Jobs you thought would be fabulous but actually weren't?

[GardenDreams]

I was a full time fine artist for 30 years (traditional painting, mixed media and pattern design) worked with book publishing, freelance, galleries, online print sales, various large companies and a few partnerships with celebs. Not as exciting as it sounds though, lol.

Throughout this period, many people looked at me with awe after asking what I did, mostly in surprise that I could earn enough to live on (it came close, at times). I do get the impression that many people think that this is a very thrilling and freeing way to live, but the reality was quite stressful and scary, at least financially, at times. It was a good long slog, with some tricky customers and another full time job dealing with social media. And the work never, ever stopped - there was no clocking off or guilt free holidays. Aside from the online glamour of how it looks, it eventually becomes less about self expression and more like a production line. At times I was completely, visually exhausted.

There are tons of newly proclaimed artists of a certain age on insta, and now more than ever before are offering art courses (after only 6 months in to being self taught), so it's very much a competitive kind of 'grind' culture which has multiplied in the past 6 years.. It is 'sold' as an alternative, lucrative side hustle, but is actually far from the oh so relaxing vibe these insta accounts make out in their posts.

I am still creating but have moved over into a new field that I love, and only now can I see how utterly draining and hard it was when I look back on it. But I am sure so many people still think the idea is quite romantic and liberating.

Anyone else with a similar story? I am cure there are tons of careers that sound wonderful to me, that might be really soul destroying or at least stressful in reality. My fantasy job would have been an archivist, but I took such a different path at ui that I dare say that boat sailed a long time ago!

Could not agree more. Being a midwife means being under constant scrutiny, working 12 hours with barely a break, struggling to meet women's expectations, dealing with life and death stuff where you are NEVER thanked by your managers and always criticised if you miss something. Low staffing levels and having to do most of your updates and learning in your own time. It is like a war zone out there. I would not recommend it as a career to anyone.

Yes to all of this. I've just left the industry after 30 plus years in it. It is absolutely backbreaking work a lot of the time. There's a lot more scrubbing buckets and sweeping floors than anyone ever anticipates, and in the last few years post social media, finding people prepared to do the shit aspects of the job is almost impossible as everyone thinks it's just wafting around with a trug over your arm. My back has given up the ghost thanks to half my life hefting Dutch boxes, buckets and urns around and I've taken an admin job in order to get my life back.

Good florists who can turn their hand to any aspect of floristry are so few and far between -Most, as @pinkfluffymonkey says above, think that doing a Christmas wreath workshop qualifies you as a professional. The pay is some of the worst I can think of for a trained job and really hasn't kept pace with inflation. Expectations that you will work all weekend, 12-14 hour shifts being standard in smaller businesses -it's no wonder the industry is understaffed. Yet people persist in thinking it's a lovely job!

People also largely think that supermarket prices for flowers are industry standard, instead of understanding that most supermarkets run their flower concessions as a loss leader, or at best a 'break even-er'. Independent florists just can't keep pace with it.

That said, I've travelled all over the UK and Europe in my job. I've worked in fantastic hotels, Country Houses, Castles, Boats, with Royals, Celebrities and very very rich people which has made the day to day interesting. But those are the high points, the majority of it is a long, hard slog being face to face with the arseholes that make up the majority of the general public.

Editor at a big publishing house. I really do enjoy my job and I get a real thrill when I see a book I worked on in a bookshop or someone posts about it on SM. And it is a "cool" job with largely lovely people.

However. It's often pressured and stressful as budgets are small and we're constantly short on staff and time. There is a lot of admin and lots of meetings/spreadsheets and not fun conversations about missed deadlines alongside the fun editing of manuscripts and chatting with authors and illustrators.

I've never been to a book launch. I've never attended a swanky party. I've never been to a long, schmoozy lunch. No drinks trolley comes around at 4pm. I don't have my own Mad Men-style office (a guy I briefly dated was so disappointed by this). The pay isn't very good, bonuses are small, and it's very London-centric. So it's definitely not the glamorous industry that books and movies portray (or at least not anymore - things might have been different in the '50s-'80s).

TV presenter - constantly criticised for how I looked, asked to lose weight despite being a size ten at the time, not actually brilliant money as it wasn't a major channel, had to write my bulletins which were then pulled apart by the ex-tabloid monster boss, having to do horrible things as a news reporter including standing outside the house of people who had suffered a major trauma or tragedy, feeling like an utter ghoul, having to be all smiley and nice to the sexist, handsy bosses when I wanted to stab them with the heel of my shoe, job insecurity. Urgh. I'm still in the industry so I know that life is indeed very lovely for some presenters. And I do love my TV life now but it is rarely glam, lots of frustrations, stresses, ridiculous demands, long days etc. The adrenaline when things go right though is a ridiculous drug and keeps me in the biz.

Not that anyone would EVER think this is a fab job but I absolutely despised being a traffic and travel reporter on the radio. Ludicrously low pay, constantly harangued by the male bosses over things like: too much bantering with the radio hosts (who loved to banter and I wasn't going to piss them off), not enough banter with the radio hosts (some didn't want anyone to be funnier than them), sounding common, sounding posh, sounding weird, not being committed enough to traffic news, pronouncing Tottenham Tott'n'am and not Tottnam, for saying "you'd have to be barking to drive up Dog Kennel Hill at the moment" etc etc etc. Basically every time I came out of the booth, a man would be waiting there to have a go about some perceived gigantic error, despite the stations I reported for really liking me.

Ah! As for florists.....

I love flowers, although only follow what I would call 'relatable' gardeners and artists online. However, the most popular are profoundly extravagant, such as this account:

https://www.instagram.com/botanical_tales/?hl=en

No shade to the lady, but wouldn't one require an absolute fortune to even begin this? It is all so very pretty, and she is evidently a very talented soul, but I wonder these days about the stereotype of ex London playing country bumpkin for the 'authentic' vibes.
I suppose social media can make one a bit cynical, it is, after all, simply a colossal capitalist fairground.

Me too. I never thought I’d be sworn at, grabbed, threatened, had a cup of piss thrown at me and then there was the sexual assaults by hoteliers, coach drivers and customers. Not forgetting the customers who died in quad bike accidents, were raped and were involved in coach accidents.

It was an eye opening 9 years.

Also with midwifery, even if you leave, there is the risk of litigation for up to 21 years in the future: if something happens during the birth that is deemed to cause issues with development, all the way up to the age of majority (21), then the midwife can be taken to court. Okay if the midwife did do something wrong but it means that a midwife cannot 'relax' from the stress of her previous career till 21 years have passed.

I was coming to say similar! I'm Editorial Director at a small publishing house and I am vastly overworked and moderately underpaid. I love working with authors – of course, you get the occasional diva who makes your life a misery, but most of them are great. Reading submissions is an almost entirely thankless task – in three years in this role I've read ONE thing that really set my world on fire, a handful that were great, and an absolute boatload of dross. And actually even more disheartening are the ones in the middle – good but not good enough to publish / not right for us – I hate turning people down under those circumstances.

I do get to go to quite a lot of parties and book launches but they're definitely work, not pleasure. Even if I'm not running things, they are EXHAUSTING and take me away from my family, so I'm not really a fan. All the free champagne in the world can't make up for endless hours of small talk instead of getting to put my daughter to bed. (The schmoozey lunches are nice though, I will confess.)

In general, though, the worst thing is just that there is no money. For anyone. I don't know who it is that makes money on books but it's not the authors or the bookshops or the publishing houses, not unless you have a Richard Osman on your hands. Honestly you'd be surprised at how little profit you get out of a book sale, and by the time that's been divvied up between everyone it's negligible unless you're shifting hundreds of thousands of copies. Which hardly anyone is.

I do love my job. But it is nothing like I imagined it would be back when I was a bookseller dreaming of working in publishing. Like Lisa said, it is mostly meetings, emails, spreadsheets and a whole lot of stress.

Probably not many people’s dream job but I was a model for a short time. I already had an eating disorder but if I didn’t, I would have ended up with one.

You are constantly under pressure to be thin, never eat, never gain weight. Your appearance is loudly discussed in front of you and pulled apart. You are not a human just a prop for people who want to sell things using your image. It’s beyond shallow.

Plus sleazy, predatory men and false, sneering women who talk you into going for jobs you won’t get and don’t want. Luckily, I always knew it was bullshit and I never really took it seriously or committed to it as a career as it’s all so vacuous and temporary. Plus ultra competitive. I got out quickly (never made much money from it) and got a real job.

But there were many girls who, for them it was everything and they couldn’t walk away.

So interesting the amount of event organisers (wonder if there's a higher proportion of them on MN)? Architects too - I knew it was long training and tough and low paid and more designing bog standard extensions but gosh.
But its temperament isn't it? @FrenchFancie my DH was a solicitor and LOVED it. Got into management and at times travelled 100 nights a year (if Sony want you face to face you go), and absolutely stressful and incredibly long hours but he thrived on it. He was passionate about the law (and politics but thank goodness he didn't go down that route). But, but, BUT - he was a man, and no denying if he wasn't he probably would not have reached the heights he did. I was at home raising the kids and keeping house and doing the life admin. All could devote himself completely to the work.
My DD is about to start uni. She's already given up on her dream of being a 2D animator. Saw too many Instagrammers with amazing reels but not getting work, and the freelance lifestyle was not what she wanted.
I was a designer and production editor in a large publishing house. I started in the 1980s and it was great. With no family to worry about the late nights, the boozy lunches, the low pay were all fine. It was an adventure and made friends for life and I learned so much (my Graphic Design BA from one of the top art unis in the world trained me for nothing).
However it's different now. All computer based, production and art now combined, lunch at your desk, pay hardly moved since I was doing it. Staff never replaced, just increase other's workload. Most of the mags are now online only and no need for half the job I did. Shame.

For whoever mentioned craft fayres etc, I did that for a while too.

I stayed away from the bigger "artisan" type ones as I had friends who would pay £100/£150+ for a table and be lucky to break even. I stuck to school fayres and local charity type ones. Places that I was maybe £10-20 a table. I still didn't always break even. I mostly did beaded jewellery/accessories and card making. I did much better with the cards overall tbh, had many repeat customers looking for me for those.

It's a lot of lugging things around (weight depending on what you make of course), setting up your table nice and early to get a good spot or in some cases finding the dingy corner you've been shoved in beside whatever the latest MLM fad is. Then a mixture of some other crafters examining your stuff with a sneer on their face, or customers who would pick something up and say "I could make this" or "I can buy this on [insert cheap crappy Chinese website here] instead and it's only £1 there". Completely ignoring the quality difference of course. They'd then handle everything before putting it back in a totally different place and walking off. You'd also have customers comparing you to other crafters even if what you make is quite different.

You'd have people just abandoning buggies/prams in front of your table to walk around and look at all the tables around you, while ignoring your own table. So many light fingered people too, it was mainly kids I had to deal with for that.

I did a couple of outdoor fayres as well and that brings the unreliability of the weather with it too. I once did one in the pissing rain and I had a gazebo when not everyone else had brought one so I was used as a shelter more than anything else.

Then at the end of the day you have to pack everything up again and lug it back home.

There were lovely crafters and customers too thankfully or I wouldn't have done it as long as I did. I do want to go back into it but I would be online only if I did, my health and body aren't what they used to be and I don't think I could physically do it now.

HAHA! I totally get this. I assume the joke is because there are lots of people in the same boat in that industry but it did make me think about my own office.

I line manage someone who has autism as of fairly recently (the line management, not the autism). They have a list of reasonable adjustments on file and, from what I hear, not everyone in the past has been as supportive as they could have been. To me, the "adjustments" we've agreed read like a list of good practice we should all be aspiring to anyway, autism or not. It really made me think about the assumptions we make about neurodiverse people and whether they're actually the ones who are on to something in terms of communication and how we interact with each other. I know all neurodiverse people are different and it's a spectrum but it really made my mind spin.

Acting. I was desperate to be an actress growing up. Had a small part in a couple of episodes of a TV series as a teenager. It was filmed abroad so all very exciting.

Within the first hour I realised I hated it. It was so boring and repetitive doing the same takes over and over again.

@periodiclabel apparently independent bookshops are doing quite well and having a resurgence despite the Amazon effect.

That said, I wouldn't be doing it to make money... Apparently the average book shop makes around £20,000 a year which would be a big pay cut. I like the idea of being part of the community and I live somewhere that is crying out for an indie bookshop, but maybe it should just stay a dream.

Yes! I'm sure she's delightful, but her 'studio' wouldn't provide enough stock for an afternoon of sales at a regular shop. I know it's not all about that, and that there's merit in the Slow Living movement, but what she is showing is just not realistic to turn over a living, unless you're just in it for the likes and the engagement.
I have a couple of friends who grow and sell their own flowers for their businesses, but still have to buy in 80 percent of their stock for things like weddings because they just can't run a commercial flower farm and still make money. (Of course you never see that on the gram, it's all smoke and mirrors to make it look like it's all grown in their backyard...)

True. My DH travelled to various places in Europe & America over the years, & often when I'd ask him what a place was like, he'd say, "I didn't see it. I went from the airport to the hotel, the hotel to the factory & back to the hotel." A couple of times he got taken out somewhere interesting for dinner, & once there was a free day so he & a colleague drove around somewhere he already knew & loved. But that was it. Definitely not glamorous or fun.

Midwife. I went in all bright eyed and incredibly passionate and ended up with my mental health in tatters.

I’ve come across some of the most awful people in midwifery, witnessed horrendous bullying of staff and gaslighting.

I’m now a health visitor which everyone is a bit ‘meh’ about but I absolutely love my job. Tonne of variety, colleagues are lovely and actually feel, without sounding like a wanker, like I can make an impact

The post two posts before yours was about doctors!

Ironically, I don't think this is what I'd term 'slow living'.
It's become a generalised, trend focused hashtag, which, considering the sheer volume of it all, I'd imagine relies quite heavily on marketing and business skills. Hiring of expensive photographers, real estate, travel, the right clothes and general decor does nothing to minimise mass production and pointless spending.
Such aesthetics usually spawn a trillion new small businesses on Etsy, Ebay, etc, who lower the costs of imitating them for the 'regular fans'.

'Making' itself has become a product. Companies such as Toast, for example, have been running with the slow aesthetic for a few years now. It always was and always will be consumer driven.

I have seen new artist's spring up on Insta who have framed texts in their studio extension which read "I AM A MAKER". It's the commodification of the self, whichever aesthetic it belongs to.

landlord
You are hated by the whole country, even if you are providing much needed flexible accommodation for students and professionals (not necessarily young professional these days).
Cleaning a 'cleaned' room after a tenant have vacated can be horrid; snot smeared over the wall, spunky tissues under the bed, stained mattresses to be got rid off at £40 each, used condoms on top of the wardrobe, and sooooooo much mould as the dear babe hadn't opened a window from September till May.
Then the local council charge you £1100 for a license.
Tenants asking for a reduction in the rent against the mortgage company upping the premiums.
Insurance going up.
Water bills increasing
Gas and Electricity bills increasing. With some tenants unable to turn down the heat so they just live in the tropics.
Tenants total inability to put bins out on the correct day for waste collection.
Tenants total inability to recycle
Try to get a non paying tenant to leave will pit you against the court system at huge cost and months of time. All while the tenants laughs and lives in your house for free.

I am intrigued by a couple of posters working in design, saying one big downside was, in effect, having to design things the customer likes (unless I hugely misread the posts): I can understand the creative frustration but the customer has to live with it, especially if it's interior design, in their home...why wouldn't you want to produce something they liked? I remember Changing Rooms, years ago, Linda Barker doing a stencil effect in a room where the owners had specified no stencils, and unsurprisingly the owners hated it: just why, Linda, why??

Arts marketing.

It was an endless round of trying to think of ways to sell more tickets, being berated by agents, promoters, the Board about not selling enough tickets and repeat. Sadly some events, I came to think, just didn't have enough public interest to sell more than a handful of tickets.

And agents / promoters and their clients are hell to deal with.

Yet still, bright, interesting graduates are queuing up to work in poorly paid first and second jobs to get a foot in the door.

I have many many stories I roll out at parties and people always thought my job was terribly exciting and fun. I much prefer the boring public sector job I do now.

My sister says she wants to do her own style and have customers come to her because they like her work. Like if you see a room by Kelly Wearstler you can tell from the style who’s done it. But only the people at the top of the game get to do their own style. My sister has to design what her boss tells her to, or what the client asks for, even if she thinks it’s so hideous that she’s ashamed to advertise that she’s done it. She says it’s fake and inauthentic to her creativity.

I do get the part about not being able to their own style, it must be so frustrating, but if the customer has to live with it, surely it should be something they like? Though I am wondering whether your sister gets a chance to explain her own ideas or whether she had to do a 'painting by numbers' job without any personal input

Spent nearly ten years working in a university library. I had a good degree and studied for a post-grad qualification whilst working, yet earned less than my SIL who had 2 O Levels and worked in a Job Centre. My office was basically a cupboard and was bitterly cold in Winter and blisteringly hot in Summer.

I never got to just dreamily flick through beautiful, new books whilst nursing a cup of herbal tea (as depicted on IG). You'd typically find me in yet another tedious faculty meeting scrabbling over ever decreasing budget funds. Or wrestling with the department photocopier.

Particular job low points were finding a used condom stuck to a physics journal! And being spat at by an enraged student who wanted to take a dozen books out of Closed Access, Short Loan over the weekend to revise (er no, those books never leave library premises).