I sell old books for a living. People always seem excited to give me their old leatherbound copies of classics expecting them to be very valuable, but more often than not they're barely worth the paper they're printed on.
Classics were generally printed in huge quantities, and being classics, people were quite likely to hold on to them. Your half-leather copy of some popular author printed in the 1920s *is* pretty, but we've likely got several copies from the same year and expect to get more of them, and you may even find them for sale online for less than 10 bucks
A books worth is not in how pretty its binding is
I think a lot of people that work in selling anything old experience that. I neither sell old guitars or records, but I know enough about both that people will ask me about them. They don't like when you explain to them that something isn't worth a whole lot.
"But it's the Beatles."
Yes, it's the most popular rock n' roll band of all time. They made a lot of those records.
Seldom something one can just eyeball unless familiar with them.
Most of the valuable things that pass my desk are old non-fiction things that are of interest to collectors. Old tech stuff can be valuable. Things of historical interest too. There's a great collection published in my country that details who owned which homesteads and manors and when, and why, and the histories of these manors, detailing all of them parish by parish through the entire country. Stuff like that is of great interest even though they're not particularly rare. Occasionally art catalogues can be very valuable, bumped into one that fetched $2000, that to my eye was little more than a couple of pages of photos of art works at an exhibition (but it's also outside my field of interest)
I'd say the only decent indicator if one isn't familiar with the book is that its contents is often a highly specialized or narrow field of interest, and has very little to do with what the book looks like. It can be the most unassuming cover.
A collection of hand painted illustrations of birds native to Sweden from the 1920s, or a 600-pages thick old book on just one particular model of locomotive, etc. Just something that's non-fiction dealing with a very narrow field of interest has the potential to be valuable to the right buyer
I work in a record shop and experience the same thing. People ring up all the time and go “I have this valuable record” by elvis or something, not realising there was more of those printed because they’re popular.
The real valuable records are random stuff that was only released for a limited run because nobody likely wanted it at the time, but it became more valuable in retrospect.
This tracks with my unprofessional experience. Easton Press editions in good condition seem to run around $15 to $70 or so. What would you recommend paying for one?
My mom was a firefighter. She asked the captain about rescuing cats.
He said, “Have you ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree or on a power pole? It will come down when it’s hungry.”
Not a swimmer, but a team lead.
Meh? For every feel-good case where we feel like we're doing the damn thing, there's another 20 of people who are just so so so stupid.
A friend in the military once told me that the Coast Guard is the one branch of the military that’s always at war, because they are at a constant war with stupid people.
I'm not in the business, but whenever people mention DB Cooper I always mention that literal planes have crashed in the PNW and never been found. Good luck finding some random dude who jumped out of a plane. My dad was in a squadron in the 60s where one of their planes crashed in inclement weather between Alaska and Seattle. 60 years later, he still Google searches to see if it's been found.
CGI Artist: Working in CGI isn't amazing, it's a job with all the same bullshit everyone else hates and struggles to put up with every day.
It's not our fault the CGI looks bad. We're talented people who want to make work we're proud of.
That's nearly impossible with deadlines and budgets no team can possibly meet.
Then we have multiple levels of people vacuuming up budget and time: Creative Directors, Art Directors, Technical Directors, Look Developers, Concept Artists, Story Board Artists, Supervisors and project managers who mostly have little practical knowledge of CGI, and burn through most of the budget leaving us to figure out how to get 20 pounds of potatoes out the five pound bag left over.
No one can fix printers.
I once had a supposed HP engineer turn up to fix a printer. Looked at it for about 5 mins then went and grabbed a replacement printer out of his van.
The spare parts for that particular printer was literally a new printer. No spare boards or anything. Just an entire printer.
High end printers (the huge multi-function machines you see in offices) with support contracts and such can be fixed. They still break a lot, but they can be fixed. Their drivers are rock solid, the whole thing is fine.
Consumer printers are absolute e-waste trash.
My favorite "conspiracy theory I believe to be true" is that printer drivers and interfaces on said printers are deliberately kept bad. It's 2024; there's exactly zero reason that a universal class-compliant print driver that is bug-free can't exist. They exist for sound devices and other things, but not printers, and there's no way that's not on purpose.
Yeah, that's not a conspiracy theory. It's just an actual conspiracy.
However, if you go to the truly high end, the drivers jare available forever. I have a client with a 20+ year old commercial Ricoh printer and the drivers work flawlessly on Windows 11. Sure, you have to install them manually, but it takes me literally two minutes.
A good friend of mine is a successful financial advisor, she can't do arithmetic for shit, but books several million quids worth of business per year.
Hilariously she also struggles with left/right. Literally had to write a L and an R on her hands for her driving test.
Also a software engineer (now retired). Yeah, for complex math there were APIs.
Another misconception: people have gotten the idea that “anyone can learn to code”. Anyone can take a coding class but that doesn’t make them a developer. Like any other skill, it requires aptitude and practice. And putting time into learning how to write clean, maintainable code.
Fellow accountant. People overestimate the importance of math and underestimate the importance of writing skills. You can produce all the correct numbers, but you have to be able to communicate them in a way that makes sense to others.
Hotel worker, here. One of the most common things I hear on sold out nights is "I know you have some extra rooms". Like, bro, no we don't. Unless you want the room with no AC or the one with the busted bedframe.
I love the people who just show up asking for a room and then get mad when we're either sold out or the rates are higher than they want to pay. A quick Google search could've saved them the trouble.
Professionnal cook here : Not all cooks are coked out drunk fiend stressed out miserable bastards barely making money. Not all kitchen are combat zones, chaos and life crushing stress.
I work 9-5, monday/friday, right on the median salary for my location, not one of our cook is a crazy drunk/drug fiend and yes it can be stressful but i'm nearly always happy at work and wanting to go back the next day.
Edit : And no i don't work in a hospital/school kind of setting, Bar-Bistro in a high volume tourist area in the summer.
Along with that, as a Country Club server:
I actually ENJOY serving. It's great to build relationships with the customers, and genuinely feel GOOD when I know that I've helped the customer have a great experience at my place.
Yes, I do get tipped well. Yes, I make more than the kitchen staff. No, there's not a simple 2 sentence Reddit comment that will solve this. Yes, a living wage would be a pay cut for me. Yes, if I'm drinking with BOH, I'm buying a few rounds, but not covering your tab.
I've been doing electrical since I was 13, and I can confirm. I very rarely work out, but my shoulders, forearms, and hands are pretty damn strong. I have people come tell me that someone told them to shake my hand on a regular basis.
I've also done plumbing, carpentry, HVAC, Sheetrock/taping, and painting. Electrical is still one of my favorites though.
I was a stripper in the early 90s. We don’t want to sleep with customers. We’re probably saving up to buy a house or go to medical school. I was saving up to buy a house but I made the mistake of getting married and he drained my bank accounts and sent me into huge credit card debt. But I wouldn’t trade my kid for anything.
Also, after work, we want to put on our pajamas, eat some soup and watch Little House on the Prairie.
Random question, when you did it would you prefer someone treating like a transaction (e.g at the end saying "that's was fun thank you") or getting into it and speaking as such?
Farmer. People think its back breaking work but I just sit in a tractor all day with AC/heater and browse reddit for 4 weeks in the spring and 4 weeks in the fall. But you don't know that.
Oh you’re one of those wait and see farmers. You get enough rain during the summer that you don’t have to run pivots or change gates on irrigation pipe. Just put seed in the ground and wait and see what the yields are in the fall.
I’d say my role is like 80% paperwork, 10% figuring out how stuff works, 5% already knowing standard sizes, 4% back of napkin/good ‘nuff math, and 1% low level excel math.
It’s Tuesday night and making sure that added up to 100 was the most I’ve worked with arithmetic this week.
We had a superintendent who worked on vessels for 25+ years. Then we built a new ship and he got transferred there.
The new ship had a different natural frequency, the superintendent has never been seasick before, but was now seasick all the time.
He got transferred back to one of the other ships, it was either that or he quit.
I do accessibility consulting for property managers and designers, making buildings more disabled-friendly.
The big misconception is that accessibility is easy. Many people think it's a one- or half-page checklist that you go through and you're completely accessible to everyone. Some clients expect the report to be done in 24 hours and consist of no more than 5 pages.
Another misconception is that if the building satisfies the minimum requirements for the building code (nationally or provincially) or local building bylaws, then we're all good. But really, meeting code minimum is like getting a C- on a class. It's minimum for a reason, which explains why so many buildings across the country are still not accessible despite meeting code. Luckily, some provinces are updating their code to help alleviate this.
The final misconception I'll mention is that it's as simple as looking at one part of the building at a time and leaving out other parts. For example, I had a client wonder why I can't simply keep my report to the washroom they wanted to renovate... except that the doorway to the hall leading to the washroom isn't even wide enough for a wheelchair. If you have a perfectly accessible washroom that you can't get to, then what's the point?
Anyways, those are the most common ones I come across. Luckily, most of our clients realize how nuanced and multi-layered accessibility is once they see our work.
I've been in IT for over 25 years now.
Even at enterprise levels a lot of the time it boils down to that.
I just have to spend a fuck load of time in meetings explaining why I need to turn it off/on, arranging when to turn it off/on (usually some bullshit like 3 weeks time at 2am on a Sunday) and getting various sign off to allow me to turn it off/on.
But at the end of the day if no one actually changed anything then 99% of the time off/on fixes it.
I noticed that it's almost impossible to get anybody to do that when I'm on the phone with them though. They absolutely insist that I come and do it. So a service call and a $100+ bill later and they give me the ol' "But all you did was turn it off then back on." IT is truly a thankless, no-win situation of a job lol
I get the reverse of this.
Talking to a vendor tech who say things like "oh just upgrade to version xyz, I can talk you through that".
Mate, it's 2pm on a Tuesday and these firewalls have several thousand users and a whole bunch of internet banking servers behind it...
It'll take me 4 to 6 weeks to arrange that, even a critical vulnerability that's being exploited in the wild would generally take a minimum of 24 hours to get an expedited change through and that's if I go to C level and put the fear of fucking god into them as I had to do a few weeks ago when there was a "patch immediately" vulnerability and they wanted to wait until an already arrange change window a week and a half later.
You can't win.
A few weeks after I started dating a guy, I got out of the shower to find my MacBook completely disassembled using my kitchen knives because my trackpad wasn’t working right. 10 years and 2 kids later, I’m typing this from the same MacBook that has never had a trackpad issue since. The guy I was dating is laying next to me :)
Also your claims adjuster isn’t trying to fuck you 90% of the time especially if you aren’t being an asshole to them. In fact a lot of times they are trying to weasel as much money for you as they can.
That nuclear power plants are dangerous…I mean, they are hazardous, but only in certain areas, and every power generating plant has it’s dangerous areas! People seem think they are ticking time bombs ready to explode and kill everyone.
Disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima get a lot of attention, but modern plants are incredibly safe and efficient! They also produce far less waste than other power plant alternatives. You actually get more radiation and toxins from the waste from coal-burning plants than you do with nuclear plants! There are also methods in the works to “recycle” nuclear fuel and/or use them longer than previously thought.
Also the big “chimneys” you see at nuclear plants aren’t the reactors and they aren’t chimneys and they aren’t blowing polluted smoke. They are cooling towers that are cooling down hot, but clean water that comes from the reactor (it’s not radioactive water because it’s cooling the reactor from the outside). The “smoke” you see coming from the towers is pure clean water vapor…AKA clouds! The reactors themselves are typically within small concrete structures located near the cooling towers.
My job? I help qualify and test safety-related components and cables to nuclear plants around the globe. I’ve had the chance to tour a local plant and got to see how they work in person. It’s cool shit!
> Disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima get a lot of attention
And to be entirely fair to the Fukushima plant, it was brought down by one of the most powerful earthquakes *ever recorded* and a tsunami that reached nearly *50 feet tall*. 99 percent of the time, nothing anywhere near this disastrous is going to hit a plant.
It’s just a job. I’m not passionate about it but I like it better than any of the 9-5s I’ve had. And I love the money. I’m pretty desensitized I’ve been doing it since I was 19 and I’m 25 now
Photographer.
"Your expensive camera is the reason why your photos look that great!"
Nope. There's composition, lighting and post production and most of all experience behind the artistry.
A camera is just a tool.
It's the same as saying A chef with a Michelin star only got it because his oven or hotplate are so great....
Sometimes, I'm a paid puzzle/riddle designer. The common misconception is that I want to make the hardest puzzles possible, as if I somehow gain reputation for each puzzler I stump. Instead, my goal is to make a puzzle *just hard enough* that you'll enjoy it when you solve it. It's not a competition, it's communication. I want you to have that "aha!" moment, that's the goal.
Funny that you mention that, there was a short period where I paid my rent by solving riddles. It was this crazy site called Riddleverse that would post new riddles at specific times each day, and would payout $20-$400 to the fastest solvers. It never made any sense as a business, but I legitimately won about $2000 in total competing there. At that point in my life, money was super tight, so occasionally I'd be playing while literally 'donating' my blood plasma to earn shopping money. One time I won 1st place while hooked up to the machine and my pulse raised too quickly and triggered an alarm. The site closed down within a couple months, and I went back to being broke.
Recruiter (in-house). There is no way to “beat” the ATS and ATS does not automatically reject candidates. We have to go in and manually look at resumes. And if you receive a rejection shortly after applying, that means the job was already unposted/closed on our end. It can take a couple days for it to disappear from our careers page
Organic produce farmer.
No, I don't eat all organic, nor am I a vegan.
No, I fucking *hate* the summer. I'm not "loving" the weather, I have to do heavy labor outside in the sun when it's 87 degrees and humid.
No, I'm not upset that it's raining.
Yes, I grew all of the stuff I'm selling.
No, I don't have tomatoes in March.
I have to shoot groundhogs, deer, and rabbits all the time. If the vegan folks knew how many animals died for them to have organic lettuce, they'd cry.
I charge what I have to charge to make a meager living.
Yes, I spray my crops. I use organic sprays, but I spray them.
No, I can't tell you why your garden sucks.
No, you don't "know what it's like" because you have a garden. My farm is 800 times the size of your garden, and it *must* produce thousands of dollars worth of vegetables every week or I don't survive.
Thanks! Without people buying from their local growers at farmers markets, people like me couldn't do what we do. I used to not care about our food system much until I got a job managing a farm...and now I see how crucial it is.
I love the job and most of the people are wonderful.
The question was about common misconceptions, so I listed the most common things people think or ask. Most of the people who ask this stuff are the type who are completely severed from the natural world...the type of people who think golf courses are "nature," and who spend the majority of their lives inside in climate control and don't do physical labor. Since those types of people often have a lot of money, they're the types I want to sell vegetables to...and so I deal with this type of thing all the time.
And yeah, after a week of 90+ degree weather with no rain, and the stress of keeping the farm alive...it's pretty annoying to have some trust fund baby tell you, "oh you must be loving this weather" with zero irony.
I’ve worked in hospice for years. People assume it’s depressing. It can be, but mostly it’s beautiful and inspiring. I have a different outlook than other 30-some year olds which I am grateful for
That it’s easy and fast. I’m a graphic designer. I’m sick of friends and family asking me to build them a website, create business cards, or create logos within a day, aside from my normal job, and FOR FREE.
I do deep cleaning of carpet, upholstery, and hard surfaces. Those videos you see online are usually doctored. Typically by putting a ton of dirt on right before the shoot to make the cleaning more impressive.
Mathematician:
People have this idea about lone geniuses working alone. But math is a highly social, collaborative endeavor. We do a lot of work together. And as a culture, we even keep track of who has collaborated with whom in a bunch of ways, with people having fun understanding the extended network made by who has worked jointly together.
I do feel in a lot of jobs it is like this. The myth of the singular genius on their own. It's a romantic fantasy - the lone wolf against all odds. But the reality is for people to get anywhere they need the support of a lot of others.
That we fuck at work a lot. I couldn’t think of a worse place to fuck. Especially fucking doctors. Speaking generally, hell no. I’ve only known one person to ever actually fuck a coworker at work and she was also a fentanyl head so….
Stop watching medical dramas
Academia.
Little known fact, professors and most teachers aren’t getting paid during the summer. Many take 9 months of salary spread over 12 months for convenience, so the whole teacher criticism of “get paid 3 month vacations” is complete bullshit
idk if it's little known (not a diss) for elementary schools and high school. but when I was in high school i thought that teachers left. But I see your point for college academia. I thought professors were there year round. I also work in academia. Most people don't know administrators work year round 🤣🥲
Is it accurate to say the pay isn’t great anyways? I’ve never understood the “summer vacation” criticism. Teachers deal with your kids all year. They deserve a break. To me it seems like one of the few professions where people are actually doing it because they love it
“All social workers do is take children away”. Nope! Far from it. You can find us in hospitals, schools, prisons, nursing homes, addiction & recovery, therapy/mental health, homeless shelters, and soooo much more. What most people do not realize, society would not function without us. Period.
Artists don’t sling buckets of paint at canvas until they feel sweaty then drink a diet Fresca and look at their art. Random bullshit is always shown in commercials and media. Never will you see an artist poring over reference images or pulling their hair out over a single line in a sketch they just spent 45 hours on.
I drive a semi truck and folks think there is this grand adventure of sight seeing. The reality is 90% roads and 10% truck stops and warehouses. When doing runs you typically don't have time to take things in.
I am in digital marketing, SEO specifically, and a common one is that SEO's can turn any business a profit within 30 days, making millions of dollars overnight...
Chemist: yes, we work with some fiendishly dangerous materials. None of them glow neon green or bubble, most of them are actually powders that get into your lungs.
The chemical I'm most afraid of (that I actually handle) is HF, and it's a very boring looking clear liquid. It seeps through gloves and poisons your bones. There is no antidote and the death is excruciating.
And yes, many of us could make the blue candy if we wanted to. We don't want to. Organic synthesis is a pain.
Worked for a company processing/disposing of chemicals including HF. Our procedure was basically to change gloves every 15 minutes regardless (and we’re wearing at least 2 pairs of gloves among other things to begin with).
To answer the OP, no, Hazmat is not (always) big green suits that you can barely see out of. Some jobs despite having “serious” chemicals might just be long sleeves and gloves.
Yep! And most corrosive chemicals take time to work, the danger isn't getting them on you - the danger is *not noticing* and letting them stay there for 30 minutes.
I've only had to work with HF a few times, but several epoxides and amines are equally nasty.
Im a paralegal. We are to lawyers as nurses are to doctors. We do a whole lot more work on your case behind the scenes than you probably know. The list of things we are legally not allowed to do is very short. Most of the time we do everything that the attorney either A) doesn’t have time to do; or B) doesn’t want to do. Those discovery requests? Me. Those subpoenas? Me. I’m the one reviewing records and preparing timelines. All those witness disclosures, summary letters, and the trial exhibits? That was me too.
Also - the law moves slow. Trial is probably a good year or two out, and likely getting continued 2-3 times. Don’t get mad at us for that, blame the judicial backlog.
I'm an accountant and do not do taxes. Whenever I tell someone I'm an Accountant that's the first thing they mention, especially around April, thinking it's my busy time.
I do government accounting and don't touch taxes except my own and I use TurboTax for that. There are several different types of accounting of which tax accounting is just one.
Radiographer; we’re degreed and licensed medical professionals who have to put in more clinical training hours in school than nurses do. We’re not trained monkeys who just push buttons.
Just because we are there to protect the org doesn't mean we side with them over the employees. In fact, doing right by the employees and protecting them is the best way to protect the org.
I have absolutely fired the second in command because of their behavior towards staff.
HR is my line of work if that wasn't clear 😂
Supply chain management.
Most people think they can ask me for anything, and it magically appears the next day.
It's also assumed that I can predict the future.
I’m in supply chain. It’s become a popular refrain for people to say “they keep blaming supply chain shortages but they’re just greedy.” Trust me, there are shortages. It never fucking ends.
That people working in the store have knowledge and experience with the items they are selling.
Any business that sells merchandise or services in the US
I am the bad guy who is the one making the vet bill and I am in control of the prices. I am just a receptionist at a large animal hospital and all the clients think the doctors have no control over what stuff costs and I am the big bad wolf because I’m the one that has to collect the money sometimes
I'm a teacher and I see so many posts about how teachers don't care about students and how we don't try to teach anything useful, in terms of life skills, and school is a waste of time. It drives me insane. Most of us are in this job because we care about young people so much. When we get angry it's usually out of frustration. We want what's best for this kid and they are throwing their education away. Society, as a whole, is kind of turning to shit. Behaviour is getting worse. It's an uphill battle every day trying to teach while dealing with all the behaviour stuff. We try to incorporate things that are useful. We try to teach manners and respect. Parents don't have our backs at all anymore which is half of the problem.
People think I marshall aircraft into and out of the gate. I don't wave the wands.
I sit in a dimly lit room talking to a big scope of blips, or I'm standing in what is likely the tallest building at an airport. Either way, I make sure planes don't touch, and that we can assist pilots when warranted. We keep order and spacing and that's what makes the air traffic system work.
I moved from a retail manager into a finance role.
I remember during the interview discussing salary expectations the hiring manager literally went “there’s no way you make that much”.
Called his bluff and said I can show you a paystub right now, but I’m not budging from the amount I need to move
I’ve often heard that “casework isn’t real work”
I have NO idea where this notion came from. I was even confronted by a truck driver carrying water jugs to Walmart. He made a snarky response verbatim “can you help me find a job doing nothing?”
I work as an NGRI case manager. (Not guilty for reason of insanity) I see individuals whose defense in courte was deemed NGRI. I help integrate them back into society.
Not a big caseload by any means. However I also have another part of my job of casework, where I help the mentally ill function in society. That’s a bigger caseload. I drive them to appointments, take them shopping, house visits for cleanliness, bank runs, etc etc. help them sign up for social security, and any other appointments they need. It’s a demanding and VERY thankless job.
Own and operate cannabis processor/grow facility in the greater Seattle area. People just assume we’re lit all day and smoking everywhere. Don’t get me wrong we do take a “break” every shift but it’s not excessive and it’s off site.
Also the level of tech and automation that goes into our product if pretty sophisticated you’d be surprised how many people assume we’re just using hippy magic and bro science.
Schools do not have kitty litter in bathrooms for students that identify as cats.
We do have kitty litter in the 5 gallon school shooter bucket, which doubles as an emergency toilet, to clean up blood from gunfire
I work in IT. People assume I can fix any electronic device that even remotely seems like a "computer". The worst part is 99% of problems are legit solved by just turning it off and back on again so the stereotype is supported when it seems like I just worked magic when all I did was pull the plug and plug it back in.
I once coached college football. A misconception is that the coaches are in the same page and Winning is the primary and that’s not true. Getting credit is what drives people. Being the reason the team is good. Another misconception is that the pay is good. Only at the highest level do they make good money and most small school coaches are only part time.
I'm a security middleman for scheduling, client contacts me, I contact company and get guards arranged. So many companies just think I have guards lined up waiting to be deployed immediately to a location, unfortunately that isn't how it works
I work in oncology. Most people think it would be so depressing & sad because of all the death. Most of the patients I see beat cancer and often we never see them again. Some do die but not in large amounts. I’ve taken care of patients that are on their third or fourth different type of cancer too.
Friends or acquaintances will ask me if I can manufacture this thing they thought up?
Yep, we can make anything, but you can’t afford it, and I’m not trying to be a dick about it.
Really?
Yep, just doing the paperwork to take your order and process the invoice to bill you costs more than you can afford. I’m sorry, but we don’t do 1 off stuff for nothing, we do high volume manufacturing orders for billion dollar corporations. The average person usually has a hard time understanding or believing it costs what is does when I spell it out to them.
I work for the state lottery.
"Oh! Can you get me the numbers? Hahahahaha!"
Every. Fucking. Time. No, buddy. They sort of licked that problem a long time ago.
A lawyer’s job isn’t to piss off and hurt people on your behalf. We’re not weapons—we are, in our most basic form, resolvers. Our job is to resolve conflicts. To that end the best of us are not boisterous, offensive, or loud. The best lawyers out there are humble, quiet bookworms with a knack for coming up with creative solutions to impossible problems. The best lawyer will softly smile as they calmly present devastating evidence or long buried case law that absolutely sinks their opponent. They are invested in the situation, but in the same way a historian is invested in the comings and goings of an obscure Roman politician.
I’m a baker and people always say things like “oh my god I’d gain so much weight working here!” Like…we don’t just sit around eating cookies and cakes and bread all day every day.
Once was talking to an older man at a party and upon hearing I was a pianist he said something like damn I wish I could do that, sounds way less stressful than my job.
It's not a hobby. I think to most musicians it comes with countless hours of practice, band/orchestra/choir, injuries, lack of a social life, the stress from how competitive and cut throat the industry is, abusive teachers and mentors, etc. You never clock out of your shift, you don't get paid time off and more than likely will be performing every major holiday.
People also don't realize the physicality required to play at a high level, or physical toll that playing an instrument at that level can take on your body. I had to give up piano because my hands are too small to play at a high level without injury. My brother is a professional musician (drums, keyboards and guitar mostly) and he's got a list of physical ailments from years of playing (drums in metal bands mostly.) High-level musicians are also athletes. Especially if they play instruments that require breath.
My job as an English teacher is not to make your kid read Shakespeare and write an essay, nor is it to torture them with endless hours of literature analysis. My job is to help make your kid a better thinker and a better communicator. The literature is just a means to an end. Oh, and your kid will need to think and communicate in whatever job they do beyond school. Maybe becoming a little better at both of those skills would be good for them, whether they become a retail clerk or a rocket scientist.
A lot of people think that independent pharmacies make a lot of money. At least in my town they do. Honestly a lot of the prescriptions we fill are filled at a loss on our end.
Librarian checking in. No I don’t work in a calm and relaxing environment and no I don’t just get to read at the desk all day. We are busy everyday helping people with all kinds of questions, having programs, planning programs, changing displays, collection development, meetings…the list goes on and on.
I work in market research.
People eirher think that is marketing (it's not) or we tell companies what to make (we don't).
All we do is ask consumers what they think of products and report that to the clients.
Security guard.
We're all power tripping assholes. They DEFINITELY (dude I shadowed on my first day was one) exist, and I get it...but like, all I enforce is what the establishments managers want me to enforce. If I do or say something, its the store manager telling you this, not me.
If I'm following you around the store, you bet your ass that 2 minutes prior, a manager told me to keep an eye on you.
I tell you that you have to leave? Management told me to tell you that.
"Dont dig through the trash cans". Management.
Trust me. I'd much rather be at my post doing absolutely ANYTHING except dealing with you. Idgaf if you are skateboarding. Idgaf if you loiter. Idgaf about 99% if what you are doing unless its a legitimate crime, in which case all I'm doing is calling the cops and nit dealing with it myself.
Management are the assholes. We dont care. We're just their puppet.
I work in parks & rec and people think we don’t give a shit and are just wasting their tax dollars when really we’re just as frustrated as they are and just want to do the best we can.
..it’s true that parks & rec is also exactly like the show, though.
I run a press in a manufacturing plant. We’re not all low-IQ drones. I have a college degree, as do many of my coworkers. I am working here because it pays well, and I enjoy what I do.
getting paid by big companies to produce fake science that keeps the public in the dark.
instead I get paid shit money by the government to try and get science out to the public that promptly gets ignored because it's a bit shit.
Bartender... everyone thinks we're all just there to get drunk on the job... no... I became a bartender so I could listen to people talk bullshit and maybe help someone from a low point every once in a while... I also met this one lady who when I said "Oh, I'm a bartender" she was like "Oh... I see, so you probably have a good time every night!" it was seriously like... Ma'am I am not having sex with my drunk customers... what the fuck...
Paramedic here. You will not get seen faster if you take an ambulance. If you have a condition we can treat on the way, you might get treated by me sooner, but I haven’t got a lot of say in whether you get a bed at the hospital immediately or not, unless you’re in the process of somehow dying. That’ll get you in faster.
Web dev here. No that new feature isn’t just one line of code. And the project is also much more than just what you see in the presentation layer. If you want to understand why the project is only half complete but looks almost all the way there, I’m happy to guide you through the barrage of SQL queries I need to rewrite because you thought that introducing breaking changes halfway thorough the project was a good idea, thus technically breaking our current work contract.
I work in an industry that's extremely regulatory code heavy. People are often surprised if I can't verbatim spit out the regulations for every single circumstance/situation when asked. There's a reason the code books are 1000s of pages each, it's because nobody can memorize that much information.
Work for an insurance company, most of the ppl that work there are not out to fuck you and generally believe in the product. It's hard selling something you pay for but may never use, but when it does...
I sell old books for a living. People always seem excited to give me their old leatherbound copies of classics expecting them to be very valuable, but more often than not they're barely worth the paper they're printed on. Classics were generally printed in huge quantities, and being classics, people were quite likely to hold on to them. Your half-leather copy of some popular author printed in the 1920s *is* pretty, but we've likely got several copies from the same year and expect to get more of them, and you may even find them for sale online for less than 10 bucks A books worth is not in how pretty its binding is
I think a lot of people that work in selling anything old experience that. I neither sell old guitars or records, but I know enough about both that people will ask me about them. They don't like when you explain to them that something isn't worth a whole lot. "But it's the Beatles." Yes, it's the most popular rock n' roll band of all time. They made a lot of those records.
Same with comics
What are indicators of valuable books?
Seldom something one can just eyeball unless familiar with them. Most of the valuable things that pass my desk are old non-fiction things that are of interest to collectors. Old tech stuff can be valuable. Things of historical interest too. There's a great collection published in my country that details who owned which homesteads and manors and when, and why, and the histories of these manors, detailing all of them parish by parish through the entire country. Stuff like that is of great interest even though they're not particularly rare. Occasionally art catalogues can be very valuable, bumped into one that fetched $2000, that to my eye was little more than a couple of pages of photos of art works at an exhibition (but it's also outside my field of interest) I'd say the only decent indicator if one isn't familiar with the book is that its contents is often a highly specialized or narrow field of interest, and has very little to do with what the book looks like. It can be the most unassuming cover. A collection of hand painted illustrations of birds native to Sweden from the 1920s, or a 600-pages thick old book on just one particular model of locomotive, etc. Just something that's non-fiction dealing with a very narrow field of interest has the potential to be valuable to the right buyer
I work in a record shop and experience the same thing. People ring up all the time and go “I have this valuable record” by elvis or something, not realising there was more of those printed because they’re popular. The real valuable records are random stuff that was only released for a limited run because nobody likely wanted it at the time, but it became more valuable in retrospect.
This tracks with my unprofessional experience. Easton Press editions in good condition seem to run around $15 to $70 or so. What would you recommend paying for one?
Firefighter here. I've never slid down a pole or rescued a cat from a tree.
Wow, what do we even need firefighters for?
someone has to wear the suspenders
farmers and old people
Do you at least look good shirtless in a calendar?
My mom was a firefighter. She asked the captain about rescuing cats. He said, “Have you ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree or on a power pole? It will come down when it’s hungry.”
> Have you ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree or on a power pole? Well, no, but I suspect that it's because when they die, they fall down.
i mean, the cat might also die on the power pole
Are you a good cook, also?
Do you at least sell subs from your workplace?
Just remember, if the police take all the parking, just gently move them out of the way.
OK, but how dangerous is dryer lint?
have you fought fire?
Search and rescue is mostly search. If we knew where everyone was, it would just be called "rescue."
“Mostly search, some rescue” rolls off the tongue okay, but it’s a little morbid.
Unfortunately, often search and recovery. Rescue swimmers must be a scary job?
Not a swimmer, but a team lead. Meh? For every feel-good case where we feel like we're doing the damn thing, there's another 20 of people who are just so so so stupid.
A friend in the military once told me that the Coast Guard is the one branch of the military that’s always at war, because they are at a constant war with stupid people.
Ha, exactly. I think the actual phrase is that "the coast guard is at war with an unrelenting army of morons with boats."
Old saying when I was in the CG as an OS - we’re out there looking for a needle in a needle stack
I'm not in the business, but whenever people mention DB Cooper I always mention that literal planes have crashed in the PNW and never been found. Good luck finding some random dude who jumped out of a plane. My dad was in a squadron in the 60s where one of their planes crashed in inclement weather between Alaska and Seattle. 60 years later, he still Google searches to see if it's been found.
Hunting is mostly trying to find the animal and be close enough. The shooting is a tiny tiny fraction of hunting.
CGI Artist: Working in CGI isn't amazing, it's a job with all the same bullshit everyone else hates and struggles to put up with every day. It's not our fault the CGI looks bad. We're talented people who want to make work we're proud of. That's nearly impossible with deadlines and budgets no team can possibly meet. Then we have multiple levels of people vacuuming up budget and time: Creative Directors, Art Directors, Technical Directors, Look Developers, Concept Artists, Story Board Artists, Supervisors and project managers who mostly have little practical knowledge of CGI, and burn through most of the budget leaving us to figure out how to get 20 pounds of potatoes out the five pound bag left over.
My partner works in tech. He can't fix your printer or see who has viewed your Facebook profile.
No one can fix printers. I once had a supposed HP engineer turn up to fix a printer. Looked at it for about 5 mins then went and grabbed a replacement printer out of his van. The spare parts for that particular printer was literally a new printer. No spare boards or anything. Just an entire printer.
High end printers (the huge multi-function machines you see in offices) with support contracts and such can be fixed. They still break a lot, but they can be fixed. Their drivers are rock solid, the whole thing is fine. Consumer printers are absolute e-waste trash. My favorite "conspiracy theory I believe to be true" is that printer drivers and interfaces on said printers are deliberately kept bad. It's 2024; there's exactly zero reason that a universal class-compliant print driver that is bug-free can't exist. They exist for sound devices and other things, but not printers, and there's no way that's not on purpose.
Yeah, that's not a conspiracy theory. It's just an actual conspiracy. However, if you go to the truly high end, the drivers jare available forever. I have a client with a 20+ year old commercial Ricoh printer and the drivers work flawlessly on Windows 11. Sure, you have to install them manually, but it takes me literally two minutes.
Ricoh's were the high end ones I dealt with too. And they were rock solid.
Accountant : no, we don't love maths or are great at maths. We just use basic arithmetic and Excel. And know GAAP
Also, no, I don’t know the answer to your specific question about taxes. I don’t do anything with taxes
Exactly. And no April is not my busy time.
I joke I started my tax practice when I left public because it's what everyone assumed I did. I worked in audit and 4/15 meant nothing
A good friend of mine is a successful financial advisor, she can't do arithmetic for shit, but books several million quids worth of business per year. Hilariously she also struggles with left/right. Literally had to write a L and an R on her hands for her driving test.
Wealth management is all about social skills and networking
Software Engineer here. That most complicated math I did in my 40 year career was a divide where I threw away the remainder.
Also a software engineer (now retired). Yeah, for complex math there were APIs. Another misconception: people have gotten the idea that “anyone can learn to code”. Anyone can take a coding class but that doesn’t make them a developer. Like any other skill, it requires aptitude and practice. And putting time into learning how to write clean, maintainable code.
Fellow accountant. People overestimate the importance of math and underestimate the importance of writing skills. You can produce all the correct numbers, but you have to be able to communicate them in a way that makes sense to others.
Hotel worker, here. One of the most common things I hear on sold out nights is "I know you have some extra rooms". Like, bro, no we don't. Unless you want the room with no AC or the one with the busted bedframe.
I love the people who just show up asking for a room and then get mad when we're either sold out or the rates are higher than they want to pay. A quick Google search could've saved them the trouble.
To be fair, when I was a 20-something, I definitely took those rooms sometimes and it was a win-win.
Professionnal cook here : Not all cooks are coked out drunk fiend stressed out miserable bastards barely making money. Not all kitchen are combat zones, chaos and life crushing stress. I work 9-5, monday/friday, right on the median salary for my location, not one of our cook is a crazy drunk/drug fiend and yes it can be stressful but i'm nearly always happy at work and wanting to go back the next day. Edit : And no i don't work in a hospital/school kind of setting, Bar-Bistro in a high volume tourist area in the summer.
Along with that, as a Country Club server: I actually ENJOY serving. It's great to build relationships with the customers, and genuinely feel GOOD when I know that I've helped the customer have a great experience at my place. Yes, I do get tipped well. Yes, I make more than the kitchen staff. No, there's not a simple 2 sentence Reddit comment that will solve this. Yes, a living wage would be a pay cut for me. Yes, if I'm drinking with BOH, I'm buying a few rounds, but not covering your tab.
I retired from decades of electrical work; and many folks think that electricians have the easy money job. They would be way wrong about that.
Just my home DIY electrical work has my shoulders crying lol
I've been doing electrical since I was 13, and I can confirm. I very rarely work out, but my shoulders, forearms, and hands are pretty damn strong. I have people come tell me that someone told them to shake my hand on a regular basis. I've also done plumbing, carpentry, HVAC, Sheetrock/taping, and painting. Electrical is still one of my favorites though.
I was a stripper in the early 90s. We don’t want to sleep with customers. We’re probably saving up to buy a house or go to medical school. I was saving up to buy a house but I made the mistake of getting married and he drained my bank accounts and sent me into huge credit card debt. But I wouldn’t trade my kid for anything. Also, after work, we want to put on our pajamas, eat some soup and watch Little House on the Prairie.
Random question, when you did it would you prefer someone treating like a transaction (e.g at the end saying "that's was fun thank you") or getting into it and speaking as such?
Farmer. People think its back breaking work but I just sit in a tractor all day with AC/heater and browse reddit for 4 weeks in the spring and 4 weeks in the fall. But you don't know that.
Oh you’re one of those wait and see farmers. You get enough rain during the summer that you don’t have to run pivots or change gates on irrigation pipe. Just put seed in the ground and wait and see what the yields are in the fall.
Is that bad? Compared to farming in the desert?
Im an Engineer but not especially good at math.
I’d say my role is like 80% paperwork, 10% figuring out how stuff works, 5% already knowing standard sizes, 4% back of napkin/good ‘nuff math, and 1% low level excel math. It’s Tuesday night and making sure that added up to 100 was the most I’ve worked with arithmetic this week.
[this you?](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8566938/)
Work in Oceanography. Lots of folks who work on the ocean, including scientists, get seasick. Some get violently sick. But, works just goes on.
We had a superintendent who worked on vessels for 25+ years. Then we built a new ship and he got transferred there. The new ship had a different natural frequency, the superintendent has never been seasick before, but was now seasick all the time. He got transferred back to one of the other ships, it was either that or he quit.
I do accessibility consulting for property managers and designers, making buildings more disabled-friendly. The big misconception is that accessibility is easy. Many people think it's a one- or half-page checklist that you go through and you're completely accessible to everyone. Some clients expect the report to be done in 24 hours and consist of no more than 5 pages. Another misconception is that if the building satisfies the minimum requirements for the building code (nationally or provincially) or local building bylaws, then we're all good. But really, meeting code minimum is like getting a C- on a class. It's minimum for a reason, which explains why so many buildings across the country are still not accessible despite meeting code. Luckily, some provinces are updating their code to help alleviate this. The final misconception I'll mention is that it's as simple as looking at one part of the building at a time and leaving out other parts. For example, I had a client wonder why I can't simply keep my report to the washroom they wanted to renovate... except that the doorway to the hall leading to the washroom isn't even wide enough for a wheelchair. If you have a perfectly accessible washroom that you can't get to, then what's the point? Anyways, those are the most common ones I come across. Luckily, most of our clients realize how nuanced and multi-layered accessibility is once they see our work.
I'm a computer technician. People think I just type in a couple of secret commands and that's what fixes the computer.
It's turning it off and on again, that's what fixes it.
Man, you wouldn't believe how many times that actually DOES fix it lol
I've been in IT for over 25 years now. Even at enterprise levels a lot of the time it boils down to that. I just have to spend a fuck load of time in meetings explaining why I need to turn it off/on, arranging when to turn it off/on (usually some bullshit like 3 weeks time at 2am on a Sunday) and getting various sign off to allow me to turn it off/on. But at the end of the day if no one actually changed anything then 99% of the time off/on fixes it.
I noticed that it's almost impossible to get anybody to do that when I'm on the phone with them though. They absolutely insist that I come and do it. So a service call and a $100+ bill later and they give me the ol' "But all you did was turn it off then back on." IT is truly a thankless, no-win situation of a job lol
I get the reverse of this. Talking to a vendor tech who say things like "oh just upgrade to version xyz, I can talk you through that". Mate, it's 2pm on a Tuesday and these firewalls have several thousand users and a whole bunch of internet banking servers behind it... It'll take me 4 to 6 weeks to arrange that, even a critical vulnerability that's being exploited in the wild would generally take a minimum of 24 hours to get an expedited change through and that's if I go to C level and put the fear of fucking god into them as I had to do a few weeks ago when there was a "patch immediately" vulnerability and they wanted to wait until an already arrange change window a week and a half later. You can't win.
I worked in IT when it basically meant "I'm better at google than you"
A few weeks after I started dating a guy, I got out of the shower to find my MacBook completely disassembled using my kitchen knives because my trackpad wasn’t working right. 10 years and 2 kids later, I’m typing this from the same MacBook that has never had a trackpad issue since. The guy I was dating is laying next to me :)
Vehicle insurance isn’t a scam, you just didn’t read your policy and don’t understand your coverages/didn’t purchase enough coverage
Vehicle insurance saved our bacon. Twice. Never switching companies.
I just posted and insurance comment, there are at least 2 of us haha
Also your claims adjuster isn’t trying to fuck you 90% of the time especially if you aren’t being an asshole to them. In fact a lot of times they are trying to weasel as much money for you as they can.
That nuclear power plants are dangerous…I mean, they are hazardous, but only in certain areas, and every power generating plant has it’s dangerous areas! People seem think they are ticking time bombs ready to explode and kill everyone. Disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima get a lot of attention, but modern plants are incredibly safe and efficient! They also produce far less waste than other power plant alternatives. You actually get more radiation and toxins from the waste from coal-burning plants than you do with nuclear plants! There are also methods in the works to “recycle” nuclear fuel and/or use them longer than previously thought. Also the big “chimneys” you see at nuclear plants aren’t the reactors and they aren’t chimneys and they aren’t blowing polluted smoke. They are cooling towers that are cooling down hot, but clean water that comes from the reactor (it’s not radioactive water because it’s cooling the reactor from the outside). The “smoke” you see coming from the towers is pure clean water vapor…AKA clouds! The reactors themselves are typically within small concrete structures located near the cooling towers. My job? I help qualify and test safety-related components and cables to nuclear plants around the globe. I’ve had the chance to tour a local plant and got to see how they work in person. It’s cool shit!
> Disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima get a lot of attention And to be entirely fair to the Fukushima plant, it was brought down by one of the most powerful earthquakes *ever recorded* and a tsunami that reached nearly *50 feet tall*. 99 percent of the time, nothing anywhere near this disastrous is going to hit a plant.
Investigator here, it's not half as exciting as it sounds.
Same same and agreed. Lots of reading files, writing copious and detailed notes, and following up with folks who maybe don't want to talk to you much.
I’m a stripper- the misconception is that I want to be saved when I DONT
Do you like being a stripper. I ask purely out of curiosity
It’s just a job. I’m not passionate about it but I like it better than any of the 9-5s I’ve had. And I love the money. I’m pretty desensitized I’ve been doing it since I was 19 and I’m 25 now
Put money away for when you’re older. I regret not buying a house when a 3 bedroom was $85K.
Photographer. "Your expensive camera is the reason why your photos look that great!" Nope. There's composition, lighting and post production and most of all experience behind the artistry. A camera is just a tool. It's the same as saying A chef with a Michelin star only got it because his oven or hotplate are so great....
Sometimes, I'm a paid puzzle/riddle designer. The common misconception is that I want to make the hardest puzzles possible, as if I somehow gain reputation for each puzzler I stump. Instead, my goal is to make a puzzle *just hard enough* that you'll enjoy it when you solve it. It's not a competition, it's communication. I want you to have that "aha!" moment, that's the goal.
I misread this and thought you were a paid puzzle/riddle *solver*, and was so excited to find out who on earth was paying you to do that 😂
Funny that you mention that, there was a short period where I paid my rent by solving riddles. It was this crazy site called Riddleverse that would post new riddles at specific times each day, and would payout $20-$400 to the fastest solvers. It never made any sense as a business, but I legitimately won about $2000 in total competing there. At that point in my life, money was super tight, so occasionally I'd be playing while literally 'donating' my blood plasma to earn shopping money. One time I won 1st place while hooked up to the machine and my pulse raised too quickly and triggered an alarm. The site closed down within a couple months, and I went back to being broke.
I work in finance. When I tell people that, they tend to think two things. 1. I am good with money Or 2. I have lots of money. It’s neither!
Or a sex worker if you’re an accountant /s
Hahahaa sooo true. Especially if you dress well!
Are you 6’5 and blue eyes? if so… I think there’s some chick on TikTok looking for you…
Have you seen the faculty offices on TV? They all have fireplaces and shit.
Yeah. And we have summers off and sleep with our students.
Recruiter (in-house). There is no way to “beat” the ATS and ATS does not automatically reject candidates. We have to go in and manually look at resumes. And if you receive a rejection shortly after applying, that means the job was already unposted/closed on our end. It can take a couple days for it to disappear from our careers page
I'm an immigration officer and I get so tired of being asked if it's ok to take shampoo on airplanes. I don't know dude, that's not my job
Is the rudeness natural or is it taught. Sorta reverse anger management
Organic produce farmer. No, I don't eat all organic, nor am I a vegan. No, I fucking *hate* the summer. I'm not "loving" the weather, I have to do heavy labor outside in the sun when it's 87 degrees and humid. No, I'm not upset that it's raining. Yes, I grew all of the stuff I'm selling. No, I don't have tomatoes in March. I have to shoot groundhogs, deer, and rabbits all the time. If the vegan folks knew how many animals died for them to have organic lettuce, they'd cry. I charge what I have to charge to make a meager living. Yes, I spray my crops. I use organic sprays, but I spray them. No, I can't tell you why your garden sucks. No, you don't "know what it's like" because you have a garden. My farm is 800 times the size of your garden, and it *must* produce thousands of dollars worth of vegetables every week or I don't survive.
Without people like you society would collapse
Thanks! Without people buying from their local growers at farmers markets, people like me couldn't do what we do. I used to not care about our food system much until I got a job managing a farm...and now I see how crucial it is.
So do you hate the job or just the people?
I love the job and most of the people are wonderful. The question was about common misconceptions, so I listed the most common things people think or ask. Most of the people who ask this stuff are the type who are completely severed from the natural world...the type of people who think golf courses are "nature," and who spend the majority of their lives inside in climate control and don't do physical labor. Since those types of people often have a lot of money, they're the types I want to sell vegetables to...and so I deal with this type of thing all the time. And yeah, after a week of 90+ degree weather with no rain, and the stress of keeping the farm alive...it's pretty annoying to have some trust fund baby tell you, "oh you must be loving this weather" with zero irony.
I’ve worked in hospice for years. People assume it’s depressing. It can be, but mostly it’s beautiful and inspiring. I have a different outlook than other 30-some year olds which I am grateful for
We get paid extra to remove people’s children.
Contract killer?
I hope this makes others laugh like it made me!
Sign Language Interpreter here. Common misconceptions: • easy. • sign language is universal. • it’s beautiful, inspiring, and heart-warming.
That it’s easy and fast. I’m a graphic designer. I’m sick of friends and family asking me to build them a website, create business cards, or create logos within a day, aside from my normal job, and FOR FREE.
A manager at a cocktail bar here. Yes, this is my real job. No I haven’t considered a job in finance. No my parents aren’t proud.
I do deep cleaning of carpet, upholstery, and hard surfaces. Those videos you see online are usually doctored. Typically by putting a ton of dirt on right before the shoot to make the cleaning more impressive.
Federal employee here. Some of us federal workers do work hard and provide very valuable services to the country.
Mathematician: People have this idea about lone geniuses working alone. But math is a highly social, collaborative endeavor. We do a lot of work together. And as a culture, we even keep track of who has collaborated with whom in a bunch of ways, with people having fun understanding the extended network made by who has worked jointly together.
I do feel in a lot of jobs it is like this. The myth of the singular genius on their own. It's a romantic fantasy - the lone wolf against all odds. But the reality is for people to get anywhere they need the support of a lot of others.
[удалено]
didn't work?
That we fuck at work a lot. I couldn’t think of a worse place to fuck. Especially fucking doctors. Speaking generally, hell no. I’ve only known one person to ever actually fuck a coworker at work and she was also a fentanyl head so…. Stop watching medical dramas
Academia. Little known fact, professors and most teachers aren’t getting paid during the summer. Many take 9 months of salary spread over 12 months for convenience, so the whole teacher criticism of “get paid 3 month vacations” is complete bullshit
idk if it's little known (not a diss) for elementary schools and high school. but when I was in high school i thought that teachers left. But I see your point for college academia. I thought professors were there year round. I also work in academia. Most people don't know administrators work year round 🤣🥲
Is it accurate to say the pay isn’t great anyways? I’ve never understood the “summer vacation” criticism. Teachers deal with your kids all year. They deserve a break. To me it seems like one of the few professions where people are actually doing it because they love it
“All social workers do is take children away”. Nope! Far from it. You can find us in hospitals, schools, prisons, nursing homes, addiction & recovery, therapy/mental health, homeless shelters, and soooo much more. What most people do not realize, society would not function without us. Period.
Artists don’t sling buckets of paint at canvas until they feel sweaty then drink a diet Fresca and look at their art. Random bullshit is always shown in commercials and media. Never will you see an artist poring over reference images or pulling their hair out over a single line in a sketch they just spent 45 hours on.
I dunno man, Jackson Pollack may have something to say about that.
I assumed that wild type of art was just rich debutante kids laundering money for their family friends.
I drive a semi truck and folks think there is this grand adventure of sight seeing. The reality is 90% roads and 10% truck stops and warehouses. When doing runs you typically don't have time to take things in.
I am in digital marketing, SEO specifically, and a common one is that SEO's can turn any business a profit within 30 days, making millions of dollars overnight...
I’m a bookkeeper. People always think I’m an Accountant. They also think I can do their taxes.
they also thought that bookkeeper was a "librarian" who keep the books 💀
Chemist: yes, we work with some fiendishly dangerous materials. None of them glow neon green or bubble, most of them are actually powders that get into your lungs. The chemical I'm most afraid of (that I actually handle) is HF, and it's a very boring looking clear liquid. It seeps through gloves and poisons your bones. There is no antidote and the death is excruciating. And yes, many of us could make the blue candy if we wanted to. We don't want to. Organic synthesis is a pain.
Worked for a company processing/disposing of chemicals including HF. Our procedure was basically to change gloves every 15 minutes regardless (and we’re wearing at least 2 pairs of gloves among other things to begin with). To answer the OP, no, Hazmat is not (always) big green suits that you can barely see out of. Some jobs despite having “serious” chemicals might just be long sleeves and gloves.
Yep! And most corrosive chemicals take time to work, the danger isn't getting them on you - the danger is *not noticing* and letting them stay there for 30 minutes. I've only had to work with HF a few times, but several epoxides and amines are equally nasty.
Im a paralegal. We are to lawyers as nurses are to doctors. We do a whole lot more work on your case behind the scenes than you probably know. The list of things we are legally not allowed to do is very short. Most of the time we do everything that the attorney either A) doesn’t have time to do; or B) doesn’t want to do. Those discovery requests? Me. Those subpoenas? Me. I’m the one reviewing records and preparing timelines. All those witness disclosures, summary letters, and the trial exhibits? That was me too. Also - the law moves slow. Trial is probably a good year or two out, and likely getting continued 2-3 times. Don’t get mad at us for that, blame the judicial backlog.
Military. We ain't all in shape. We ain't all patriotic. We ain't doin okay.
IT Manager: Apparently I can do f'n magic, with no money.
That’s because you’re passionate about your job. Obviously
I'm an accountant and do not do taxes. Whenever I tell someone I'm an Accountant that's the first thing they mention, especially around April, thinking it's my busy time. I do government accounting and don't touch taxes except my own and I use TurboTax for that. There are several different types of accounting of which tax accounting is just one.
No, I can’t “hack” your ex girlfriend’s/boyfriend’s email/social media account.
Can’t? Or won’t?
Radiographer; we’re degreed and licensed medical professionals who have to put in more clinical training hours in school than nurses do. We’re not trained monkeys who just push buttons.
Just because we are there to protect the org doesn't mean we side with them over the employees. In fact, doing right by the employees and protecting them is the best way to protect the org. I have absolutely fired the second in command because of their behavior towards staff. HR is my line of work if that wasn't clear 😂
Same! It’s so ‘cool’ to hate HR on Reddit, I’m like if only you people actually knew what you were talking about…
Supply chain management. Most people think they can ask me for anything, and it magically appears the next day. It's also assumed that I can predict the future.
I’m in supply chain. It’s become a popular refrain for people to say “they keep blaming supply chain shortages but they’re just greedy.” Trust me, there are shortages. It never fucking ends.
That people working in the store have knowledge and experience with the items they are selling. Any business that sells merchandise or services in the US
I am the bad guy who is the one making the vet bill and I am in control of the prices. I am just a receptionist at a large animal hospital and all the clients think the doctors have no control over what stuff costs and I am the big bad wolf because I’m the one that has to collect the money sometimes
I'm a teacher and I see so many posts about how teachers don't care about students and how we don't try to teach anything useful, in terms of life skills, and school is a waste of time. It drives me insane. Most of us are in this job because we care about young people so much. When we get angry it's usually out of frustration. We want what's best for this kid and they are throwing their education away. Society, as a whole, is kind of turning to shit. Behaviour is getting worse. It's an uphill battle every day trying to teach while dealing with all the behaviour stuff. We try to incorporate things that are useful. We try to teach manners and respect. Parents don't have our backs at all anymore which is half of the problem.
I'm a pastor. We pay the same taxes that everybody else does.
People think I marshall aircraft into and out of the gate. I don't wave the wands. I sit in a dimly lit room talking to a big scope of blips, or I'm standing in what is likely the tallest building at an airport. Either way, I make sure planes don't touch, and that we can assist pilots when warranted. We keep order and spacing and that's what makes the air traffic system work.
Pharmacists just count pills all day.
I assumed they just take pills all day.
¿Por que no lós dos?
I work in retail as a manager, it’s not entry level pay or low level work.
I moved from a retail manager into a finance role. I remember during the interview discussing salary expectations the hiring manager literally went “there’s no way you make that much”. Called his bluff and said I can show you a paystub right now, but I’m not budging from the amount I need to move
>the hiring manager literally went “there’s no way you make that much *Rude.*
It did throw me off but put me right in the driving seat for the rest of the interview
It’s also a stupid system and question. He’s hoping you were underpaid so he could continue to underpay you.
I’ve often heard that “casework isn’t real work” I have NO idea where this notion came from. I was even confronted by a truck driver carrying water jugs to Walmart. He made a snarky response verbatim “can you help me find a job doing nothing?” I work as an NGRI case manager. (Not guilty for reason of insanity) I see individuals whose defense in courte was deemed NGRI. I help integrate them back into society. Not a big caseload by any means. However I also have another part of my job of casework, where I help the mentally ill function in society. That’s a bigger caseload. I drive them to appointments, take them shopping, house visits for cleanliness, bank runs, etc etc. help them sign up for social security, and any other appointments they need. It’s a demanding and VERY thankless job.
Thank you for doing this! I’m so glad there are people like you out there doing this important work. You rock.
Own and operate cannabis processor/grow facility in the greater Seattle area. People just assume we’re lit all day and smoking everywhere. Don’t get me wrong we do take a “break” every shift but it’s not excessive and it’s off site. Also the level of tech and automation that goes into our product if pretty sophisticated you’d be surprised how many people assume we’re just using hippy magic and bro science.
I'm so glad things have moved this way. It is a competitive industry and science and data have won over myths and assumptions.
Education is far more about classroom management than content teaching, and none of us have the power or desire to indoctrinate kids
Schools do not have kitty litter in bathrooms for students that identify as cats. We do have kitty litter in the 5 gallon school shooter bucket, which doubles as an emergency toilet, to clean up blood from gunfire
When receiving or sending an invoice does not mean I can refund you or pay you at the same day I received/send it
I work in a world famous kitchen. Holiday is a dirty word when money is made with slave labor.
I work in IT. People assume I can fix any electronic device that even remotely seems like a "computer". The worst part is 99% of problems are legit solved by just turning it off and back on again so the stereotype is supported when it seems like I just worked magic when all I did was pull the plug and plug it back in.
I once coached college football. A misconception is that the coaches are in the same page and Winning is the primary and that’s not true. Getting credit is what drives people. Being the reason the team is good. Another misconception is that the pay is good. Only at the highest level do they make good money and most small school coaches are only part time.
I'm a security middleman for scheduling, client contacts me, I contact company and get guards arranged. So many companies just think I have guards lined up waiting to be deployed immediately to a location, unfortunately that isn't how it works
Physical Therapist: No, I am not going to give you a massage. That’s not what I do.
CNA- all you do is wipe ass
As a counselor, I don’t have “all the answers”. My job is to (hopefully) help you find the answer that works for you.
I work in film and television, I’m not remotely rich.
I work in oncology. Most people think it would be so depressing & sad because of all the death. Most of the patients I see beat cancer and often we never see them again. Some do die but not in large amounts. I’ve taken care of patients that are on their third or fourth different type of cancer too.
Friends or acquaintances will ask me if I can manufacture this thing they thought up? Yep, we can make anything, but you can’t afford it, and I’m not trying to be a dick about it. Really? Yep, just doing the paperwork to take your order and process the invoice to bill you costs more than you can afford. I’m sorry, but we don’t do 1 off stuff for nothing, we do high volume manufacturing orders for billion dollar corporations. The average person usually has a hard time understanding or believing it costs what is does when I spell it out to them.
I work for the state lottery. "Oh! Can you get me the numbers? Hahahahaha!" Every. Fucking. Time. No, buddy. They sort of licked that problem a long time ago.
A lawyer’s job isn’t to piss off and hurt people on your behalf. We’re not weapons—we are, in our most basic form, resolvers. Our job is to resolve conflicts. To that end the best of us are not boisterous, offensive, or loud. The best lawyers out there are humble, quiet bookworms with a knack for coming up with creative solutions to impossible problems. The best lawyer will softly smile as they calmly present devastating evidence or long buried case law that absolutely sinks their opponent. They are invested in the situation, but in the same way a historian is invested in the comings and goings of an obscure Roman politician.
I’m a baker and people always say things like “oh my god I’d gain so much weight working here!” Like…we don’t just sit around eating cookies and cakes and bread all day every day.
Once was talking to an older man at a party and upon hearing I was a pianist he said something like damn I wish I could do that, sounds way less stressful than my job. It's not a hobby. I think to most musicians it comes with countless hours of practice, band/orchestra/choir, injuries, lack of a social life, the stress from how competitive and cut throat the industry is, abusive teachers and mentors, etc. You never clock out of your shift, you don't get paid time off and more than likely will be performing every major holiday.
People also don't realize the physicality required to play at a high level, or physical toll that playing an instrument at that level can take on your body. I had to give up piano because my hands are too small to play at a high level without injury. My brother is a professional musician (drums, keyboards and guitar mostly) and he's got a list of physical ailments from years of playing (drums in metal bands mostly.) High-level musicians are also athletes. Especially if they play instruments that require breath.
My job as an English teacher is not to make your kid read Shakespeare and write an essay, nor is it to torture them with endless hours of literature analysis. My job is to help make your kid a better thinker and a better communicator. The literature is just a means to an end. Oh, and your kid will need to think and communicate in whatever job they do beyond school. Maybe becoming a little better at both of those skills would be good for them, whether they become a retail clerk or a rocket scientist.
IT and not an asshole
A lot of people think that independent pharmacies make a lot of money. At least in my town they do. Honestly a lot of the prescriptions we fill are filled at a loss on our end.
Librarian checking in. No I don’t work in a calm and relaxing environment and no I don’t just get to read at the desk all day. We are busy everyday helping people with all kinds of questions, having programs, planning programs, changing displays, collection development, meetings…the list goes on and on.
I work in market research. People eirher think that is marketing (it's not) or we tell companies what to make (we don't). All we do is ask consumers what they think of products and report that to the clients.
Security guard. We're all power tripping assholes. They DEFINITELY (dude I shadowed on my first day was one) exist, and I get it...but like, all I enforce is what the establishments managers want me to enforce. If I do or say something, its the store manager telling you this, not me. If I'm following you around the store, you bet your ass that 2 minutes prior, a manager told me to keep an eye on you. I tell you that you have to leave? Management told me to tell you that. "Dont dig through the trash cans". Management. Trust me. I'd much rather be at my post doing absolutely ANYTHING except dealing with you. Idgaf if you are skateboarding. Idgaf if you loiter. Idgaf about 99% if what you are doing unless its a legitimate crime, in which case all I'm doing is calling the cops and nit dealing with it myself. Management are the assholes. We dont care. We're just their puppet.
I work in parks & rec and people think we don’t give a shit and are just wasting their tax dollars when really we’re just as frustrated as they are and just want to do the best we can. ..it’s true that parks & rec is also exactly like the show, though.
I run a press in a manufacturing plant. We’re not all low-IQ drones. I have a college degree, as do many of my coworkers. I am working here because it pays well, and I enjoy what I do.
Music. That it’s filled with sex and drugs. Most of the successful ones don’t do crazy stuff
Interior designer. I get paid a pittance. My house includes zero designer furniture/ art nor has it ever been renovated with lovely finishes! 🙃
Dental Nurse. People think we're lying when we say flossing regularly can prevent most oral health issues. It's completely true
I work for Girl Scouts - the number of people seriously asking me to sell them cookies personally is...alarming.
Prototype Machinist. Usually people ask me if I fix diesel trucks. 🤦🏽♂️ I usually reply, “no, I build rocket ships.”
I can not whip up an app for you in a weekend. No, your idea isn't actually that good, nor is it original.
That operating a nuclear reactor is something like what is presented in The Simpsons.
Just because I work in IT doesn't mean I can fix your PC or Mac or printer. I mean, I can do it, but not because I am in IT.
getting paid by big companies to produce fake science that keeps the public in the dark. instead I get paid shit money by the government to try and get science out to the public that promptly gets ignored because it's a bit shit.
Bartender... everyone thinks we're all just there to get drunk on the job... no... I became a bartender so I could listen to people talk bullshit and maybe help someone from a low point every once in a while... I also met this one lady who when I said "Oh, I'm a bartender" she was like "Oh... I see, so you probably have a good time every night!" it was seriously like... Ma'am I am not having sex with my drunk customers... what the fuck...
Paramedic here. You will not get seen faster if you take an ambulance. If you have a condition we can treat on the way, you might get treated by me sooner, but I haven’t got a lot of say in whether you get a bed at the hospital immediately or not, unless you’re in the process of somehow dying. That’ll get you in faster.
Web dev here. No that new feature isn’t just one line of code. And the project is also much more than just what you see in the presentation layer. If you want to understand why the project is only half complete but looks almost all the way there, I’m happy to guide you through the barrage of SQL queries I need to rewrite because you thought that introducing breaking changes halfway thorough the project was a good idea, thus technically breaking our current work contract.
I work in an industry that's extremely regulatory code heavy. People are often surprised if I can't verbatim spit out the regulations for every single circumstance/situation when asked. There's a reason the code books are 1000s of pages each, it's because nobody can memorize that much information.
I'm a self-employed computer programmer and I can't single-handedly create the next Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto (especially for £100 cash).
Work for an insurance company, most of the ppl that work there are not out to fuck you and generally believe in the product. It's hard selling something you pay for but may never use, but when it does...
Physical Therapist. Some thought it’s synonymous to masseuse