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?

Nursing. People often complain about it but -

3 days of 12 hour shifts = full time hours. So I can fit a full time job into 3 days, giving me 4 days a week where I'm not working at all

Allows me to be present for school runs etc

Loads of Banking opportunities

Can easily change departments

Some real horrible people of course but some amazing members of the public that just make it all worthwhile

Bad on paper: crisis communications. Havinf to manage MPs embroiled in cheating scandals and councils misspending money. I’ve done it before and absolutely loved it - the general public are pretty easy to read so it isn’t as hard as it should seem. It only gets hard when your ‘client’ won’t do as they’re fucking advised.

My job isn’t shit! I’m an engineer and love it. The pay is great, I’ve got to work in loads of different countries in interesting projects, and every day is full of new challenges and problems to solve.

Accountant

Lawyer too. It is not all bad

If you find the right area, it is well paid, intellectually challenging, colleagues are super smart and streets ahead in thinking around problems and presenting solutions.

So basically the jobs where you go to a dinner party and people go ‘oh wow that must be so interesting!’ are all shit in reality. While the jobs that get a blank look in response are actually nice and secure and get you a nice work-life balance. Seems like you can’t have both unless you are very lucky!

The jobs that come out well in this kind of analysis are the medical adjunct type things. Ophthalmology, speech therapy. Good pay, high job satisfaction, not too much stress.

I agree that accountancy is a good one too. Higher pay than you might imagine, good work life balance compared to similar jobs (law, consultancy).

On the flip side, things like journalism and academia are much less secure / much worse paid than people think.

I always feel sorry for vets. People go into it because they love animals but it must be so tough if you can't do much to help them.

I think those going into medicine take a more pragmatic view.

People are super snotty about sales jobs, but if you have the right personality/skills, you'll always be in demand and able to command very decent salaries.

Couldn't have put it better myself!

It's shitty, thankless, stressful, humbling, wonderful all in the space of a day! Love it!

Architect. Takes 7 years to properly qualify, no one appreciates you and the money is pants.

Social Media Manager - Expectation: pissing around on tiktok

Reality: spreadsheets galore

What kind of salaries do architects get then? I would have thought they were quite well paid?

How can you get into tech @astronewt ? I have just no idea how one would go about a career change in that direction (sorry to ask you but I'm really keen to know!!)

In defence of journalism: depends who you work for. Many media organisations are an HR shambles, low pay, demanding content for clicks, exploit interns etc…but I have worked for several very very worthwhile outlets, writing things that matter, good-ish pay, long days but you can start at 10/10.30 and colleagues almost universally interesting, clever, full of anecdotes… good journo jobs do exist! Can’t imagine doing anything else.

Agree with this. My husband is so much happier since quitting architecture!

How many people work at the Council? About half of them. Old but gold.

I was reading this thread to my husband and he'd like to add his own:

"Join the RAF and see the world, they said. The reality was that I spent seven years in underground bunkers in Wiltshire and Hertfordshire. When I finally got a job above-ground, there were no windows. I didn't see shit!"

😂

Nursing can sound both good and a nightmare on paper...and be both good and a nightmare in reality! It really depends on the shift!

It's amazing though. I love it. Sure, you get crap days: Covid was hideous; I wish every day that we had more staff on my ward; it's horrible being yelled at/sworn at, spat/punched at etc; and I hate it when people think we're just stupid, or that we only plump up pillows. Sometimes the public/media think we just sit on our butts all day (I can clock 15-20K steps on a shift) or make Tik Tok vids, etc. Over the years, there have been blokes who think they can treat us like sex objects (and be really rude/inappropriate towards us). I hate that, and have had to give some very stern words towards people doing that. There are times when I just want to cry, because it feels like we're fighting an uphill and relentless battle.

But the good days and (in my case) the amazing team I work with, make it great. -when you walk on the ward, get handover and go see your patients, and they're happy to see you....that's wonderful.
-when you help people and it makes a real difference to them/their families.
-when you really get to know the patients you look after and their families, and they remember you. Today, I walked past a patient's room, and the patient saw me, called out my name and gave me a massive hug when I walked in (the patient was someone I'd look after many times previously).
-Some of the patients and staff have known me for over 20years! These are people I've laughed with, cried with, supported etc.
-No two days are ever the same. It's never boring.
-you never stop learning. You don't take things for granted.
-the people you look after often have the most amazing life stories. When I first started on the wards (late 90's), I was looking after people who had been alive (just!) when Queen Victoria was on the throne.
-I love the problem solving, speaking up for staff and patients, teaching the junior HCPs and getting things sorted.

For a just above MW job shelf stacking in a major supermarket is pretty good. You feel you achieved something every shift , keeps you fit and you get proper breaks with free food and drinks. Often food to take home plus staff discount.

Farming is an unbelievably hard relentless and often downright dangerous job/ life.

Psychologist sounds good. Reality is that it's quite boring, and very emotionally draining.

Psychologist - "oh it must be so interesting!"

Pros - can be interesting, very rewarding when people benefit, flexibility of nhs or private work

Cons - years and years of training, nhs is breaking down and private work has stress of self employment, pay not great considering length of training needed, and for some reason I never anticipated how draining it would be to listen to miserable, stressed people all the time.

Environmental Consultant. Sounds like it would be interesting, and you'd be doing your bit for the planet.

Reality is working 70 hour weeks, with such long and intense hours that people periodically get heart attacks on site. Tedious, relentless nonsense about health and safety, to cover companies arses, that takes so long you are driving back at 11pm after a 15 hour day, which genuinely IS dangerous. Putting equipment away in some dodgy, dark industrial estate at midnight for same reason. Knowing at the end of the day you haven't actually made a jot of difference to the planet (maybe you've actually made it worse with all that driving), you've just completed a box ticking excersize for some god awful multinational like Shell. Expectation that you pretend to love all of this, and "network" with dickheads in your spare time.

Seriously kids, just don't do it.

This thread is so interesting

Software Development

Sounds: Great if you are drawn to to programming, problem solving etc. Dull and geeky if you aren't.

Reality: Actually pretty good most of the time (if you stay out of crazy start ups and games companies). Punctuated with vile bits where a project delivers what was asked for but it turns out the customer/end user needed something different and only realised this way too late. The project team is then hung out to dry as a goat is required for scaping purposes.