People Explain Which Jobs Have Become Woefully Over-Romanticized

I always wanted to be a stripper. But I sweat too much. And the pay is limited if you don't have certain gifts. Alas...

Just Blah

"I strongly suspect being a spy doesn't involve half as many high tech gadgets and spontaneous sexual intercourse as I've been lead to believe."

Rrraou

"One former member of the CIA said the most unbelievable thing about James Bond was that he never had to file an expense report."

goblingoodies

For the Rich

"Anything in modern-day publishing. How many television shows and movies must I watch where the plucky young upstart graduates from college and gets a job at the magazine or newspaper of their choice and is respected and can make a living? The pay sucks, you're in constant danger of being laid off (when your pub folds, usually)."

"And it's usually a pretty corporate environment where you're tasked with multiple jobs for little hope of advancement. The names high up on the mastheads are usually those of rich people, and it's because they started off rich and could afford to stay in the industry."

SarahRecords

Clicker

"Game tester. I worked as a game tester for EA for almost 3 years. Here's what it's like. Imagine a game type you don't like. Maybe soccer games. Maybe an RTS. Whatever. You now play that game, 8 hours a day. But you don't play it. You test it. So let's imagine an RTS. You are told to test the resource acquisition systems."

"All you do is click around and make sure your guys can mine gold and harvest lumber. You click around the map and mine and forest. There is no combat, they've turned that off for your testing. There is no story, because you just flick from level to level to test the resource system."

"You test using one guy. You testing using 100 guys. You make sure no other units can gather resources. You try blocking your own guys. You try killing your own guys. 8 hours a day. Every day. For weeks. You enter dozens of bugs. They put out a patch that fixes the bugs. You have to retest every level and every bug to make sure they're all fixed. That's game testing."

shaidyn

Truth Numbers

"Lawyer."

"Number of historic, life-changing, precedent-setting cases participated in: 0"

"Number of angry, self entitled, abusive clients wanting to screw each other over: 842"

"Number of pages of paperwork that’s sucked up free time and social life: 84,836"

epicurious_aussie

Yehaw-NO!

"From what I've understood, being a cowboy was (is?) really awful."

foxmachine

I can't ride horses anyway. So I'm good.

Mostly Miserable

"Everyone used to think it was awesome that I worked in live sports TV. 70% of the people I worked with were miserable pricks with over-inflated egos, and then there were the athletes."

S**tty_Fat-tits

Long Days + No Job

"Working on a film. If you're crew, it sucks. long long hours for what seem like very very slow progress on the picture, lots of standing around waiting, etc. You arrive well before everyone else and leave after everyone else. If this is an indie production you also may have to beg/chase down for your pay at the end of each week. Oh and when the film wraps, you're now unemployed."

MrPelham

'let's talk about your feelings'

"Being a therapist. Too many people I've met get into the field thinking it's how they saw it on TV: affluent white collar, own office, warm slow pace environment, where you get to sit on a nice comfy couch and be like 'let's talk about your feelings.' That's only if you get to private practice, which they don't tell you is also like running your own small business, which good luck is you have no business acumen. The reality is you get out if grad school, get your first job working at a Community Mental Health facility because they are the only ones who will hire you with a limited license and no experience."

"Getting paid less than $40k/yr if you're lucky, and then get put in a walk in closet of an office, where they dump 100 client case load on you the first day, followed by your first client who has 5 different diagnoses and is on 12 different psych meds who says to you 'f**k you, you're my 7th different person I've had here, nobody cares about me.' Yeah people go into $100k of debt for that."

Puzzleheaded-Art-469

Nothing is Happening

"Archaeologist, specifically field archaeology. 99% of the time you find absolutely nothing, it's often physically demanding (sometimes grueling), the pay is crap, there are no benefits, you have to constantly travel, there's very little stability, I could go on. Source: have worked in CRM (Cultural Resource Management) archaeology for several years now."

"In spite of all the bulls**t of this field, still love being an Archaeologist and don't really wanna do anything else for a living, but I can't universally recommend this job to everyone in good faith."

eric3844

Less than Thrilling

"Journalist. Expectation: I’m gonna be the next Hunter S. Thompson and write compelling feature pieces with a unique voice and get paid to travel the world!"

"Reality: Talking to my editor about how my contact from the cat fashion show won’t call me back or do an interview unless we pay them $80 or adopt two cats."

kit_kat_barcalounger

Staying Poor

"Ballerina."

purpleowlie

"In order to have a shot at dancing ballet professionally, you have to train your entire life. Once you make it, you'll be paid so little that you'll share lodging with a half dozen other dancers since you make less than a server at a casual dining restaurant. And even then the odds of still being a professional dancer after 30 are almost nil. If you want to stay in the field, you basically have to move into teaching which tends to pay so poorly that you'll need to find a second job."

EclecticDreck

At this point in life, boring can be fun. Now we know we have options.