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!

@delfttulipvase we may have worked on some of the same events if you were venue based!

Who was your favourite and least favourite artist?

Simples? 🙈

They were all ok, I’ve looked after Bryan Adams a fair few times though and he was lovely,

My granddaughter starts her Architecture degree next month and the 3 posts slamming it as a career choice have me worried.

It's not about designing what the customer likes - that's a requirement. I've a highly sought after design degree and thirty years experience but they bought Photoshop last week and can't understand why that tiny, crappy, low resolution image they've grabbed from the internet can't be turned into an A1 poster! They won't take advice or trust that I can produce a high quality final result and it's frustrating.

Anything where you run a business and employ others.

At certain times there's so much pressure to bring in enough revenue, ensure you can meet all your committments, deal with shareholders, a lot of legal and accountancy admin... You're on 24/7 too, until you get to a place where you can hire someone else to be the CEO and can reduce your daily involvement.

People love the idea of being their own boss but being employed by someone else, especially a big well resourced firm, can be so much more enjoyable.

Producing competition horses for clients. I loved the horses, but the work was incredibly hard, 24/7, no sick pay, no pension, no back up.

Most of my clients were lovely, but, as the law of averages demands, I had a few arseholes and a couple of absolute lunatics.

Winters were the worst and I eventually gave up after one particularly hard winter and went full time in my 'second job' as an IT consultant.

I now earn very well and keep my own horse on full livery...

Fashion Buyer.

Many people thought it sounded glamorous, especially the travel but the reality was these buying trips were exhausting and you worked even longer hours than normal. You were expected to then entertain clients in the evening. I remember almost crying in my hotel from tiredness, just wanting to sleep but having to go out for yet enough evening schmoozing suppliers.

Some of the senior team across the floor were so unprofessional, I wondered how they got away with it. It was well known for being a bit of a boys club at one stage. People being ‘managed’ out of the business, cloak & dagger redundancies. Senior management also had their favourites who could do no wrong (they were often the loud, confident ones who talked the talk & had ‘the look’ but they were actually very lazy) I got tired of it all & eventually left for a new company.

Although I much preferred the new company & people, over time I felt disillusioned by the whole industry & thought ‘ what am I doing?’ The thought of doing it for another 10 years used to keep me awake at night.

I left and now have a calmer job in a much less stressful career. I work part time hours which suit my family life, something which would not have been possible before. I never take work home with me & it truly feels wonderful.

Many of my old work colleagues have also left the industry and seem much happier for it.

The under graduate architect degree is hard work but really interesting and covers a lot of ground, I wouldn’t put her off doing it as a degree but I’d go into it considering other careers it could lead to, like planning, BIM management, better paid roles in construction etc and not feeling tied to becoming an architect at the end of it.

She could finish after her first degree and then go for a graduate training scheme open to graduates with any first degree.

I guess that like many of the other jobs described in this thread, she would make a living. It's just not the glamorous lifestyle that people who don't know the profession would it assume it to be. She'll find out for herself!

An Uber driver told me that he was an architect and that the pay was terrible

There are loads of different job titles for developer or developer-adjacent roles. But there are also lots of non-technical roles such as product manager, product designer, UX/UI designer, content designer, delivery manager which have the same workplace benefits but without the need to learn to code. Depending on the company there may also be subject matter experts. Also tech companies all need things like HR and legal!

Having always worked in the NHS, I thought working in the Private Sector would be great. I imagined better perk, better conditions, fancy carpets, nice toilets :), less constraints on health spending.

Instead it was a bizarrely competitive world, where everything was about making money, but this time making money for this particular company (it was an IT health system). Whereas in the NHS conferences are where you go to share information and developments, in the private company they were all about secrecy - we weren't allowed to tell any other companies what we were doing.

And the toilet weren't even that nice! 🙂

Thank you! I'm just curious, how do people get into a job like these? What qualifications would you need? because these positions are not your traditional jobs like a "doctor" or a "teacher", so how do you end up as IT Product Manager? Or a Content Designer?

@localnotail I’m a content designer (web design) working in a small team. Variously my team have marketing/general IT helpdesk/editorial type backgrounds. I have a degree and post grad but not exactly in related subjects. I also did some short technical courses in web coding (eg html, CSS). But mostly my job is about attention to detail, problem solving and creatively laying out content in a user friendly way.

I don't know that women and have no idea how successful she is in terms of floristry. It all looks very 'lifestyle'. It's the type of thing people do when they've got time to fiddle about and take hundreds of photos. I'm laughing at crowd funding for a new studio. Really?! There are children living in poverty in this country but this is a much more worthy cause.... Honestly, I despair!

I freelanced for a florist who had a great online presence and had apparently worked with a couple of very high end fashion magazines. Her floristry skills and organisation was dreadful. It was totally mind boggling how she passed herself off as being an award winning florist.

A commercial florist is a machine. You have to knock work out like a production line. There's no wafting around in gingham dresses and all afternoon to create each 'masterpiece'.

and....

Lots of these women were 'called' to become florists during the pandemic. As children they skipped through flower filled meadows at their grandmother's but have spent the last twenty odd years working in corporate litigation in the City.

Floristry is a funny old world.

How did you get into this though? I'm really curious. Because it sounds like you did not set out to do this particular job? Do you train for something and then just accidentally land a job that turns out to be good?

I know a few people who have really cool jibs but did not train for that particular subject. Always fascinated me, as I spent a long time training for a particular profession (bloody architecture) - I always thought you need to train for a profession, I'm very old fashioned and I cant imagine not knowing where my degree might take me! But I have a DC and I want him to make a good choice, to have better job and career prospects than I have - so I'm curious what I need to steer him towards. He is good at maths and problem solving, so I'd imagine IT would be right up his street...

This sounds brilliant actually. not boring at all. any recent events you've been part of if not too outing?

I absolutely love this thread and hope there is another good one about jobs that were surprisingly brilliant. But I don’t think it will be as busy!!

I think if you do anything long enough, you get to dislike it.
Familiarity breeds contempt. You are not doing it by choice but are trapped doing it.

My dad was a bus driver and when he started the job, he used to go in to work on his days off just to drive the buses. He loved it for many years but then things started to change, adding duties and making the bus driver collect the money (there was previously a ticket man and it was a two man job) the stress kept going up, and by the time he retired, he hated the job. it’s sad really that he was sanded down like that.

I always thought I’d love to be a truck driver, driving for hours by myself listening to the radio, driving around Europe on the open road. Wearing checked shirts! Sounds like a dream but after reading this thread, I think I’d better stay where I am : )

There’s no harm in doing the undergrad degree which teaches lots of transferrable skills. She could also do the year in practice to see what working as an architect is about.

Then she can decide if she wants to do the 2 year masters to become an architect, a different construction related masters (project management, planning etc.), go on a graduate scheme for a contractor or house builder where she could become a design manager, or something completely different. Someone on my course went on to work in IT for an architectural software firm.

The undergraduate degree won’t be a waste of time. It will show prospective employers that she’s creative, can work under pressure, meet deadlines and present her work convincingly. And if she realises that she really does love architecture and doesn’t want to do anything else, there are worse choices one could make in life.

She says they often just go “can you copy this photo?” So it’s not even original work. She wants to tell them to go and find someone who does the style they’re asking for - but she has to take the job for the money even if what they’re asking for is hideous.

Thanks for explaining this, though it does sound more like your sister is desperate for commissions rather than it being the client, I have a couple of photos I once thought I would like as a poster/painting, and would have asked 'can you make this a poster' too; it would have been up to the artist to say 'no' if they really didn't want to, rather than scorning the work.

Being a doctor in the NHS.