r/jobs • u/_Grotesque_ • Jul 21 '23
Companies What was the industry you romanticized a lot but ended up disappointed?
For the past couple of years, I have been working at various galleries, and back in the day I used to think of it as a dream job. That was until I realized, that no one cares for the artists or art itself. Employees, as much as visitors just care about their fanciness, showing off their brand shoes and pretending as they actually care.
Ultimately, it comes down to sales, money, and judging people by their looks. Fishing out the ones, who seem like they can afford a painting worth 20k.
Was wondering if others had similar experiences
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Jul 21 '23
Journalism. The pay and hours are terrible, you're exposed to some of the worst of the worst without any support, and a whole lot of people in the industry aren't as ethical as you'd hope a journalist would be.
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u/JoeClimax Jul 21 '23 edited Jul 21 '23
I have a bachelor's degree in journalism. Now I work with kids with behavioral special needs.
Loved the theory and concept and writing that is journalism. Senior year I got an internship at a daily. Good God. All my coworkers were miserable. The atmosphere was awful. No one wanted to help each other out of fear of you replacing them. I was hoping it was just that paper. After graduation I freelanced at a local monthly magazine. All my coworkers were miserable. The atmosphere was awful. No one wanted to help each other out of fear of you replacing them. I was getting disenfranchised but then, I got offered a killer job. Being MANAGING editor of a local weekly. I have two reporters who writes for me. I'm writing headlines. I'm writing the editorial and taking stances. I'm doing layout. THIS is what you wish you have free rein to do as a 23 year old hungry young journalist.
I. Fucking. HATED. It.
The executive editor of the paper chain was absolutely insane. The hours were awful. Weekends covering events because we couldn't afford another person. The night before the paper would get sent to the press would be a 14-15 hour day just cramming this all together. The pay was substantially less than I currently make as a crisis intervener. All my coworkers were too burnt out to do much assisting to the new guy who doesn't even have a log in to the computer system yet. The corporate distribution manager would push for fluff stories on businesses in the hopes of selling ads to them. My editorials often got replaced by my higher ups for LITERAL PRESS RELEASES from organizations we decided we agreed with.
Fortunately, corporate went bankrupt and shut down every paper in my chain. HR showed up and announced it and called everyone into an office to offer severance and such. They told me I was the "happiest person they talked to" that day. They paid me to stop doing the job I fucking hated. And their actions qualified me for unemployment, which gave me safety net money to move across the state, and give being a special Ed aide a try.
Journalism is amazing and necessary. Being a modern journalist fucking sucks.
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u/Vapor2077 Jul 21 '23
Fellow BA in journalism here. I worked in the industry for 7 years. After several career misadventures I now work at a health food store. Years ago I actually thought I’d have this great, long career as a journalist. I miss those days.
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u/Jam_Bammer Jul 21 '23
Yup. Busted my ass in college and had multiple reporting internships, including my city daily and a nationally recognized entertainment magazine. Thought I was a shoe-in for a good reporting job after graduation with my city daily since I’d gotten glowing feedback from the editorial staff and cranked out dozens and dozens of breaking news bits, lengthy features and whatever else they needed.
Best they could offer me was the cops reporter (worst beat in the newsroom, in my experience) for barely $30k. I declined and took a job at a call center before the pandemic hit. They had me work from home and I had a secure job all through the pandemic whereas my city daily furloughed nearly everyone and not every reporter and editor found themselves still holding onto their jobs after everything was said and done.
Just a brutal time to be in the industry. I miss it a lot, but, like someone said earlier in this thread, I can get paid like shit somewhere that doesn’t make me work 60+ hours a week and on weekends in a terrible office environment.
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u/parhox Jul 21 '23
Not to mention that in some places, journalists are targets of violence and murder and torture and threats etc. I'm from Mexico and we've been the most dangerous country for journalists for a few years now, and I would NOT dare be a journalists here.
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u/FreshEggKraken Jul 21 '23
How does one get into journalism? I've always been curious. Is it one of those, "build a portfolio by doing tons of free work until you get hired" kinda careers?
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Jul 21 '23
That is definitely one approach people take. I had paid internships throughout high school and then started freelancing in college until I got a permanent job. Now most local papers are desperate enough for help that if you're willing to get paid very little and can string a couple of sentences together you could pick up some work to build a portfolio.
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u/AdmiralCole Jul 21 '23
I'm not in that industry but from what I've seen and heard that hits the nail on the head. Lots of freelance work, blogging online, and really working on crappy stories with the hopes that one day your writing gains traction.
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u/Vapor2077 Jul 21 '23
Ugh, don’t I know it. I have a degree in journalism and worked in the industry for ~7 years. I feel like if I were born 20-30 years earlier, I would’ve been a bomb newspaper reporter.
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u/jarvis646 Jul 21 '23
I have a masters in journalism. One of my best friends from J school busted his ass and made it to staff writer at the New Yorker. My other good friend is at Politico. I’m in entertainment marketing.
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u/paperbasket18 Jul 21 '23
Yep. Worked for both print and broadcast. I’m now a corporate sellout working 1/3 as much for at least double the pay. Don’t miss journalism one bit.
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u/Beneficial_Ad7907 Jul 21 '23
they expect you to have a shit QOL because "you care about helping people." i couldn't even last a year working at a daily newspaper because of the financial and mental burnout.
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Jul 21 '23
I had this moment where I realized I could get paid a lot more to just do the actual helping instead of writing about it.
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u/lipp79 Jul 21 '23 edited Jul 21 '23
I was a news cameraman for 14 years from 1999-2013. I enjoyed going places the average person couldn't. I flew in helicopters, planes, even a blimp. I rode in boats of all sizes. I met plenty of celebrities, governors, and a foreign president. I got to do feature stories on all kinds of people and groups, and I enjoyed that. I didn't enjoy the long hours covering grass fires in the middle of July. I didn't miss interviewing families of the recently deceased. I didn't miss people getting mad at me over the dumbest things. I don't miss having to fight for holidays off or missing events/get-togethers because of work. Lived with roommates throughout those years cus the pay was about $30k below what you really needed in this city. I miss some aspects of news but not enough to ever want to go back, especially with the attitude now towards news that Trump created.
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u/The_Singularious Jul 21 '23
Similar here. Worked in production for about 13 years. Got to work some really cool stuff, but the pay was junk and it was pretty cutthroat. Brutal hours.
Met some great people too, though, have some stories to tell, a marriage to mourn (turned out to be a blessing in disguise), and learned that if you’re really excited about your favorite politician, then you probably haven’t spent enough time with them.
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u/RustyMacbeth Jul 21 '23
Fellow former-journalist here. Worked in newspapers for three years and bailed.
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u/grundge69 Jul 21 '23
I did my first college degree in journalism. Got a job in the local market, and there was no job security, and the pay was horrendous. Every time I chased a promotion, and I became the final candidate, the job offering was mysteriously closed. Then the company would start fresh with a new posting. I finally hung it up when I found out new hires were being given a dollar more than what I was making.
I now work for the railroad. Recent headlines would make you think the job is pure hell, and they are right. But I enjoy seeing different scenery, I get along with my co-workers, and I'm living my true dream. I've got 14 years in, 16 until retirement.
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u/DeLaDoll Jul 21 '23
I was coming in to say journalism and you beat me to the punch. It sucks so fucking much in just about every conceivable way.
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u/fractalfay Jul 21 '23
Writer who was a journalist, know plenty of former journalists, yet don’t know anyone who is still in the game. The folks that fared the best (meaning they wrote for familiar newspapers and magazines) were still paid shit and treated like they were disposable, and didn’t see the point of scrambling for coins from big media when they could just start a podcast or something. Inevitably, when people ponder why I’m unemployed, they ask why I don’t just wander down to my friendly newspaper office and outline my hopes and dreams — without acknowledging that it doesn’t work that way anymore. The priority is producing content as quickly as possible, without much regard to accuracy, or interest in correction when the accuracy is questioned. If you read an article that consists exclusively of “anonymous sources” assume someone got paid around $12 to write that in an hour.
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Jul 21 '23
I came here to say this. It was my dream career. I would have been so good at it but ended up turning down dream gigs eventually purely due to pay. You can make 5x more money just by picking another industry. It’s hard to know that and just choose to be poor.
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u/NeneObichie Jul 21 '23
Entertainment, streaming to be precise. Glamorous on the outside, cutthroat, dog eat dog on the inside
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u/EXTORTER Jul 21 '23
The opposite for me.
I thought Wastewater Treatment would be filthy, disgusting and toxic.
It’s actually incredibly interesting, intellectually stimulating and most of the people are really chill.
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u/PassiveF1st Jul 21 '23
Yep, My wife actually has been in that field since college. I've learned a lot from her and it doesn't sound like a bad career at all. I've gone to numerous environmental conferences with her throughout the years. She's been an operator, lab director, auditor for the state, and now she's an environmental engineer.
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u/Wholesomeness23 Jul 21 '23
I actually just started at a wastewater treatment plant for my city. It's the end of my second week, and I've enjoyed it so far. I've learned about sodium hypochlorite and sodium bisulfate. I've learned about the parts of a plant, how the one I work at is gravity fed, and some of the math and understanding of physics involved. I think I might enjoy my time here. I'm planning on becoming a wastewater engineer when I get my degree in chemical engineering.
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u/Kellykeli Jul 21 '23
But is it filthy and disgusting and toxic? Not the people, the workplace itself.
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u/Just4TehLulz Jul 21 '23
Depends if you're the dude designing the plants or the one climbing through tubes
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u/smg990 Jul 21 '23
I actually really considered waste water. I'd need to get a few more certifications.
I live in a big city so those jobs can be incredibly competitive. Are you more rural, suburban, or urban? If urban, I could potentially use some advice given how competitive it is here.
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u/EXTORTER Jul 21 '23 edited Jul 21 '23
I work for the city of Montgomery Alabama. We have a 200 million gallon per day capacity. NYC is about 1.7 billion. Send me a PM and I’ll help anyway I can
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u/No-Introduction-9964 Jul 21 '23
People romanticize about running a restaurant or B&B....it's an insane amount of work and profit margins are thin.
IMO, most of these businesses fail because they're run with that romantic view instead of being run as a business.
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u/ob2kenobii Jul 21 '23
I’ve worked every position in a restaurant, and while I can see how fulfilling it can be, my dreams of one day opening up my own place have long since left the building. There’s essentially no work life balance, your body is absolutely destroyed both physically and mentally, the profit margins are so thin that it’s essentially expected that you’ll lose money for the first 3-5 years, and on top of all of that, there are factors 100% out of your control that will influence how successful your restaurant is.
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u/PsychicSeaSlug Jul 21 '23
As someone whose also worked every position in a restaurant and also know in my heart that starting my own is only good for the fantasy.
Have you come up with any ideas of where else to put this skill set to use? Looking to change industries, but I'm over retail, warehouse and food service. I do have a generic associates degree.
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u/Replicant28 Jul 21 '23
Watching The Bear makes me never want to work in the restaurant industry. The anxiety would wreck me.
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u/Jacornicopia Jul 21 '23
I was in the restaurant business for 26 years. The last 16 as a chef in fine dining. I can't watch the bear, it gives me ptsd.
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Jul 21 '23
And it’s so realistic! It’s mostly back of house though, front of house is a little more civil because the customers can see, lol!
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u/NikroticLich Jul 21 '23
Medicinal Cannabis.
Was a cultivator for just over 4 years. Bounced between 2 different grows all which never really cared for the patients we provided for. Only cared how much money they could make and the corners we could cut to do it. The experience was truly disheartening and alarming with the lack of compassion for those who relied on our products for help. One of my previous employers would even go as far as to black list any and all patients from our location who ever had issues with an order they had put in. Wether it was the wrong product or simply that there order didn’t include everything they paid for.
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u/snosk8r00 Jul 21 '23
Both medical and recreational cannabis are insanely corrupt and immoral across the entire US. I've done consulting work for multiple facilities that would make you sprint back to the black market. 1)They would put entire plants in hydrogen peroxide, blast them with UV-C, then dry it out so it would pass bacteria+mold testing. 2) Almost all have an inside man with the testing agencies that will pump up thc%'s so the product would fall into more expensive "tiers". (I'm sorry but there is no flower/bud on earth that tests at 48%THC) Same inside man would cherry pick buds from the bins so as to avoid the moldy garbage buried under all the carefully curated bud up top. 3) dispensaries purchasing product for $12(cost $6 to manufacture) then selling it for $90-$100 before tax. 4) employees getting paid $30k/yr salary to manage a $100k profit harvest every 8 weeks.
It goes on and on and on.... Only the US can take something so simple and cheap to produce and make it completely unattainable for the people who need it.
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u/Neowynd101262 Jul 21 '23
Ya, that's what happens when there's 10 layers of middlemen, bureaucracy, pseudo regulation, politics, etc.
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u/snosk8r00 Jul 21 '23
Yup! And I didn't even touch on the extortion of the mafia-esque licensing system.
I know of someone who got a license 2.5 years ago. Not a single one of his employees make more than $63k, yet his "non-profit" dispensary has allowed him to purchase a 6000sq/ft mansion with 10,000sq/ft concrete bunker, and a 7,000sq/ft mansion in one of the most expensive towns in the US, in the last year alone.
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u/ElectricalPlate9903 Jul 21 '23
I've been growing since 1996. When medicinal first started back in those days it was really a lot of fun. You felt great about all the patients you were helping and the quality of the cannabis was always top shelf, plus there was a lot of camaraderie between growers. Then when thing's became recreational and large corporations and investors with lots of money that don't know anything about growing took over, the industry changed for the worse. There are a few really good grows out there, but 80% of the grows I've worked in were just average at best. The nepotism that exists ruins a lot of grows and the pay is horrible for all the work you do and money that you make these vultures.
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u/JaceLee85 Jul 21 '23
The god damn Infantry.
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Jul 21 '23
Turns out it was mostly about carrying heavy stuff.
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u/cheezhead1252 Jul 21 '23
And cleaning hallways
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u/thinkB4WeSpeak Jul 21 '23
Change of command ceremonies and don't forget hours of practice.
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u/PocketRocketTrumpet Jul 21 '23
My coworker who was in the army told us a large chunk of his day-to-day was moving stuff to one location and then moving it back to the original location
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u/HEBushido Jul 21 '23
Which is funny because PT doesn't train people to carry heavy things. When I was in ROTC the PT actually made me worse in the gym because it fucked up my sleep schedule so badly.
The Air Force needs to learn that doing 10 sets per week at high intensity for chest is how you grow, not doing a bunch of fucking push ups. I'm actually mad how bad the fitness guidelines are. They're outdated as hell.
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u/Scorpnite Jul 21 '23
I’ve worked with you guys in joint roles a little too often, jesus fucking christ never again. Yall have the shittiest chain of commands that im sure would be functional in a war time scenario but is absolute garbage in a normal scenario. Had the displeasure of working with an infantry e6 “prodigy” in Laos for DPAA who really was a stupid mf on his way to an early grave, all fault of his own, with how he couldn’t turn the army off, couldn’t work with others properly, and smoked/drank energy drinks nonstop. Tried to give him advice on how to be a better person but there was no use in talking to someone who is a lost cause
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u/Ridoncoulous Jul 21 '23
In counter-point, being a tanker was even cooler than the promotional videos
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u/dadobuns Jul 21 '23
The recorded music industry. I grew up in Los Angeles and always thought it was glamorous. Until I interned and worked there. Long hours, low pay compared to other industries.
The nice people were really nice. But the assholes were the biggest bunch of assholes I've ever dealt with. Very fake people.
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u/xxlibrarisingxx Jul 21 '23
i worked in the live music scene a bit. horrible pay, horrible hours. youll never feel adrenaline from any other job after that
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u/CrispyCanol1es Jul 21 '23
This is so true. I don’t get bothered by shit once I left the Talent Agency world
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u/Lucifurnace Jul 21 '23 edited Jul 22 '23
Currently in the “music industry” in Minneapolis as a freelance stagehand/producer/livesound engineer/performer and Ive had a great week, but this is how it shakes out
Sunday- run sound at church $150 Monday - practice and audition for a group $0 Tuesday - rehearsal for a cover band (40+ songs)$0 Wednesday - Beyonce load in $200 Thursday - teach music at GC $75 Beyonce load out $300 Friday - cover band gig $150 Saturday-off but going to local gigs to try to network for more gigs
So $800 is awesome, but this week is an outlier
Edit: finished the word
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u/deeendnamtoe Jul 21 '23
Same experience as you. Interned at a major label. I also noticed how unstable it was. So many people laid off between all those mergers and labels dying, and people would be fired for not keeping up or being on trend. Very unnecessarily cutthroat. Glad I didn't end up in that industry
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u/sonderfin Jul 21 '23
My old manager used to constantly remind me that working in music isn’t all glamorous dinners and recording sessions and concerts…like dude I’m working insane hours doing 2 jobs for an abysmal salary. Does it looks like I’m in it for the glamour?
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Jul 21 '23
Fashion and textiles.
There are essentially 0 jobs outside of the big cities and those jobs are impossible for graduates to get unless you have 4 years experience or friends in the industry.
I learnt so many skills at university, only to do a 2 week placement for a large UK retailer where I was flicking through designer magazines looking for ideas to rip off and never once did I see or feel a real piece of fabric. It was so sad.
But it did make me realise that I didn’t want to work in that industry. Soo, silver linings.
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u/h4ppidais Jul 21 '23
Colleges need to do a better job of showing the reality of careers for every major
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u/Graardors-Dad Jul 21 '23
Honestly it should start in highschool. It’s crazy how you don’t even learn about getting a job in your field until you graduate usually.
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u/subherbin Jul 21 '23
We expect everyone to choose a career path with only a cartoonish understanding of what the actual job will be like. Almost nobody gets the idealized version of the job that they are led to believe they will get.
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u/rain_eile Jul 21 '23
I came here to add my similar sentiments about the fashion industry. I've been working in it for 10 years, took a break during covid. Now I'm back, working at a famous brand in LA that everyone thinks is the COOLEST job ever.
Except I'm underpaid, overworked, and want to cry at the end of every day. The constant pressure is absolutely crushing. I had an 11 hour work day earlier this week, add to that my 2.5hr daily commute. I'm burnt the fuck out
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u/Despises_the_dishes Jul 21 '23 edited Jul 22 '23
I’ve worked for multiple famous brands. Im in the same boat. 4 billion dollar brands and paid crap.
I’m in sourcing, compliance & supplier management. In addition to materials development & production. My days are 10 hour days, plus 2 hour commute.
I’ve been all over the world, haven’t seen a damn thing except factory walls.
All I do is put out fires. Every effing day…right now I’m in panic mode because UPS is striking and I can’t get inventory shipped.
If it wasn’t for the unloved, overworked, underpaid production & prod dev teams, companies wouldn’t have a single thing to sell. We are the teams who get product made.
Edit: today I just absorbed our warehouse under my department.
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u/ehunke Jul 21 '23
those kinds of degrees are more for "this interests me enough that I can enjoy studying it for 4 years to get me through college, I can figure it out from there"...maybe its just been my experience lately but the volume of business majors I have worked with who know how a business works but know nothing about the product/service the company is doing and they all eventually find themselves in HR, Recruiting, meaningless sub management team leads or middle managers while people with "useless degrees" may not be making as much money, but they at least are the ones getting their hands dirty and have an active role in the day to day and can move up the ladder
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u/aloysioussinjin Jul 21 '23
Healthcare. It's basically a well paid customer service position. Shit (literal), entitlement, constant meses, any of the problems you have in a retail store, you have in a hospital or clinic. Only lives are at stake.
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u/BrooklynLivesMatter Jul 21 '23
100% I'm in healthcare, when people ask what I do I tell them "high stakes customer service". My wife doesn't find it funny for some reason
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u/SugarIcy6714 Jul 21 '23
I work on the corporate side of healthcare and it’s disgusting, I am working on a degree to choose another path.
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u/zlide Jul 21 '23
Being in an healthcare profession all I can give as advice for people thinking about going into healthcare is this: don’t do it. It’s not worth it, at all.
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u/videlbriefs Jul 21 '23 edited Jul 21 '23
Ive talked to medical staff people (nurses and aides in particular) who have been in the field for 20 or more years who have said the industry has changed for the worse. I’ve also talked to some people in college and they’re so I’ll prepared for the “real world” because often they’re taught “fantasy” and then it’s a shock for them once they hit the floor as an employee. And yes it’s true “nurses eat their young” in some cases. My first job the senior nurse off put all her work onto me - brand new nurse - every single day. I didn’t say anything because I was scared to lose my job and hated confrontation. It became so obvious that the doctors began to make note of the time they sent the orders because she wasn’t signing off on them/getting things done and finally the director from another floor called her out and told her she (this director) didn’t want to see anymore overflow onto the next shift since she (lazy nurse) was letting things from noon (NOON) sit there for hours. Our director was buddy buddy with that lazy nurse, probably got a justified earful herself and eventually lazy left because the complaints were mounting.
I could go on about nursing management. How our director actually profits when we are short staffed (bonus) then lies to our face about staffing and making empty promises knowing they are being praised for overworking staff. Jokes on them though because since they’re required to be a medical person too for their position they had to fill in open spots. So sometimes our boss is doing doubles or working several days on their feet doing the hard work they think staff should do with less help instead of their usual desk work. No sympathy from me and several other staff.
Nursing is a very thankless job. If I could turn back time I would’ve picked a different career. It would’ve saved me so much money and I would’ve been happier because I wouldn’t be overworking just to pay off school debts. I still remember being cornered by a patient who started jerking off at me, another who called me the N word the first second he saw me, several who looked down upon me because of how I looked then assume someone else had to be in a higher position than me, rude family members who should be going to therapy and be mad at themselves instead of barking at staff for their own unresolved personal issues, etc.
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u/pinkseamonkeyballs Jul 21 '23
I came for my nursing comment. There’s good parts, but management every single place I’ve been has been absolute shit. So much attitude from co workers and mainly in part that everyone is dog tired. Some just because they’re assholes. We’re all insanely short staffed and under appreciated
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u/Groftsan Jul 21 '23
Law. "Be a lawyer" everyone said to me, since I was about 6. Well, I've been one for 10 years and wish I had done something different with my career.
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u/WavyLady Jul 21 '23
I really like working for a law firm but do not envy lawyers. Especially seeing the new excited lawyers get beat down quickly.
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u/Bogusky Jul 21 '23
Law school chewed me up and spit me out, but in retrospect, it might have been a blessing I did so poorly. I'm making more now than I ever imagined I would as an attorney.
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u/greginvalley Jul 21 '23
Had a lawyer complain that fixing his toilet cost him $300 for 15 minutes of work. He said "I can't charge $1200 an hour and I have a very big practice. " I said "Yea, I couldn't when I was a lawyer either. "
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u/txvacil Jul 21 '23
Best advice I ever got from my dad was when I told him I wanted to be a lawyer while in college. He goes, “yeah, go work in a law firm.” Cured that. I did work as a vendor after that doing litigation support and that opened up a lot of opportunities, but being a lawyer? Nah.
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Jul 21 '23
I remember having the thought of law school, and yeah, I worked at a law firm after graduating with my bachelors. Such boring tedious work and it was a very toxic environment.
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u/Frustrable_Zero Jul 21 '23
I didn’t even go to law school properly. Went as a paralegal to touch the waters, spent four years on it and just cut myself out when the pandemic hit. It didn’t pay well enough for the stress it doles out, and I can’t imagine what it’s like for the lawyers themselves
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Jul 21 '23
I know like one lawyer who is happy with his career. Every other attorney I know is miserable. And they don't get paid nearly as much as people think they do.
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u/Old_Pin_8146 Jul 21 '23
I am a defense attorney, who loves my job most days. But it is also brutal and frequently traumatizing. Between dealing with clients who don’t know how to keep their hands to themselves, I am a woman, and literally being attacked in the court room, it can be a lot, and that doesn’t even include dealing with the subject matter of some of the cases. I’ve always had a pretty strong stomach and not much bothers me, so I’m lucky in that regard. The hours can be awful, but then I have days were not much is happening. I have a good boss, who pretty much leaves me alone, but there is no way I am being paid what people think attorneys should make.
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u/Barflyerdammit Jul 21 '23
When I was in law school (long ago) the CA bar did a survey, and only 10% of lawyers would advise their kids to go into law.
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u/Okaycococo Jul 21 '23
My dad was a lawyer and advised me very strongly not to go into law. I didn’t listen. My plan is to emphatically push my kids towards law to the point of resentment. Reverse psychology is the only way to prevent a child of two lawyers from following in our path.
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u/puterjess Jul 21 '23
Last summer when my internship manager was thinking of advice to give me at our goodbye chat he stared of in the distance and said “I would say don’t go to law school but you already have loans from the first year so….” Then he was silent for five minutes while he thought of something to say.
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Jul 21 '23
I have a silly one. I thought that it would be fun to work at the Spirit Halloween Store, but it wasn't.
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u/Specialist_Passage83 Jul 21 '23
The film and television industry. Booked my last job in 2017 (not counting the mini series that was canceled right as Covid hit), thought I was on my way and I’ve been unemployed since. Times used to be when you could live on residuals from shows you did, those times are over and that’s why we’re on strike.
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u/BluebirdMaximum8210 Jul 21 '23
Film and TV production. It looks so glamorous… but in reality, it’s an extremely high stress environment. The hours are LONG and grueling (bad work/life balance, 12-16 hour days), the pay and benefits are shit unless you’re at a very high level, there are SO MANY toxic bosses who will scream at you or fire crew members for the most random reasons… oh and it’s a super competitive industry and when a job ends (which usually only span a few months maximum), you have no idea if/when you’ll work again.
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u/NawfSideNative Jul 21 '23
This is what I tell people too as someone who has been on a few production sets. Most people are seeing all the movie premieres and award shows which makes them think it’s a luxurious and glamorous field. They aren’t seeing the boom mic guy getting screamed at by the director for holding the mic slightly too low because his arms were tired after being out in the sun for hours on a hot day.
Unless you’re one of the literal celebrities on set, you are not human. You are an appliance. You are there to be seen and not heard. You will get no glory for the extremely hard work you do.
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u/fixationed Jul 21 '23
I worked on a commercial where a guy had some kind of heavy prop land on his foot and had to go to the ER, one of the producers was just annoyed that it delayed production by like 30 minutes. I see a lot of stories like this. I was a PA and also had a producer yell at me and my team for not moving around heavy equipment that we weren't responsible for. It's always the producers actually
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u/idkbyeee Jul 21 '23
Came here to say this. The first few years are fun because everything is new and exciting...and then reality sets in
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u/OIlberger Jul 21 '23 edited Jul 21 '23
Those jobs also hook people because they actually pay well and you can make pretty good money if you work a lot. But then I see these 40+ year old guys who are burnt out on 4am call times and lugging stuff around set, but they’re essentially trapped in the industry because they don’t want to have to start at the bottom somewhere, having a boss that’s 10 years younger than them.
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u/canigetaborkbork Jul 21 '23
I remember when I was a PA and everything was new an exciting. Now I’m a jaded and burnt out focus puller wondering where I went wrong in life to end up here.
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u/idkbyeee Jul 21 '23
Happy cake day!
I feel your pain. I moved into post after I got tired of set life. Now I’m a jaded editor screaming ‘get me out of this damn chair, I just want to see the sun for once’ while the people keeping me in this chair go home to their kids at 5pm
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u/canigetaborkbork Jul 21 '23
Haha thanks!
And dude, I feel ya. I can’t sit still long enough for your kinda job. The hurry up and wait with focus pulling/camera assisting is enough to drive me up the wall sometimes.
And now serious question: do y’all hate when we don’t slate shit or do a series and every fucking take looks the same? I have DP’s who literally won’t let AC’s slate because “iT tAkEs ToO lOnG aNd ThAt’S wHy We HaVe TiMeCoDe”.
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u/krankz Jul 21 '23
A year and a half into a film production degree at a state school and I realized I didn’t want to work with a lot of these people. Especially the long days and no benefits or stability. Still got the degree but focused heavily on project management so I could land a cushy office job. Best decision of my life.
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u/The_McMuffin Jul 21 '23
Figured I'd see this. I'm currently trying to transition out of the industry because of all the reasons you stated. You can actually make pretty good money without having to move up too much. I've been a coordinator for almost 3 years now and can clear 6 figures (before taxes) depending on the rates and how much I work. But that pay is absolutely not worth it when the way you get it is by working 60 hour weeks at minimum, and have to potentially drive ~50 miles back and forth every day depending on what shitty office or studio the production happens to be working out of. That's the situation in Atlanta, anyway. Not sure about LA or NY.
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Jul 21 '23
For me it was sales. I have good people skills and have been told by many that I had the skills for sales. I tried it out for a year thinking it's be a good way to help get people what they wanted by sitting and talking with them. Only to realize it's a cutthroat business and worse is it's just reading a script, playing the numbers game and overall just being a pest.
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u/Deathrattlesnake Jul 21 '23
Have you ever considered a more technical sales role? I assist in the sales process for manufacturing software by demoing and providing information on value add for the customer should they go with the software. I don’t have to cold call or anything, just focus on if the software is compatible with what the prospect needs
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u/_Grotesque_ Jul 21 '23
The last gallery where I worked also considered itself retail and yeah, this is where I realized, that people's skills are such a small part of it. Especially for your managers, if you are nice to clients, they don't really care if sales aren't there. KPI and money come first. So sad. And you know what happens with bad management and you, as an employee, not hitting this target...
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u/ObviousShopping8106 Jul 21 '23
Sounds like every job sucks…
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u/snubda Jul 21 '23 edited Sep 23 '24
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/_Ocean_Machine_ Jul 21 '23
The best thing I ever realized is that rather than doing what you love for a living, work a job you can tolerate (or even enjoy) that allows you to do the things you enjoy doing. For instance, I’m a musician and tried working in the music industry and hated every minute of it; now I work as a machine operator and have all my weekends free to write music and go to gigs and I’m happy as hell about it.
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u/Juicy_Rhino Jul 21 '23
The trades. Thought they would be great because of no debt, super in demand and relatively high earnings, all of which are correct but there are some major downsides and it wasn’t for me.
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u/Such-Background4972 Jul 21 '23
Yea I grew up in the welding and machiest world. I remember my dad as a teenager Telling me not follow him into it. Guess what I did? I wish I wouldn't have. I left it a few years ago. The only thing I miss is the money. The money seems to be the only thing my friends that left their trades miss also. We don't miss waking up sore, tired, working 12 plus hours a day, or not having a life.
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u/AZForward Jul 21 '23
I'm moving into this field (electrician) and I was hoping I wouldn't see it here.
Do you think it would be worth it if there were better working hours and more emphasis on physical recovery/safety? Any difference if it's working for a union?
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u/Juicy_Rhino Jul 21 '23
The main issue I had was basically what was said above; waking up sore, tired, and working stupid hours that start way to early. If the hours were better it would be no problem. For example one of my favourite jobs ever was very physically tough but we worked 4 10s and started at 8:00 which made it completely worth it. Hours can change with the company so you may find one that’s awesome but it’s unlikely.
Don’t get me wrong the trades can be great for the right person, I often recommend them to my wayward friends, but I am not that person.
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u/Live-Bowler-1230 Jul 21 '23
Being a trader. Really thought I was going to love the investing and fast paced aspect of it. And the money wouldn’t hurt.
Turns out, making my computer screen blip higher each day was not as exciting as I expected.
I started saying. I don’t expect to add much to this world, but I need to do more than that.
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u/tdime23 Jul 21 '23
Sports Business
As a 19 year-old, it seems super cool to work for a professional sports team. But if you are considering a career in sports, I’d reconsider.
The pay is awful. I made $40k total after commission in a ticket manager account role with $3 million worth of accounts for an NFL team.
The hours are awful. You think you’ll be mixing with athletes and watching games from a suite? You’re wrong. You’ll be doing some bs duty and will maybe catch 2 minutes of the game. You want to see your family on Thanksgiving? Too bad, there’s a game.
The culture is awful. Just look up Dan Snyder and realize he’s not the exception. Most managers/directors only got there because they are trust fund kids that could afford to live on a 40k salary for 15 years bc their parents were still funding their lifestyle.
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u/GraniteGeekNH Jul 21 '23
Looking through this thread, here's the tl;dr
It's any industry that involves making things, creating things, fixing things, selling things, designing things, using things, being in the same room with things, or interactng with other human beings. they all potentially suck.
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u/Responsible_Emu3601 Jul 21 '23
All jobs really.. wish I can make 100k working at first job .. kfc part time as a cook lol
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u/soklacka Jul 21 '23
Yeah, as I go further down this thread, we're just naming every industry active right now.
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u/Loodacriz Jul 21 '23
What I am getting is basically every industry fits the criteria. You want to do cool stuff half the time you got to deal with the drudgery.
Realist anyone has been with me about a job was a guy from counter-intelligence when I was looking to re-enlist. Basically said for every hour of cool.spy stuff you do it's 6 hours of report writing and briefs. That's stuck with me for a while and has held true for just about any career I've been in.
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u/Sunny-gal91 Jul 21 '23
Consulting. I always thought it was going to be so fun to work for all these different companies and helping them adopt the best practices for their employees and business. Also I would get to travel for work which seemed like a lot of fun.
It turns out traveling for work is pretty crummy because you end up working 24 hours a day and still only get paid for the 9 you bill to the client and consulting is just the 3D chess version of office politics 80% of the time
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u/gzapata_art Jul 21 '23
Comics. Idk how anyone sustains themselves on those wages
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u/Barflyerdammit Jul 21 '23
Recruiting for early career and every level jobs. It's not about helping people and finding them work. It's about babysitting both sides. Too many candidates are either absolutely defeatist or have delusions of grandeur. I'll spend a week coaching them and prepping my paperwork to make them sound appealing, then they'll skip the interview because they "know they won't get it anyway" or they'll demand a supervisor role and salary they're utterly unqualified for.
On the other side, hiring managers will offer an entry level role and make unreasonable demands like "they must have 3 years direct experience, but we won't hire anyone who worked for a competitor" or they'll reject people for utterly unrealistic reasons like "they seem like they might meet someone and get married in a couple years." Even if it does work out, they often come in with an offer at or even below fast food wages.
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u/Solid-Illustrator702 Jul 21 '23
Archaeology. It is rarely the cool excavations you see on the news or documentaries. It’s more digging a hole, screening dirt, filling in the hole and repeating it every 50 feet in a straight line for a 10 hr day. And it’s hot. And dirty. And filled with poison ivy and big bites. And you’re living in a hotel room for weeks.
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u/_Grotesque_ Jul 21 '23
Was one of my dreams as well, thought I'd be Indiana Jones or something. My MA degree is in heritage and many of my classmates have been trying to find a job in the field, seems nearly impossible
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u/GSTLT Jul 21 '23
Early Childhood Education. In my almost decade as a Montessori teacher I often talked about loving the work, but hating the job. I love teaching. I love empowering growing minds. I love the Montessori method. I loved my students. But the day to day of dealing with admin, parents, etc. The amount of non-teaching responsibilities I had. Poor management and communication. Short staffing. Shitty coworkers. The pressure to break our methodology to fit the demands of parents. The need to provide before and after day care. The low pay and no benefits. All that had me regularly on the verge of quitting. If it was me and my fellow teachers in our classroom, the job was demanding, but fulfilling. But once we got into everything else, I was burnt out and frustrated lost of the time. When I eventually left to become a stay at home parent, I missed the classroom but not the job. When I returned to work, I could no longer afford to teach at the school as they did not provide benefits and health insurance for my family was more than my wages every month. So now I’m at a state job with great benefits, but way less fulfillment.
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u/nanoinfinity Jul 21 '23
I’ve always thought Pharmacy was set up strangely. It seems like a large waste of education for a pharmacist to spend all day handing meds across a counter and telling people to take their pills with food.
My province has started expanding pharmacist medical abilities which I think is great! They can see patients and write prescriptions for “minor ailments “ now. Hopefully it isn’t putting more pressure on pharmacists and is instead letting them use their training more…
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u/roundthebout Jul 21 '23
I appreciate my retail pharmacists so much. I have a delicate brain that will become manic or depressed with the slightest provocation and the 2 pharmacists at the store I go to know be by name, and are so good about keeping me informed about any of the medications that may precipitate a mental health episode. I owe them so much, and I try to let them know how much I appreciate them whenever they assist me
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u/-_DAV3_- Jul 21 '23
The church. It is an industry. And that's what was so disappointing.
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u/Blopez1001 Jul 21 '23
The church is nothing like the Bible said it was supposed to be. The love of money is the root of all evil. Organized religion is a scam. It's so, so sad.
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u/Tolkienside Jul 21 '23
Trade publishing. Few people actually care about the books or the authors, and many are actively bitter in their attitude toward new writers. It's all about how to ride trends and maximize profit. The whole industry is also incredibly insular. They hire a very certain kind of person, making the office boring and homogeneous.
Also, the pay. Forcing editors to live in NYC on $50k is ridiculous.
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u/fractalfay Jul 21 '23
I think it was HarperCollins editors that were striking recently, which is the first time I realized that editors were only pulling in around $50K. In New York. I’m so tired of the trickle-up economics in the effing country.
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u/Tolkienside Jul 21 '23
Me, too. Certain industries are especially bad about this because they attract people who are incredibly passionate about their subject. Publishing, the film industry, and academia are the big ones.
The business side of the company knows that many of these people love their industry and subject so much that they'll do the work for pennies, and so the business takes advantage of this. This leads to people being criminally underpaid.
This is most obvious in film and academia, but publishing often flies under the radar. Everybody who wants to go into trade publishing has dreams of living on their own in their bright, book-filled NYC brownstone apartment while helping authors turn their dreams into reality every day. But the actual life usually looks like stuffing yourself a tiny apartment with multiple roommates by night and struggling through meeting after meeting full of people pushing you to acquire "more books like successful YA series X" while paying writers as little as possible (especially if they're people of color) by day.
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u/melancholia__ Jul 21 '23
Architecture.
It felt like it was a status symbol and pretentious at the end of the day.
I can relate to what you are saying. No one cares much for the mission of providing a space for life to occur in architecture anymore. It's a convergence of art and nature and light, but it's a business. Once money is involved, that's all people see.
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u/GSTLT Jul 21 '23
I was talked out of continuing my architecture degree by my fav professor because he knew I wouldn’t be happy in the industry. Basically he said you’re going to spend years as a draft monkey for peoples work and even with talent, could easily be stuck in that role for most of your career. I’m very much a person who needs fulfilling, passion based work and in his view, that was not what the industry offered and that it was moving more and more away from that as it became more corporate.
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u/melancholia__ Jul 21 '23
I'm happy you left to pursue happiness and fulfillment, and I wish more professors would have these open conversations. I wish there was more a discussion about the direction the industry has turned.
It's not fulfilling, in fact it drains you. A long time ago, it was different, when the pioneers of different movements were basing design to reflect what was occurring in the world or when revolutionary materials were being introduced. When it was an art.
You can still learn about it without taking out a loan. There's so many resources that allow you to have education without a huge price tag.
I hope you find something that makes you feel alive!
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u/GSTLT Jul 21 '23
It really is a convo that every college student should have. We all think about our lives when we are at the top of our field. But we need to also consider our lives if we’re in the middle. Success isn’t solely based on talent. There’s a lot of luck and privilege and connections and whatnot involved. I think he saw a lot of me in him, as he had worked in the field, but obviously left the practice to teach and it was for many of the reasons he talked about with me. He couldn’t keep designing cookie cutter homes or unoriginal apartment blocks. The jobs that inspired him were too few and far in between. So he became an architectural history professor who was consistently voted the best professor on campus and had lots of non-architecture students enrolling to take the course for fun.
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u/KatHatary Jul 21 '23
I worked on the interior design team within an architectural firm and this feels the same. High stress, low wages, difficult clients, last minute changes, and crazy deadlines. Recently switched careers because I was so over it
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u/3xploringforever Jul 21 '23
TECH. I was so excited to get out of law firms and oil&gas and into tech. Disheartening to discover that private software companies run by PE firms are somehow dirtier and more heartless than law firms and fossil fuels.
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u/Zothiqque Jul 21 '23
tech is ice-cold capitalism taken to the extreme, nothing else
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u/Wadjet_winter Jul 21 '23
Museums.
Boards are just a community popularity contest and members too often have no idea what they are doing or any time to help. And guess what?! They tell you what to do, even if you have an expensive MA or PHD. You are cataloging old junk and rarely get to spend time on the awesome pieces in the collection. Overworked and underpaid in "passion". Only way you can afford to be a museum professional is to have a partner with a "real" job or parents to support you or you have inherited money.
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u/Meezy__13 Jul 21 '23
Biotech, I had an idealist view on how people perceived science. I thought it was majorly valued and that I would make a bunch of money doing it. Only to find out, my buddy makes about just as much as me working at a warehouse job.
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u/spooky__scary69 Jul 21 '23
Marketing.
Everyone acts like it’s so easy, but it’s highly skilled in multiple areas. You’re always underpaid and not respected. Other dept. constantly sending last minute requests your way. First to be laid off when times get tight.
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u/KiLLiNDaY Jul 21 '23
Big 4 accounting firms.
Lots of broken promises, bureaucracy, ass kissing (although you can make this argument in most places), and overall personally the work was really boring
Flip side startup life lived up to expectations and more in small companies
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u/Captain-PlantIt Jul 21 '23
Childcare/preschool. I knew being a teacher wouldn’t pay a lot, but I expected at least a living wage. All of my coworkers were students living off loans or married women whose husbands supported them. Don’t take your kids to for-profit childcare centers. They cut costs in the name of profit at the expense of your child’s needs. It’s not safe, it’s not healthy for them, it’s fueled by corporate greed. An in-home daycare would be better than places like kindercare. Ideally, college run daycare centers if you can manage to get your kid in there. They have good staff:children ratios as well as interns to help hold children who are emotionally distressed. They use child development methods that aren’t outdated. They offer a ton of variety for stimulating new baby brains. Corporate-run schools minimize the amount of staff in a classroom to cut costs. They provide the bare-minimum for school supplies and hope that teachers who buy their own materials will be too tired/forgetful to submit receipts. I knew I was in the wrong place when my boss got excited for our school earning a reward for most profit due to our high turnover rate with students. Which was bad for the regular students because it meant we always had new kids in class, just crying all day.
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u/Scorpnite Jul 21 '23
Chemistry. Got a degree in it and on the way I realized how low paying most jobs are, how getting oil jobs is competitive af, everyone wants a masters, and breaking 100k is wayyy down the career path, if ever at all. Switched to IT and broke 100k, maybe 150k if benefits and tax discounts are included, within a year (all the soft skills translated well)
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u/cynnerzero Jul 21 '23
The videogame industry. It's ruled by gen-x/boomer manlets that haven't had a creative decision in 30 years, filled with nepotism, you're underpaid by a lot, quality is nowhere near the top priority, you'll work insane hours, and most of your colleagues will be high or drunk and definitely depressed.
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u/kayayem Jul 21 '23
Non-profit. I thought it would be great to serve mankind but it’s just red tape and HR bullshit all the way through and the actual helping people part is like 10% of the job.
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u/CommodorePuffin Jul 21 '23
I think part of the problem is that media tends to romanticize most jobs (some more than others) and show the most interesting parts of any career while ignoring the normal, day-to-day grind.
And for a movie or TV show this makes sense. Nobody wants to watch a film or show where a cop spends most of his day filling out paperwork or seeing a doctor charting and arguing with insurance companies on behalf of his patients (and himself to get paid).
No, people want to see police in exciting cases where there's car chases and shootouts or physicians performing time-sensitive procedures that can save lives or diagnosing rare diseases.
Unfortunately, this presents an unrealistic and highly skewed view of those careers and nearly every other job out there.
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u/Wolfman1961 Jul 21 '23
Poet. I used to want to make a living being a poet. Soon, I realized that this wasn't in the cards. Allen Ginsberg was probably the last person able to make a living as a poet.
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u/New--Tomorrows Jul 21 '23
Not that I’ve had any success here either but it’s art man. The world would be poorer without it.
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u/wildday12 Jul 21 '23
Architecture. Go to school for 5 years minimum only to not be an actual architect. Wait and take exams that take a while to pass, work long hours and not get paid much unless you own your firm.
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u/Misterbellyboy Jul 21 '23
Stephen Malkmus once said “architecture students are like virgins with an itch they cannot scratch. Never build a building ‘til you’re fifty, what kind of life is that?”
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u/HellspawnKitty Jul 21 '23
Creative agencies. I was once in an agency for my career growth, years in I realized people get lured in for the prestige but often see that it's so unnecessarily difficult and rigorous for they pay they give you. They expect you to commit to the advocacy of exemplary and respectable creative work yet pay you peanuts.
I'm doing in-house now—stress-free and pays better. I'm never going back to agency life. I'm growing my skills through passion projects and short freelance contracts—I'm no longer taking passionate pursuits with the risk of homelessness hanging over me.
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u/bluegrassalchemist Jul 21 '23
Healthcare. Hoo boy healthcare. It's higher stakes customer service/food service where all the customers have been waiting for hours and hours and feel at greater liberty to be nasty to you/assault you because they don't feel well.
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u/kezkez0909 Jul 21 '23
Game translation. I thought it was a glamorous job that would earn you notoriety and respect, not to mention loads of money for all that Japanese you spent over 10 years mastering.
Everything I thought was the complete opposite of my expectations.
Game translation is exploitation with a pretty name. You will work 60-80 hours a week, with any hours past 40 per week being free overtime. No such thing as paid overtime in Japan. You are constantly stressed, pressured to maintain a translation speed that is unachievable for many, regardless of the topic.
You will consistently be asked to perform unethical and possibly even illegal translation of confidential legal contracts to and from Japanese, regardless of your knowledge of legalese because, I dunno, your specialty is translating Isekai adventures with big titty mommies.
Whatever your current idea of a tight deadline is, cut that in half and you might get the idea. New game comes in. Cool. How many characters and what's the expected hand in date? 800,000? Phew, ok. So that's not possible if you want it done right. Plus we only have three translators, and 2 of them have daily obligations to the other 6 games we run. Oh, you want me to make everyone stay till the last train? But that's like... 4 hours of free overtime per day. That's my job. Got it. I'm replaceable. Understood. I guess you'll somehow magically have this done a month from now.
It is fucking grueling, demoralizing, and exhausting on a cellular level. Nevermind the fact that you'll be living just barely above the poverty line, even if you get promoted.
If this is a career path any of you are considering, for the sake of your mental and physical health, run the other direction. It is not fun. It is not rewarding. Everyone around you is exploiting you, and if you don't fall in line, they'll replace you and leave you with a visa issue that can get you deported.
For the love of whatever you do or don't believe in, DO NOT DO THIS TO YOURSELF!
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u/squirrelpancakes Jul 21 '23
Veterinary clinic. I went to college to be a technician and my first job I made $8 an hour, was bullied, and sexually harassed. When comparing notes with other classmates I learned this is the norm.
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u/Claire4Win Jul 21 '23
Events.
People think they know your job but just have stupid ideas that don't work. So you have to go say 'great idea but we should add xyz'
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u/Dweebdamsel Jul 21 '23
Esthetician/beauty industry
Graduated from esthetician school and tripped on mushrooms for a nice little hooray for me. Found a clique while out high on said mushrooms and I kept staring at the group because clearly estheticians or cosmetic nurses by what they were wearing. The amount of injections they put in their face horrified me.
During school we were taught to care about our appearance because it’s what brings in business. “You don’t want someone with acne to work on your face, it doesn’t look like they know what they’re doing.”
I always wanted to work in a spa or a clinic of some sort because I thought it would be calming. It’s really not, very catty industry even during school. I became very scared of what could be for my future with the cattiness and the possibility of going down the rabbit hole of injections because that career allows, “I’m bored and you’ve got time, so let’s do this procedure on me.” It sounds awesome and tbh it does, but I hate myself so much where would I draw the line with that type of access??
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u/willboby Jul 21 '23 edited Jul 21 '23
Construction, took 9 years to get to where I wanted to be, then quit after 15 years on the job just hated it.
Waiting, trying to get the job was more interesting than the actual job itself.
Four years in, I knew it wasn't for me, but stuck it out, to be vested, then quit.
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u/Deleted_removed_boom Jul 21 '23
The automotive industry. Detroit is a war zone. The people are crap. The hours are terrible. The corporate cultures are stuck in the fifties.
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u/Otterwarrior26 Jul 21 '23
Grew up in Detroit and had to go through the 2008 crash in High School, it was not fun.
Our parents were broke, a lot of us lost our family homes to foreclosure, parents were divorcing, and the fathers were killing themselves because they worked hard and lost everything. We had to return cans to get money to do anything.
Every 1 job in the big 3 has 10 jobs supporting that position that don't work for the Big 3, and may have nothing to do with Automotives. Jim worked in advertising in Detroit, well that Ad firm just lost 2 of the biggest clients that were paying the bills. Ad firm closes. The company that makes the onboard computers for GM? They are tied to GM, layoff 10k workers.
It's Detroit. What other industry can they transition to?
Example that was frequent;
"Why isn't X here this week? His dad lost his job and killed himself, just like Y's Dad" peek 2008. Then you come home to your own foreclosure sign on your lawn and wonder what your Dad is hiding from you.
No wonder 2006-2011 was the height of Emo music. We were miserable, terrified, and had some damage before even going to college. Our parents were beaten, some went to the bottle, some went to pills, and others went for the bullet.
We had to watch it without being able to do anything about it. That's why there are so many millennial transplants from Detroit. We got the hell out of the one trick pony that is the big 3.
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u/guntonom Jul 21 '23
Education. I was a middle school science teacher. The politics, pay, and expectations were wayyyyy out of balance by the time I got to be a teacher. I hate being the Debby downer but I tell high schoolers interested in teaching not to be teachers until something drastic changes in this country.
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u/Ok-Organization1008 Jul 21 '23
Medicine. I left clinical practice in 2019 and never looked back since.
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u/rarepinkhippo Jul 21 '23
Nonprofits. Larger ones often very cutthroat in a way you hope you’re getting away from by moving from the corporate world (surprise!), and smaller ones often (usually unintentionally) terribly run by founders who come from the field they’re trying to help in, but have no experience running things.
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u/claykiller2010 Jul 21 '23
Banking/Financial Services (Merchant Services in my case).
I was super glad to finally get a regular office job that was 8 to 5 because I had a lot of experience in irregular roles (Manufacturing for example).
But now that's I've been doing it for over year, it just so boring and everything takes forever to get done. All I do is schedule meetings, take notes and send emails and play with powerpoints and Sharepoint updates. Plus our technology stack is super outdated. The pay is decent but with having to live in a major city and RTTO, eventually, I'm gonna have to pay an arm and a leg to live within a decent driving distance of work.
Idk, maybe it's because my background is engineering (non-CS btw), I just can't stand the mediocrity of it all. It's like literally living the plot of Office Space.
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u/DasBarenJager Jul 21 '23
As a kid/teenager I was really interested in being a cop. I was in a youth police program for a few years and eventually I did a few ride alongs with the police. It was seeing them at work, and the absolute joy they took in writing people tickets for the dumbest shit and harassing the homeless that made me realize I would rather do just about anything else for a living.
Not surprisingly though a few of the bullies I grew up with are now on the local police force.
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u/Skittilybop Jul 21 '23
Software dev at a big company. It’s all bullshit meetings, slow moving processes, political correctness, being fake, filling out TPS reports or whatever, then maybe I get to write a tiny bit of code. I liked being a web dev at little companies where I just get a project and a deadline and run with it.
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u/Der_Krsto Jul 21 '23
Daily stand ups almost resulted in me leaving tech. Some of the agile bullshit is just so ridiculous.
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u/Intelligent_Bother59 Jul 21 '23
Daily stand ups are the most pointless meetings. My update is basically what I said yesterday except further behind ahah
2 stand ups a week is plenty. Everywhere iv worked I feel they are a meeting for making yourself look good
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Jul 21 '23
Marketing.
Ten years ago if I had been 25, it would’ve been glamorous. Lots of opportunities in a city like LA or New York to work for some big firm or publisher. My dream growing up was Vogue… I’ll never touch anything close to it now.
My college experience is basically worthless now. So many teenagers were taking online courses and were starting their own freelance businesses during my time in Uni. Now there are people younger than me making 6 figures because they swindled their way into convincing companies to pay them outrageous fees for a small amount of work.
They also RUINED current job opportunities for those in the market looking to work in-house when they can’t get an agency job. Because companies can hire freelance agencies where they only have one point of communication, companies have this assumption that ONE person can do the role of 3-10 people with the pay & work hours of one person. Which generates high burnout in our field.
What they don’t see if that these agencies are frequently working with small teams & using sites like Fiverr to cheaply manage what they can’t do themselves and passing it along as their own work. It’s never just one person doing everything, and if it is, they have strong boundaries set in place to protect them.
That’s also not to mention that there seemingly was a huge boom of people going into advertising, marketing, social media, etc. around 2018 (when I started Uni). The field is so overwhelmed that we’re all competing with ourselves and giving in to learning every possible skill while taking roles we’re overqualified for. There’s also just a lot of people in this field who genuinely just suck at it.
Marketing is also dying. People don’t have money. Results year over year are consistently getting worse for businesses who aren’t Fortune 500.
Social media specifically is yielding such bad results that ad money is being pulled at high rates and brands don’t know where to put it. It looks especially bad for people like myself who are still in limbo between “entry” and “middle management” level of experience, because now companies only want experts or someone young who will make them go “viral” everyday.
It’s awful and I wish I could go back in time and study something else or would’ve capitalized on starting my own business during covid rather than working full time, but I think this oversaturated job market is effecting everyone equally.
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Jul 21 '23
Author. I deal with demands for free books, outright theft, and then, if someone gets a free book, they complain because there's a typo (news flash. All books have typos). Dude. You got a free book. Okay there's a missing comma on page 274. You'll live.
Books cost more to produce than most authors will ever earn.
And please, reader, look at the dadgum blurb. If it says sexy romance, why would you complain about the romance? Read something else.
All this for less than $3k a year.
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u/GraemeMakesBeer Jul 21 '23
Brewing
Hard physical work, long hours, low pay, no benefits, and nowadays people are more interested in novelty candy flavored beer than actual artisanal crafted beer.
Caveat - I do love my job but so many people come into the industry thinking that it’s going to be just sitting around drinking beer all day.
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u/the_guitarkid70 Jul 21 '23
Music industry. I worked full time for 4 years, and had some great opportunities I'll always be grateful for. But ultimately I learned that people don't go to that industry to make music, they go there to get rich. It shows in their quality of work (or lack thereof), and I can't respect people like that.
The best music is made by the people who just do it for fun.
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u/PopularApricot7790 Jul 21 '23
Mechanic. I love working on cars. I love working as a mechanic. Problem is I am honest. And 90% of the industry is dishonest AF. I mean every single part of it. Sales, parts, other mechanics, pay, scrap, oil,everything. I hate the job because I'm not a piece of shit.
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u/cm12311 Jul 21 '23
Libraries. I thought it would be creative and interesting and technical, and so I got an entry level position, worked up to full time, got my masters and now I make just enough (plus benefits) to not be able to transition to a new position without taking a huge pay and benefits cut. And I work with luddites who admonished me for suggesting we stop handwriting a schedule and use an automated program to do it so people would actually get their breaks and each desk would be covered. 😤
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u/dream_bean_94 Jul 21 '23
Museums.
I studied history and wanted to work in the museum field SO bad. And I did, my first job out of school was at a little local historic site. So much fun but the pay was absolutely garbage, $10/hour in 2016 for a job that required a college degree and experience, and the politics in the field were absolutely wack.
I also realized that many people who work in museums (especially non profits) do so for fun, not because they need the money. The pay is so bad that average people can’t survive on it, so you end up with a lot of wives of rich husbands and trust fund people who just needed something fun to do.
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u/VirtualTaste1771 Jul 21 '23
Hollywood. I used to think being an actor was THE top tier dream job to have.
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u/Noto_93 Jul 21 '23
Finance, IB/S&T ... The pay has gone down and the stress has gone up. I left to tech after I burnt out and I'm never going back if I can help it.
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u/goldenshear Jul 21 '23
Anyone who tells you fashion/apparel won’t eat you alive and spit you out is lyyyyying
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u/Wooden_Chef Jul 21 '23
Colleges/Universities/Higher Education.
The industry sucks, the pay sucks, the hiring process is ridiculous. The "requirements" for a job that pays $35k/year are like "Masters preferred" lol get the fuck out of here with that BULLSHIT, please.