Professionals Are Sharing Why Their Job Isn't As Glamorous As It's Made Out To Be
Recently, u/Highscore611 asked r/AskReddit, "What profession isn't nearly as glamorous as it's portrayed?" So we thought we'd share some of the top responses.
1. "Being a musician on the road, unless you're super famous. It's fun for sure. But it's not for everyone."
– therealkaiser
"Toured in a van with a band for three months in 2013 and it was simultaneously the best and worst experience of all time. Got to go to many places I wouldn't normally have gone. Met a huge variety of people. Played to some awesome crowds, stayed at some wild places – one of my bandmate's uncles lived in a literal mansion with a pool and we drank top shelf liquor all night – but literally the polar opposite would regularly happen the next day.
Drive 10 hours with a hangover, play to no one, have no place to crash but the van in a Wal-Mart parking lot with seven other smelly dudes who haven't showered in three days while drinking PBR and finding out your next day was cancelled (i.e. no pay). You sort of can make it what you want if you plan it right and are willing to take a few blows along the way. If you're in a mid-tier band (like 'have your own bus and crew' kind of deal) then you have it a little easier."
– RunningFromSatan
3. "Event planning – I was an event professional for over a decade and everyone always says 'oh what a fun job!' picturing that its just a never ending Pinterest board. Really, it's mostly Excel spreadsheets and people being pissed about how cold a room is."
– Objective_Analysis_3
4. "Architect. It's like 75 percent coordinating trades and 20 percent trying to meet code Egress requirements and stuff."
– kchatman
5. "Media of any type (TV/Radio/Newspaper). Low paying, terrible hours, and a media workplace that ISN'T toxic in one way or another is a unicorn."
– HelloSweetie2
6. "Attorneys. If you're going off Suits, it ain't that interesting."
– RelativeMastodon82
7. "Ever seen a ballerina's feet?"
– AardvarkAapocolypse
Fox Searchlight Pictures
8. "Advertising. Don't get me wrong. It's been a lot of fun. I've shot commercials in places such as LA, New York, and New Zealand. I've met a lot of interesting, artsy people and done lots of interesting things."
"But at the same time, it can be a serious grind, with long hours, capricious clients, and constant subjectivity. After 35 years in the business, I consider it a minor miracle that I've gotten this far without a substance abuse problem, a divorce, an affair, or a weekly chit chat with a therapist."
– AnybodySeeMyKeys
9. "Librarians. TV tends to show sexy librarians, or portray librarians as just sitting all day and reading. I've had people try to get their teenagers jobs as librarians, because they don't realise it's actually a Master's degree."
"We don't get to read on the job, but we do get to deal with the public, which includes drunk/high people, homeless, mentally ill, and entitled people who 'pay our salary'.
We get people who steal our materials and then will throw a tantrum because they can't check anything else out. We have belligerent people or drug deals that require us to call the cops. Many libraries have started training their staff to use NARCAN.
Many libraries also expect their librarians to double as social workers. That's not even mentioning the programming that we do, as well. All for $18 bucks an hour or so, because even though it's a Masters degree, it's a 'feminine' field, and don't we all have rich husbands supporting us? We're expected to work ourself to death because of vocational awe."
– AntiqueGreen
10. "Firefighting. Most career departments do 90% medical runs. My town picks up the same homeless people over and over and haven't had a real fire in over a year. Still the greatest job in the world, but it's not what it's like on TV. And when you do go to fires it's heartbreaking because someone just lost everything."
– dontbthatguy
11. "Chef. We age like dogs. Seven years to every one normal human year."
– BobKattersCroc
Open Road Films
12. "Intelligence analyst. Much less James Bond and more accountant."
– ACam574
13. "Professor/academic. Even in an Oxbridge college, nominally quite glamorous, it's an endless maze of disconnected online portals and passwords and grant applications and bureaucracy. You spend an outrageous amount of time doing admin and then do even more if you're successful. The ratio between what you are earning vs what you could be earning in the private sector as you climb the ladder is wild."
– undoom
14. "Photographer. There's a lot of setting up gear, pulling down gear, making sure you REMEMBERED all of it, and hauling it all around. I do mostly events like fashion shows, private parties and location shoots – which means I'm carrying maybe 10lbs of gear around on a harness/hip bag etc, for hours. Keeping a few pounds of gear in front of your face doesn't sound like much until you have to do it for five hours straight. And that gear gets hot too – so you WILL be sweaty. I love it, but it's physically taxing and nowhere near glamourous."
– nionvox
Sony Pictures Releasing
15. "The film industry can be absolutely soul sucking, especially for below-the-line crew. Sure, it's kind of cool seeing celebrities in person and stuff in movies that haven't come out yet, but the hours are insane. If you're lucky, you'll work 10 hour days, though normally it's more like 12-14."
"Some days you're up at the crack of dawn, some nights you're working until the sun comes up. When you're on a show full time you have no time to do anything out of work. When you're day playing, they shuffle the schedule around so much you can't plan anything. When you're not working, you start to panic about money.
You're constantly searching for your next job. And dealing with the egos of directors and producers can be a nightmare. You're often working out in the elements. If where you live has seasons, you're be freezing your ass off in winter and burning alive in the summer. I got out when COVID hit, and I've never looked back."
16. "Environmental biologist. Going out on a boat is fun, until you're spending 14 hours out in six foot waves getting seasick and trying to sample, soaking wet and covered in fish guts. Or out on the prairie on a 100-degree day getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. Or on a mountain during a thunderstorm trying to sample some obscure plant or animal. Or stuck waist deep in a wetland, covered in sweat and mud.""
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