job are;
-l don’t need to sleep after a night shift (they’ve clearly never seen how irritable l get )
-l have a magic wand that can cure friends and family but l choose not to use because lm selfish
-l love providing diagnosis about people l don’t know and have never met.

Manager of a very busy independent retail card and gift shop. People assume:

• lovely just to have a job that you don’t need to think about after hours. Reality is always doing rotas/staff appraisals/stock orders etc out of hours as the shop is so busy during the day. Popping in early/staying late to catch up after busy days etc.
• lovely to just be able to look at all those nice things all day 🙄 Not so lovely doing the 12 hour night shift to move and overhaul everything in the shop for the next season 🤣 when you come in one day and it’s normal, then the next day and the place looks like Santa’s Grotto...it wasn’t the elves that did it 😅🤣 I’ve also spent weeks handpicking every card to make sure we have everything we’re asked for 😅 do you know how many Christmas card titles I pick?! 🤯🙈🤣
• that because I’m the manager I can do what I want when I want 🤯 MIL frequently pops in - “will we just go for a coffee?” ... “no, I’m working” ... “can’t you just nip out when you want?” ... NOT how it works 🤣

I work in a university library. People think all we do is sit about reading books and stamping a few books in and out (we haven't done that for years!). There's a lot more to libraries than that.

@Babysharkdododont

I'm a nurse and people assume I'm some sort of self sacrifing angel who works every hour under the sun, nights and weekends etc. In reality I work part time, 3 days of standard office hours.

Lucky you! I work 3 12 hours shifts in A&E and never get finished on time!

@Crinkle77 fellow library assistant here - county libraries though, mainly my village one.

Agree completely with your image. Also people think that libraries need to be very quiet places where you cannot make a sound. In non-Covid times especially, this is not true for us - Rhyme Times, Book Groups, talks, all far from quiet! This means we need to be outgoing ourselves, not quiet like the stereotype. Love my job though.

@confusedofengland yeah and people also think librarians are all shy, quiet, glasses wearing and geeky. I do wear glasses but deffo none of the rest ha ha!

I'm a junior academic (postdoc), and people either assume I have a secure, well-paid, fairly cushy job with lots of time off in school holidays, or they think I am an under-qualified idiot who contributes to the lowering of standards in higher education by 'standing in for' the 'proper' lecturer or professor and delivering low quality teaching.

A lot of people think most of my job is about teaching, and that if I'm writing a book, it must either be a hobby or a vanity project, rather than a standard part of my working day.

Working hours - my in-laws cannot believe if I work from home, I'm working. The one good thing about lockdown: not having SIL turn up several hours early for a visit and expect to be entertained in the middle of a work day!

That working taking phone calls doesn't mean I can't leave my desk and I can log in a bit late or leave early. I can't my headset is wired to my laptop and if I'm working, I'm at my desk the full time

I'm an Illustrator and I think a lot of people are totally clueless about how much hard work it actually is, the skill involved and how hideous the hours can be when you're on a deadline. A book I worked on earlier in the year was so work intensive and with such a horrid deadline that I worked 100 + hour weeks for three months straight without a single day off, it totally burned me out and when I went to sleep at night I was dreaming in photoshop. It also had a hugely negative impact on my family life. When I worked out how much my final fee was compared to the actual hours I'd worked it turned out that I'd been working for less than £4 an hour, but I had no way of knowing the project would turn out to be so complicated until it was underway. Thankfully I am now working on a smaller project with a better deadline. I often think when people pick up an illustrated book that they have no clue how much time, effort and sheer hard work goes into the illustrations, and I think Illustrators are often quite overlooked despite the massive contribution they make to the final product.

Librarian is a very misconceived job. Most academic librarians are qualified teachers with a masters qualification. It’s also a really stressful job and people think you stamp books all day.

@Magicpaintbrush; as in "anyone can draw"?