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?

Dentist - today I didn’t even earn enough to cover childcare and had to tell a 60 year old man off for having a toddler tantrum that he was called in 3 minutes late.

people think it’s all money and hot nurses and it’s actually just everyone being mad at you all the time and responsibilities and stress and still being bloody skint!

Being a truck driver can be great in the right job (although many are also shite).

My mate gets over £50k driving an arctic and only does one drop a day. She drives for about 3.5 hours, then sleeps/chills for another 3-4 while waiting to be offloaded (has a sleeper cab with bed behind seats), and then drives back.

After four days of this she has four days off. I often think that 4on/4off is so much better than the 5on/2off most of us work. She technically does quite long days but over a third of it is spent sleeping and she gets a four day weekend every week.

I like being a lawyer but I'm in house and don't need to worry about time recording, which I hated, or climbing the greasy pole.

DH is in tech which is demanding but varied (in his company) and very well paid. Tech doesn't just cover coders, but also project managers, business analysts and a whole range of other less technical jobs.

This sort of thread should be required reading for careers advisers (assuming they still exist!). As far as I'm aware, teenagers are not told the reality of jobs at the time they are choosing A levels and degrees.

Most interesting thread I’ve read in ages. So much insight, especially into vets which sound heartbreaking. The wanky tramp hands of the florist was also a massive highlight! Agree about lawyers wholeheartedly, I quit that not long after qualifying & get paid far better in a different industry for less hours.

I think the reality is we have a poor work culture in the uk where everyone tries to work harder and harder with pay not covering basics for many poor bastards who work full time in unrewarding jobs. Other countries seem to have a better grasp of work life balance but I might just have rose tinted specs on.

Union shop steward - putting the world to rights and campaigning for the little guy.

Reality - interceding between petty-minded power-crazed managers and entitled staff who think unplugging their phone 15 mins before the end of their shift is acceptable behaviour. Or stopping the latter taking out a grievance against their boss because they didn't get invited to their birthday party. Or stopping a manager sacking a staff member without going through the correct procedure "because she knew she was crap anyway"

Social worker - think you can make a realky positive difference to the lives of others . Well you can but only at the expense of having no time for a life yourself and earning far from a great salary, all thing considered

Pr and marketing. I thought it would be l bolly dahling al la an fab. Turns out writing press releases is really boring!

Lawyer jobs break down into either well paid or interesting in this country, I think. I went for interesting!

Social work

Chef. TV makes it look so glamourous and creative poncing around with foam of this and gel of that. Reality for most chefs is shit pay, reheating frozen food as per 'brand standards', and long unsociable hours (usually weekends, evenings, special days like Christmas). Hardly ever see your family and too exhausted to engage when you do. And did I mention shit pay (apart from a handful of celebrity chefs)?

Event management. Sounds glamorous,looks glamorous from the outside. In reality you spend mornings chasing the next booking, afternoons supervising the set up of that evenings 'thing' then you get changed in the toilets and try to look your best. You have to be at the thing first and stay til the end You get home at 2 in the morning and then get up and chase the next thing. No time for meaningful relationships. No time for a family.Then lockdown happens and you get made redundant.

This was me too - after several years in HR I was so glad to get out.

It's supposed to be the 'nice' department, but in reality, we ended up dealing with stuff crappy managers offloaded on to us - I guess they wanted the manager salary but not to actually manage people.

Plus so many bullshit meetings - mostly about pointless initiatives that didn't actually help people - like 'wellness day' in a ridiculously busy company where most people were totally overworked and therefore couldn't attend anything we set up. Talk about papering over the cracks.

Or doings surveys and asking for feedback from employees that we knew was never going to be listened to or acted on because the senior management didn't care.

I had a random job as a DJ on uni radio station as a student and absolutely loved it - talking and playing music for two hours, even getting phone ins.

My teachers tried to get me to study law and reading this thread I'm glad I didn't.

Worst job was temp as a hospital cleaner - struggled with the bodily fluids.

I’ve always thought that being a funeral director would be an amazing job - except I’m not very good with bodily fluids and I have struggled to see deceased patients, particularly when young. I think I could handle the admin and provide bereavement support though.

Surprised Consultant Doctor or GP has not been mentioned more lol.

After a hospital appointment today I was thinking how unpleasant it would be to be a doctor - working in a dilapidated huge hospital with no fresh air, far too much work to dedicate enough time to patients. Growing up it was always sold to me as an amazing career because of the status and respect.

@riceuten I used to work in HR in a unionised organisation and often felt really sorry for the shop stewards. You have to represent some pretty barmy people and absurd situations. There was sense of 'I've paid my subs so you work for me' attitude too. Like the employee thought they were in an episode of LA law... I used to marvel at the shop stewards patience and tolerance. Not an easy job at all.

BTW, I echo all the comments about HR. Absolute shower of shit. Directors crying in your office at 09.15am because 'the CEO looked at me funny in the corridor" and dickhead managers thinking they are the new Jeff Bezos. So glad I'm out of it.

From experience record shop owner, ran one for six years, it was fun at first but got boring.

The amount of times Lawyer has been mentioned doesn't surprise me. DP paid a small fortune to train as a barrister, got called to the bar and then realised it was a shit job. Self employed, hugely risky, ridiculous hours and zero work life balance. He moved into compliance in financial services consulting and loves it - interesting, paid well, decent hours.

I'm in online advertising and love it. Not creative but lots of statistics and I've worked with some great brands over the years. Women's fashion is awful though- the devil wears praha was not far off.

I'd add jobs with frequent international travel. Sounds glam, in reality you live in hotel rooms off room service and don't see your family & friends. It's pretty lonely.

Accountancy. Sounds terribly boring on paper, but you see some really interesting shit, depending on the client.

Sounds good but isn't: copyeditor. Thought it would be ideal as someone who's bookish with an eye for detail. Reality is tedious, usually boring content, incredibly isolating, lonely work. Only pro is you can slot it in easily around other things.

Sounds rubbish but isn't: retail sales assistant. I loved working in retail, super sociable, working with products I was interested in and some of the best colleagues I've ever had. Downsides are rubbish pay and no career progression though. Probably why I've ended up in account development!

As a lawyer myself i can confirm this 😂😂😂

Nailed it!

Manager - you think this gives you power to lord over people and get them to do all the work.

Reality - people take turns to be off or has some personal crisis or another and you need to arrange cover - often you yourself doing the work. Then people quit, new people join who need to be trained. Granting leave applications. Doing appraisals. Managing poor behaviour. Whinging.

Tbf I adore my library career. It's not the best paid agreed but it could be worse