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?

I am most shocked by the consensus on being a vet. Sounds like both the vets and the pet owners are being shafted and the only people who are winning are the insurance companies and the big corporations who own the practices. 😡

Omg is this actually for real! That made me 😧

Message is insurance or funeral director and everything else is to be avoided!

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😁

Just watching a program about the Tower of London and have decided I wish I could be a beefeater😊

Social work (local authority based)

• looks diverse, interesting, people go into it because they want to help. Yes stressful but ' the benefits surely outweigh the negatives '.

Reality:

• awful system of hierarchy mainly men in management,

-so much wasted resources

• slackers (I once had a manager who used to chip off every day at 3pm, to help his wife with the kids) he didn't have permission but no-one felt able to challenge him as he was one of the managers
• the state of the care system. It just didn't seem to work for anyone, families or children

I left after about 5 years never looked back. No thanks.

Judge

people like to argue and don’t sit there like it is Judge Judy and are respectful. Dealing with arrogance sometimes -

Paperwork missing or misdated or someone not done their report for the deadline given 6 months earlier.

documents always filed on the last possible moment or later

big issues are important eg children, who gets the green vase - not important
priorities folks!

all day for you is hanging around and bring in court for an hour

for others it is two days and evening before reading everything
early start
paperwork chasing
report
analysis
decision
more paperwork

then up they pop again

many days court finished as 6 pm and barristers email backwards and forwards drafts and then 11 pm still
waiting …

do you have to be quiet in a libaray?

Ours is in an open plan building between a soft play and swimming pool... definately not quite

@BuckarooBanzai that's such a lovely post- good on you and thanks for giving a shit!!!

Me too! 😂

I know it’s been mentioned before, but another vote for events. I would work away March to October, which sounds glamorous but I would move hotel so often I wouldn’t even be able to remember which city I was in and I would crave my own bed. My face used to physically ache from smiling at people, and lonnng hours. I used to hallucinate because I was so tired. And as pp mentioned, lots of drunk people staring at your tits and thinking because you were nice to them that you wanted to shag them……

My best job was weirdly temping. 9-5 hours, no responsibility because you were filling in and not permanent (so no real consequences), and if you didn’t like the office you just asked for a different assignment. Oh, and higher paid than regular roles as you were short notice help!

I know it probably an awful job (and apparently 'hated') but nearly every day I think 'I wish I was a traffic warden' so I could hand out tickets to all the entitled twats that park illegally and dangerously around here.

Don’t be a lawyer…

Another vote for HR here.

People think that you can be the middle man between them and their boss or senior management for anything they want.
Some companies and CEO's automatically dump 'culture' on you which somehow makes you responsible for everyones wellbeing and creating a fun environment to work in as well as fixing 'diversity'.
Any other admin seems to fall on the remit of a HR employee, anything from Christmas parties, Office Management and IT support.
DE&I, Learning & Development, Renumeration & Benefits and Recruitment whilst falling under the remit of HR can be specialised roles as well as something that should be standalone if an organisation wants to put a big focus on it but most of the time they expect HR to just sort it on a limited budget i.e. lack of staff/support and wages that don't recognise the responsibility or workload of it all.

This is both mine and DH's experience too!

Editor. Books and mags. There are loads of different types and a hierarchy. First disadvantage is that most people think it’s putting commas in, which most people move on from fairly swiftly. Although I’ll always love an Oxford comma lively debate.

If you get to the top it’s all about making £ work not making words work. You decide what to publish, how to make it, and when. You coax gibberish out of celebs and another editor bins it and writes lovely book.

That can be great fun too but reality: 14 hr days coupled with waitress pay when you’ve just made the firm £1m. Again.

I left, they got me back on consultancy cash (better) but it’s annoying being emailed at 10 at night about how Suffolk ice cream
flavours translate in Hong Kong.

Same! Have said it here before - managers just think they can dump the shitty bits of the job onto HR, absolving them of being responsible for their own staff, and they can just blame HR!

There's something about HR too that seems to send manager/senior managers a bit crazy - in all my years working, I've had nothing but psycho managers who treat their staff like crap!!

I nearly posted that 😃Never not true.

There are so many other profeeeeessions, that won't turn you into Jeff Sessions!

Thank you for this! Made my day 😂

I've often thought this too. I love seeing people parked like dicks getting parking tickets, so satisfying.

In defence of HR: training in one of the HR subspecialties like learning, talent, or reward can be a good career. Generalist HR is a slog, yeah.

But seriously: if you want good pay, good hours, lack of stress and a job market that makes you feel like a queen: go into tech. There are sooooo many talent shortages in tech that if you don't like a job or manager, you can have another one, quite likely fully remote, tomorrow.

I'm an insurance broker and would agree with the comments about the London Market in particular. It's a great job.

Legal compliance for an insurance firm (London Market). Interesting work, lots of variety, intelligent and interesting colleagues, good working conditions, long hours but well paid.

@Supersimkin2 we have had many arguments at work about the Oxford comma! What are your thoughts, out of interest?

That's one of the saddest things I've ever read on here :( (or anywhere).

I have taken wildlife to vets to be PTS before and have been assured that they'd be PTS humanely. I've offered £ to have them sedated first-I wonder now if when they said they would, that they've actually just shoved them in a dark room :(