What careers sound good on paper nightmare in reality and what sounds nightmare on paper good in reality.

[Cupcakeicecream]

On paper teaching sounds great, all those weeks off. Weekends off working in primary schools sounds fun secondary schools you can specialise in a subject you prefer. Reality grading lesson plans admin alot of work not enough pay.
Firefighters and police sounds fun reality dangerous.
In paper admin or reception jobs sounds boring and tedious paper work. But some have great hours and good work life balance.
In your opinion what jobs aren't worth the hype?

One thing I would say about teaching is, yes its blooming hard work - I think most people will acknowledge that these days.
BUT I have done many different jobs before teaching and they were boring and unfulfilling. Every year I get a new group of receptive, funny, clever, amazing little souls who will grow, change and learn under my care, who will share their favourite books, their loves and their problems. It’s a massive privilege and I wouldn’t do anything else. The biggest problem is the lack of funding for support staff and lack of support for children with SEN and MH issues.

Lovely post❤️

I came on to say this.
Relentless days trying to juggle many cases feeling pulled in all directions feeling like you’re only just coping , being seen as the enemy when you’re using your knowledge to try and help, being called money grabbing when approx 10% of bills are actually profit, being blamed when things don’t go to plan despite the fact that animals aren’t machines and don’t follow an instruction manual, legal minimum holidays, legal minimum pension contributions, minimum sick pay, high suicide rate, poor pay compared with equivalent medical professionals, chronic shortage of staff because everyone is leaving and Brexit has affected the workforce.

And yet… I’m still here because I work with an amazing team, I love the actual work and most of our clients are nice, plus I’m too old to retrain!
If I was leaving school now I’d probably choose something else but hindsight is always interesting.

This is deeply offensive and bears no resemblance to any practice I have ever worked in.

Did exactly this. Bought a big house in a beautiful part of the country - much more expensive than we could have afforded in the usual way - and now run it as a B&B. Hard work - yes, lots of cleaning and laundry - but very rewarding in all senses. Most of the guests are absolutely lovely.

DH works from home and so is available to help if necessary but rarely needed.

Can't take summer holidays but do close for the whole of January and the odd mini-break here and there.

Having a business loan rather than a mortgage can be daunting and the pandemic was a challenge but so happy to have taken the plunge.

Teaching is The Best. You have to be fucking organised and prioritise the boring jobs (marking) otherwise it drags you down and affects your joy of lessons, but students (and their parents) are fascinating, real, raw, funny, human, unpredictable... And you will never, ever, be short of anecdotes (anonymised, of course).

Lawyer - enough already said

Agency recruitment/headhunting -

moved into legal recruitment after being a lawyer thinking how fulfilling it would be to help others find a job they liked. Reality is that it’s a hard-core sales job, duplicitous candidates, everyone hates you (sometimes it’s justified), impossible briefs to fill and listening to lawyers moaning about their job. On the other hand the money can be amazing and gave me lasting financial security.

Now work as a Gardener in a beautiful tourist hot spot. Lovely clients, paid for every hour I work and fabulous scenery. Downside - it’s also the wettest place in England 😂

This thread is depressing as hell. All these careers that should be wonderful, and probably were 40 years ago.

What changed? Why can’t we be James Herriot or Mr Chips any more? All the humanity has been sucked out of life. It’s sad.

Lawyer demanding. Competitive, stressful

Pros self employed determine own day etc, get to help people, fulfilling, well paid

Why can’t we be James Herriot or Mr Chips any more?

In fairness they were fictional characters so I'm not sure anyone got to be them.

Though I do think that conditions in certain jobs have deteriorated

I never imagined for a moment that working in a library would be fun. Would be my worst job ever….mainly cos I’d have to be quiet and I love talking😁

I work in a library and it's a myth that you have to be quiet. That might have been the case once, but nowadays one of the main purposes of a library is to be a "community hub." We love it if people come in and have a chat with us or each other. We wouldn't encourage actual shouting, but that's never happened when I was around. Some bigger libraries have designated quiet study areas, where you are supposed to be quiet, but not necessarily silent - nobody would mind if two school friends were studying together and one said something like "how did you do question 3?" or "could I use your ruler?"! Incidentally I do like the job very much. The people are what make it lovely. Every single person who comes into a library wants to be there, and it shows.

Admittedly I've only heard this from librarians in the US, but I thought the public were quite keen on coming in to watch porn on the library computers.

GP Admin
On paper, low pay, dealing people often at their worried stressed sick worst, public image of powercrazed middle aged harrigans who diagnose over the phone and palm off sick people.
Reality, genuinely rewarding job, knowing that you are helping people when they really need it. Often advocating on patients behalf with clinicians. Most patients are grateful for our service and the few who are unreasonable are far outweighed by the good. Working in a supportive team (mainly)

The major downside is dealing with doctors always moaning about how skint they are.

The major downside is dealing with doctors always moaning about how skint they are.

How crass.

James Herriot was a real vet. All Creatures Great and Small was based on his books.
Herriot was his pen name, and (looking on Wiki) it's mostly agreed that about 50% of his books were fiction. Nonetheless, he was a real person.

Seconded.

Especially for SEN schools! Very stressful, huge responsibilities and beyond dreadful pay. No wonder schools are having a nightmare to recruit at the moment

James Herriot's book are autobiographical. They are great, such an insight into the northern men of the 1930s - tough, sure, but a lot softer and more sentimental than received wisdom would have you believe!

For the pp who asked about jobs in tech, it's such a big area that it's difficult to summarise, but here are a few useful starters:

www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-work-experience/job-sectors/information-technology/overview-of-the-uks-it-industry

nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-categories/computing-technology-and-digital

There are bootcamps and apprenticeships available in a number of tech areas, especially shortage ones.

it's mostly agreed that about 50% of his books were fiction

Well I think this is the pertinent point. The long, dull boring days wouldn't have made for great entertainment, so wouldn't make it to ttr books.

I'm in HR and bloody love my job and have done it for nearly 25 years. Whilst it can sometimes feel like you're shoveling shit, if you work for a decent, progressive company (as I'm lucky enough to), it can be a role where your work is transformative in making a good company great.

In fact, with many roles, it's not always the role that's rubbish, it's the company you do that role for.

I used to work as a stained glass maker / restorer, which was great initially when I had a cheap shared studio space and was young. More recently - working alone in expensive studio space as it was the only place available , materials (all imported) prohibitively expensive, people can't afford stained glass windows!, I'm getting old and my hands and feet have arthritis/RSI and are painful. I struggled to make running a business and studio work around my children. Mostly got sick of being in pain and feeling alone.

Retrained in bookkeeping. 20 years ago I would have though this the most boring thing on earth. Now... I LOVE IT. I get to work flexibly , there is work in every industry with my qualifications. Currently I work for a charity within school hours. Get to sit down and drink a cup of tea and hep a genuinely good cause.

Those of you who have escaped law, how did you do it and what do you do now? It's the only thing I'm qualified and experienced in but I hate it with the power of a thousand suns. When I'm walking to the office I fantasise about being hit by a car so I can have a nice stay in hospital instead. Anything else is going to involve a massive drop in salary which has been the main barrier. But I can't do this for another 25 years.

Is moving in-house an option? Most of my lawyer friends ended up doing that.

Haven't seen anyone mention being a travel agent yet?

Out of curiousity for the few that are claiming my experiance is 'offensive' how do your clinic operate?

Do you work for a charity where you treating all the unowned pidgeons and headghogs old ladies bring in for free and all these sick animals rushed in get magically patched up and theres no death?

There where basically a handful of catagories when I worked there:

1. animals being brought in to be PTS (100% death rate)

2. animals coming in for surgery (spaying, tooth pulling, tumors/cysts, glands, abortions, very occasionally somthing like an amputation - spaying/abortions had the highest death rate, the rest where mostly pretty mild if surgery for those things was all being a vet was I would happily have stayed)

3. wild/stray/feral animals (what do 'unoffensive' vet clinics do here?)

4. REALLY sick pets and accidents (and usually they didnt live because they where in organ failure or badly injured/unclaimed)

There really wasnt a great deal of people coming in just for a prescription or check up, I mean lets face it if your going to the vets its usually because something is wrong.

As an animal lover it was awful but I didn't invent it, I wasnt even the vet so had zero control my job was a glorified cleaner so I got to follow the vets around moping up fluids and sterilising everything, the most hands on I got was handing over instruments during surgery and dragging the bodies out.