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?

OMG sounds awful, what the heck is a death room? Never heard of that term before and I am working in vets a long time now. A pts room yes, but leaving pets to die in a room, should never happen. Abortions, yes they happen, and sadly yes sometimes owners insist on surgeries that aren't always right for their pets and sadly yes some do die under GA, but we can only guide and not put too much pressure on an owner in a traumatic time. Did you work in a mixed practice or sa vets?

Trust and Estate work. It sounds deadly dull (see what I did there) but it's sort of a cross between funeral director and insurance😃😃

I'm a speech therapist - thought my job would be great in theory, and in reality it's even better 😁But in theory i thought I would be helping lovely children in red jumpers with their speech in a nice primary school, in practice I'm suctioning phlegm off 90 year olds' soft palates. I absolutely love it, I just wish there were a few more of us doing it.

I know someone who is a stained glass conservator.

Image: Spending days in a studio painting beautiful pictures onto pretty coloured glass.

Reality: scrabbling for contracts /clients with few reliable funding streams. Lots of time crouching or stooping on scaffolding in the cold.

Came here to say the same. I worked as a journalist for a few years and basically earned minimum wage once you took the long hours into account. The abuse on social media was awful and we often got shit for writing terrible articles, but that’s the content that makes money! I worked with some really interesting people though and was lucky enough to have nice editors.

Also, terrible career progression unless you have a leg up through nepotism.

I'm in tech for financial services. Lucrative AF if you're good, and flexible. I think tech is underrated as a career path and not nearly as daunting as people think.

Prime Minister.

My dad once said to me

no job is as hard, or as easy, as it first seems

wise words

Working in fashion is just spreadsheets, emails and booking couriers and Addison Lees. Horrendous hours, terrible pay and the whole thing is basically a Ponzi scheme of unpaid interns and assistants.

Psychological therapist - Great in some ways and I do love elements of it but if you work for the NHS- ridiculous systems and targets and annoying beauracracy that gets in the way, If you work privately, stress of self employment, competitive, keeping up with accreditations, training etc etc.
Plus the obvious things, mentally tiring, easy to burn out, take stuff home, managing risk, hard when life is feeling hard for you personally.

Software development, but not trendy startups - working for large non-tech companies building internal applications.

On paper, boring, difficult and meaningless. In reality, six figure income for about four hours of work a day. I work from home, whatever hours I like really, do the school run and clubs and so on.

Lawyer. It's hell. I'm in a suicide pact with the rest of my team because if one of us does it the rest will end up splitting their cases. If one goes, we all do. One of my colleagues has just quit to do a minimum wage care job because she just couldn't take the stress anymore.

Ha was about to NC and make this exact comment 🤣🤣

The death room was mainly for wild animals or strays or unclaimed animals (lots of headgehogs, squirrals, pigeons that people would bring in, the odd run over dog with no ID basically anything that wasnt being 'paid' for) but occasionally the would stick in a teriminal pet whos owners refused PTS.

It was basically a dark room full of cages, cages had blankets and water and they where just left to die or pull through but I don't remember any ever 'pulling through'... it was sort of the room equivilant of putting an injured bird in a shoebox.

My advice is always to not take a wild animal to the vet because they are not saving them for free and the vets I worked at said they werent allowed to accept money for wild animals so would refuse (a lot of people did offer to pay).

The animals where just PTS in the consulting room and their bodies stored under the table (was like a cabnit so people couldn't see the bodies) until lunch (was closed to public in the afternoon because surgery took over) which is probably why animals freak out and would refuse to go in.

Sales/ account management for complex it solutions. You hear sales and think of someone haggling in a market square but in reality it is about building relationships, managing complex projects and learning new things. It's great for the right company and good money. (Important that you find a good company).

My sister wanted to be a vet until she did 2 weeks work experience and spent them carrying out bin bags with euthanised animals.

I'd love to be a florist. But I couldn't be dealing with all of the brides

Agreed! I studied and got into HR because I’m a ‘people person’, I feel like the grim reaper of the organisation. It is thoroughly unpleasant. About to move into a much nicer learning and development role, cannot wait!

Only up to page 2, but also thinking this!

Hoping someone comes on to say x job is great…

If she’s doing the school run at 9 and at 3 and has a 1 hr lunch, it’s impossible for that to be full time office hours…even if she instantly teleported between school and work those are only 5hr days. Of course, she may also be working from 8pm to past midnight from home and you’re just not seeing it.

Architecture as many have said on here - masses of training for fairly crappy pay and usually quite dull work.

Writers - majority of published authors have advances spread over 3 years. Throw in agents’ commission and you often end up with salaries lower than minimum wage.
Money is better for screenwriters but it’s SO competitive and projects often ‘die’ at the commissioning stage, meaning annual earnings can be impossible to predict.

I’m a social worker (children’s safeguarding), hugely stressful, very badly paid for the hours we work, impossible workload but for every day I want to weep with fear and frustration (and often do - I plan my resignation at least once a week!) I have another day of pure joy. And my colleagues are amazing - committed, funny, intelligent, caring. It is a privilege to work with them. The children I support are amazing too - even the stroppy teenagers!

I work in insurance and can say that yes, it is very boring, but well-paid.

Well, if you have a florists shop, at least now you'll know if any of your customers are on Mumsnet.

They'll be the ones who can't stop staring worriedly at your hands instead of the flowers.

I know I won't be able to help checking out her hands next time I'm my nearest florists!

Chef.
They ve seen it on the Tv and think it looks fun.
Reality back breaking long hours for poor pay,paper work ordering and lots of unglamourous deep cleaning.
Functions shoe horned it and Christmas....well you won't be seeing much of December awake.🤣
That said I've done decades in the industry and loved it.just swooped for mon to Fri with a 630 am start.

Reading this has really made me consider my a career choices! Moved from Insurance into HR! Fool!

Anyway! Recently my department started getting audited…… I’ve decided Audit sounds rubbish (it’s not exactly a ‘sexy’ sounding job!) but is actually a good job; look into stuff, ask questions/be nosy, recommend stuff (and actually get listened to!), leave them to do the do and skip off into the sunset!