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Jobs you have done you would NEVER recommend to your children

211 replies

OneUmberJoker · 28/12/2025 21:50

McDonald's

OP posts:
Ebok1990 · 28/12/2025 23:28

Sasha07 · 28/12/2025 22:41

Care work in care homes.

Is it that bad? Management, staff or patients?

Brendezvous · 28/12/2025 23:28

OliviaFlaversham · 28/12/2025 23:21

Yes, it’s this. The unreasonable expectations and constantly being made to feel like a failure for things out of your control no matter how hard you try. It feels like you’re being constantly gaslighted.

And when you get too old / expensive / wise to the absurdity, they manage you out anyway. I've seen it happen in less than six weeks - informal support plan, threat of a formal one that will go on your record and a suggestion you go elsewhere. It's not happened to me yet, but it undoubtedly will.

I cannot stress enough to anybody not to go into teaching. It becomes a trap - you need the money and it is increasingly difficult to think of what else you could do for the same income.

Just as one example - everything at my school is currently focused on reducing detentions or removal from lesson. As long as week on week, the stats show this is happening, it does not matter what behaviour goes on in the actual classroom. The behaviour hasn't improved one iota, but the detentions have decreased because the staff are too afraid to set them, so SLT are stating this as a win.

I'm 25 years in and I don't actually hate it on a day to day basis, but it's taken so so much from my life and my mental health. I genuinely believe my life span has been shortened as a result of the constant stress.

Crispynoodle · 28/12/2025 23:34

ComedyGuns · 28/12/2025 22:15

I remember with both births that a lot of the mid-wives seemed like a bunch of tarty bitches. Not nice.

Between you and me I once worked in maternity and delivery suites and many of the midwives felt they were much better than nurses! There were some genuinely lovely ones but there were some truly awful thick as a brick old school ones that I felt so glad I’d had my children before working there because I wouldn’t want them to come near me with a barge pole!

SouthernNights59 · 28/12/2025 23:37

Office work! Boring as anything, and I have had lower back pain which I'm sure is from sitting at a desk for so many years.

Ebok1990 · 28/12/2025 23:37

Pieceofpurplesky · 28/12/2025 23:16

Another one saying teacher. I used to love the job but 27 years in I want out. It's the constant feeling of failure ... every little thing is the fault of the teacher. My current Year 11 class are all 'expected' to get a Grade 4 by SLT. 3/17 don't speak any English, 4/17 have SEND and learning difficulties, 5/17 had not attended school since year 9, So that's 12/17 that don't stand a chance. 2/5 will try but won't pass as - well - they aren't capable and the other 3 won't try (2 slept all the way through their mocks).

Yet I will fail my performance management and may get put on a support plan (I cost too much) as all 17 didn't get a 4.

My last observation slated me as 3/20 kids had no homework (all three less than 40% attendance but apparently I should stick the homework in when they are in).

Nothing we ever do is enough. And that's just SLT. The abuse and violence from kids, abuse from parents, the pointless meeting and paperwork ....

Can I ask, if all this happened and you were ultimately let go on capability grounds, are you not able to take them to tribunal, where you can clearly demonstrate how it's not possible for you to meet their targets?

Ebok1990 · 28/12/2025 23:40

SouthernNights59 · 28/12/2025 23:37

Office work! Boring as anything, and I have had lower back pain which I'm sure is from sitting at a desk for so many years.

All of it? Every single job that involves working in an office? Or sitting down?

Pieceofpurplesky · 28/12/2025 23:40

Sadly @Ebok1990 teachers get so brow beaten and SLT 'find' lots of evidence that teachers tend to just reach a settlement which means paid until the end of term and a reference. It's become almost standard now.

Btowngirl · 28/12/2025 23:41

Army due to the state of the world (although we do get Christmas off @Minnie798 😉)

Nurse due to salary & culture

actually enjoyed retail to be honest but I was a teen at the time!

Sunshineandgrapefruit · 28/12/2025 23:42

Sales, factory worker, shop assistant.

OliviaFlaversham · 28/12/2025 23:42

Brendezvous · 28/12/2025 23:28

And when you get too old / expensive / wise to the absurdity, they manage you out anyway. I've seen it happen in less than six weeks - informal support plan, threat of a formal one that will go on your record and a suggestion you go elsewhere. It's not happened to me yet, but it undoubtedly will.

I cannot stress enough to anybody not to go into teaching. It becomes a trap - you need the money and it is increasingly difficult to think of what else you could do for the same income.

Just as one example - everything at my school is currently focused on reducing detentions or removal from lesson. As long as week on week, the stats show this is happening, it does not matter what behaviour goes on in the actual classroom. The behaviour hasn't improved one iota, but the detentions have decreased because the staff are too afraid to set them, so SLT are stating this as a win.

I'm 25 years in and I don't actually hate it on a day to day basis, but it's taken so so much from my life and my mental health. I genuinely believe my life span has been shortened as a result of the constant stress.

I went to my GP as was concerned about my mental health and I felt like I had failed at life (teaching at one school got completely under my skin and I couldn’t separate me from teacher me) and he said his professional opinion was that I had to leave where I was working. He was right. SLT were shocked when I left and I believe this was because they were so used to bullying people into a place where they felt they couldn’t leave as no one else would want them. It has had a long term effect on my self-esteem.

Looking back, I feel as though there was a shift in teaching around 2010-2012.

Ebok1990 · 28/12/2025 23:43

Pieceofpurplesky · 28/12/2025 23:40

Sadly @Ebok1990 teachers get so brow beaten and SLT 'find' lots of evidence that teachers tend to just reach a settlement which means paid until the end of term and a reference. It's become almost standard now.

I get that it can become almost impossible to fight back when you're under so much pressure. It just sounds so unjust. There must be some ultra resilient cut throat teachers though who go to war, lawyer themselves up and go to court if it's truly a set-up?

SouthernNights59 · 28/12/2025 23:44

Ebok1990 · 28/12/2025 23:40

All of it? Every single job that involves working in an office? Or sitting down?

All the office jobs I have done have been boring. I've spent time working in an inwards goods store, running a recycled goods store, and packing up a large store as it was closing - all were so much better. I really just don't like sitting down all day (and I actually didn't sit all the time, I was up and down constantly) and while I occasionally enjoyed the work I spent most of my days clock watching. I should have found a "doing" job long ago instead of wasting 45 years of my life behind a desk.

DOCTORCEE · 28/12/2025 23:47

Medicine

Mumof1andacat · 28/12/2025 23:49

My dh Saturday job was at mcdonalds. Treated well. Uniform, meal when on shift, extra shifts if he wanted, trained to do his job and opportunities to do nvqs for customer service and so on. Working at mcdonalds might give many people a leg up, if you will, in to the world of work.

Catbustotoro · 28/12/2025 23:54

I agree with teaching as a job i'd never recommend, but not the reasons behind it. The things people have mentioned do far are the symptoms of the problem, but not the problem itself.
I hate the way that schools are run on the unpaid labour of (mostly) women, working themselves to ribbons for the sake of the children in their classes. I also hate that because the system is failing, participants turn on each other: teachers against parents, slt against teachers, everyone against pupils. It's fundamentally a system that is no longer fit for purpose, and everyone is turning themselves inside out to try and prop it up, instead of fighting to change it.

Bluepurpleraindisco · 28/12/2025 23:58

Childcare- working in nurseries.

Mydadsbirthday · 29/12/2025 00:06

ThatGentleCoralCat · 28/12/2025 23:07

Property solicitor...handing my practicing certificate back was the best thing I ever did. After 11 years I no longer had to schedule time in my morning routine for the nausea and sheer panic and dread at the thought of having to go to work to pass. I can now sleep for more than an hour or two at a time and I feel like a new woman 🤣

With respect, this sounds unusual for that profession - do you think fundamentally you weren't suited to it or was it the environment you were working in?

Gosh, the teacher comments are really sad. I work in the city and I wouldn't mind if my DC followed my path but they've seen me slaving away at my laptop and doing late nights and they aren't interested at all! I've often fantasised about retraining as a teacher but I've read too many threads on here to be serious about it.

Pieceofpurplesky · 29/12/2025 00:55

Ebok1990 · 28/12/2025 23:43

I get that it can become almost impossible to fight back when you're under so much pressure. It just sounds so unjust. There must be some ultra resilient cut throat teachers though who go to war, lawyer themselves up and go to court if it's truly a set-up?

Have a look at the Life after teaching - exit teaching and thrive page on Facebook. It's scary reading about the hopelessness of it all.

moonisblue · 29/12/2025 01:03

Nursing!

IllMetByMoonlight · 29/12/2025 01:14

Err... teaching. It has had such a fundamentally negative impact on my life and that of my family. I love working with children, I love education, but professionally, it is like a relationship mired in coercive control.

Friendlygingercat · 29/12/2025 01:16

Door to door selling
Debt collecting
Chat (aka sex) line
Call center
Market research
Retail

Ive done all these jobs when I was younger/a student and they all taught me somethig useful but I would not recommend them to my kids.

Givemelemonsforlemonade · 29/12/2025 01:16

This is going to sound heartless but working in an old people's home. I tried but not for me

cupfinalchaos · 29/12/2025 01:17

Omg cant believe how many say teaching. I’d hate it but thought was just me.

Shinyandnew1 · 29/12/2025 01:18

Teaching.

I didn't have to say a word to deter my own children though, they decided the selves after seeing it with their own eyes! I have lots of family, friends and colleagues who were teachers as well (very few still are) and their kids wouldn't touch it with a barge pole either.

nepkoztarsasag · 29/12/2025 01:19

Merchant banking and management consultancy

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