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?

Town planner: sounds interesting, in reality frustrating, under resourced and not that well paid. But then maybe that's all public sector.

Surveyor: sounds dull. Actually incredibly interesting, very many and varied career paths, often flexible working, can be extremely well paid if you're in investment or development.

Small animal Veterinary Surgeon (not me, but a vastly experienced close friend).

Image : Adorable, cuddly puppies, cute kittens, fluffy bunnies. Heroically saving lives & healing the sick.

Reality : Blood, gore, pus, shit & death. Crazy working hours. Ridiculous amounts of stress (many idealistic young vets burn out & leave the profession, their dreams shattered by reality) Target-driven corporate working environment. Permanent understaffing. Stupid clients who don’t understand that if you can’t afford proper insurance for your pet, you can’t afford to own that pet. Deformed brachycephalic dogs bred by criminals & owned by idiots who don’t understand that the puppy they have paid £3k will live a short, unhealthy life.

@Oysterbabe that's no way to live. Could you be a professional support lawyer, drafting styles, doing research, training staff etc?

The other thing I like about social work is that it is very flexible - there is way too much paperwork and time spent staring at the computer screen but I also have lots of home visits and I can plan them around my schedule (and my commute). We work hybrid so can do paperwork and virtual meetings from home (as long as keep everything confidential). And I haven’t ever been bored, not even for 5 minutes. Exhausted and on the verge of a breakdown, yes, but not bored 😂

HR

Sounds shit on paper IS shit on paper

I’m probably to old to leave it though :(

This thread has made me think I need to change my situation, even just a different area for now would probably help and might open up some other opportunities. I sent a message to a friend at a different firm, he spoke to his manager about me and she's very keen to have a conversation and asked me to call her, which I will do on Monday.

What sort of law do you do @Oysterbabe ?@Oysterbabe@Oysterbabe
Can you go in house?

No idea why that triple posted the name!

Fingers crossed for you, would be lovely if this thread promoted a real life change and improvement for you.

I recall the actress who played Liz Mc Donald in Corrie saying in real life she and her husband had run pubs but it nearly financially ruined them as they are so hard to make money in them. She then said it's nothing like running the Rovers Return as she was the landlady in it. Made me think she was so right in that so many of us have completely unrealistic perceptions of jobs/careers from watching tv and films.

I also recall reading similar when a forensics specialist was responding to the rise in people entering forensics because of tv shows and he said that many shows like CSI were totally inaccurate in presenting a career in forensics.

Bottom line is that there is no such thing as a perfect job whether you earn 200 quid a week or 2 million quid a week.

This is more part of a job

Travelling with your job always sounds more exciting than it is. I always get asked wow you must have been some places... the reality is... yes i have but ive seen the airport, the taxi, the workplace, maybe a restaurant where you have to make small talk with people and then rinse and repeat for 3 days till you have to fly home. Its just utter boring. Plus hotel pillows are shit.

Civil litigation, mostly personal injury.

Good luck with your chat Monday. That was what I used to do. You have lots of transferable skills. I don’t miss it at all.

Thank you.
It is an incredibly stressful role and mine in particular has an insane caseload. Hopefully I'll make my escape soon.

Scientist- it's great. Everyone thinks dull, difficult, need to be clever, boring colleagues. Reality is international travel. Flexible working around childcare. Really family friendly. Interesting and diverse colleagues. Contributing to solving societies problems - so a sense of doing something worthwhile even if just a cog in the wheel.

Care. You get to really make a difference and its flexible right? You only work when you're needed?

Except you will be made the scapegoat by every business owner who will insist on increasing your hours and act like you're unprofessional when you're simply not available for hours you never agreed to.

@Oysterbabe I'm also in Civil Litigation, albeit mainly White Collar/Fraud litigation. I very much sympathise about the stress! Litigation is the worst for that and in-house roles for litigators are more difficult to find. Although with your clinical negligence experience I definitely think it's possible to find in-house roles. Maybe in an NHS Trust?

On a side note (as totally mental as this sounds) if you fantasise about being in hospital for a break - that means your files aren't in such a mess that you're afraid for anyone else to pick them up 😄so you're doing much better than some colleagues I know

Another flexible low stress alternative to being a fee earner can be doc review lawyer. Slaughter & May pay £40 per hour for 8 hour days plus overtime and it's all completely remote from home and very little responsibility/stress. You can get a job almost immediately if you sign up with the agency they use.

Thank you so much for what you do. It’s so important.

Also found that many low level admin jobs have really high workload and no control over how work is done, which can be a stressful combination.

'Forensics' wasnt even really much of a degree thing before CSI.

I studied Crime Science (thats the 'scene investigation' bit not the lab work) as my first degree before moving on to bio-med and my training was the professional training for the actual police investigators.

The people who work in the lab usually have other science degree with chemistry being the most common I believe.

Even on the actual CSI shows non of them have a forensic degree like Greg was Chemistry, Grissom was Entomology, Adam was Computer Science, Sheldon was Medicine etc...

Now we have an abundance of people with this modern 'specialised' degree (not actually needed for the job) for a field that actually has very few jobs.

I love this thread and will show it to my DD (after I have removed the 'tramp wank' reference of course 😅). It's really interesting to learn what glamorous-sounding careers are like behind the scenes.
I have a very junior role in a University publications team which can sound a bit menial, but I really love being 'on the tools' rather than managing people and have no pressure or responsibility apart from doing my job well. I find in my fifties, that I can't cope with pressure or long hours like I used to.
Pros - very satisfying work, friendly environment, very flexible
Cons - not really at cutting edge of technology, could get paid more in the private sector

'Forensics' wasnt even really much of a degree thing before CSI.
I studied Crime Science (thats the 'scene investigation' bit not the lab work) as my first degree before moving on to bio-med and my training was the professional training for the actual police investigators.
The people who work in the lab usually have other science degree with chemistry being the most common I believe.
Even on the actual CSI shows non of them have a forensic degree like Greg was Chemistry, Grissom was Entomology, Adam was Computer Science, Sheldon was Medicine etc...
Now we have an abundance of people with this modern 'specialised' degree (not actually needed for the job) for a field that actually has very few jobs

interesting, yes the guy in the interview said the csi shows made it look like the forensics people solved the whole case when this wasn't factual at all and they just had a part in it.

I also recall reading that in many cases forensics aren't used at all because police depts wouldn't have the money etc and yet many people have the misguided notion that everything is solved like CSI stories these days because of these shows.

I used to teach and would think films such as Dangerous Minds are totally misleading and inaccurate. I'd also say that behaviour mgmt books and ''experts'' who tell people how to control tough classes don't have a clue either and totally mislead people. The shows like educating Essex too are heavily edited and don't really accurately portray schools.

@XelaM thanks for the idea. I never thought of that. For me, it sounds like an ideal pre-retirement job which is the next step once I leave a fairly pressurised senior inhouse legal role.

Ah I regret being such a grouch about this, now that sounds great, where do I sign? In fairness my career aspiration in high school was "be Vianne Rocher from Chocolat" so substitute 'hot surly local' for 'hot surly despised outsider' and we're in business.