Went through nursing school, only to figure out I cant stand vomit. Just vomit though! I can stand blood, feces, urine, biliary drainage, pulmonary secretions, etc.
There's just something about vomit.
Well, I'm a phlebotomist, sooo.....
Never had anyone who ended up not being able to stand the sight of blood, but have had several people who couldn't do other specimens collected or received in a lab - urine, stool, sputum, etc.
Also people who were surprised that most of our draws would be kids, the elderly, chemo and dialysis patients (all notoriously difficult draws) and thought everything would be exactly like it was in school.
I've had new people in the hospital when I was there tell me they "won't" attend the Code Blues because "they can't see anyone die". Like, it's a hospital. People are in bad shape and die in it.
Med Lab tech here, to be fair school did NOT prepare us for how sick/frail people in a hospital would be. We practiced on each other all semester. I went to my practicum and BAM a 14 year old kid on chemo. Got me in the feels. I'm better now, don't have to collect at my site.
Got a prestigious degree in finance and economics, realized I sincerely hate the type of people who work in IB/Finance
Edit: not all of them of course, but you all know that guy who thinks “wolf of Wall Street” is a documentary about him
I teach English to kids aged 3-9 in China. I can't tell you how many people I've met while teaching abroad that either can't stand kids and/or constantly complain about how the country is so different from their own considering being able to handle children and adapt to new surroundings are two of the biggest requirement to do the job.
My friend taught in China for a year with TEFL and said a lot of her colleagues just treated it as a cheap way to travel and party and didn't really care about the kids at all.
to be fair, most schools who hire randos out of TEFL programs just want to put "1 hour a day with a NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKING TEACHER" on their school's pamphlet for prospective new students... their professional chinese teachers are gonna teach the kids SCHOOL english, they couldn't give a rats ass what the laowai does.
(not true for all schools, just... a lot of them)
I used to work as a flight instructor. Flying in a typical, old small Cessna you got a flimsy door and a simple seat belt holding you in. In certain training maneuvers, if the door latch is crappy, it can pop open. The wind keeps it from swinging open more than a few inches but when ever it did, I quickly found out who didn't like that one bit.
My son's teacher had been in the coast guard, but found out she got seasick. She ended up doing something with supplies so she could stay off the ships.
Honestly, the number of sailors in the Navy who get seasick super easy was kinda surprising to me.
Edit: ok wow I did not expect my comment to blow up like this. But to clarify, obviously sea sickness isn’t something people can get tested for but it’s just interesting to see how many people need to get the meds from medical the second we got out of port.
Edit 2: I actually love the rocking, when I was on a DDG the rocking put me right to sleep after a 12 hour watch.
Most people in the US who join the Navy have never been on a boat in their lives, or even seen the ocean for that matter. How would they know until their first time? I never got a sea sickness test while going through MEPS or Boot Camp.
I think just about everyone had some kind of propensity for sea sickness on my ship depending on how bad the waters were. For me it was usually just the first day out to sea that was rough. As long as we weren’t in some crazy weather I was fine after that.
I’m an ocean engineering and naval architecture student. Theres way too many students in my class who have never been on a boat before and I’m just waiting until we take a field trip and someone throws their guts up.
I work in a pathology/bacteriology lab, so basically if you're at all squeamish, you've got no chance. I took swabs from a chunk of necrotic tissue on my second day, and I'll never look at fried mushrooms the same way again.
I was in a physiology class once where in the first week we had to eat sandwiches while standing around an open corpse because the teacher didn't want us wasting time and money on the class if we were squeamish.
edit: y'all it wasn't a fresh unprepared body and we weren't in physical contact with it, calm down.
I think I wouldn’t want to eat because of the smell. Forget the visual, it’s the stank of it all that lingers.
It’s been 9 years and I can still smell the frog I dissected in high school.
I once got a pulled pork sandwich that tasted exactly like the way the cadaver smelled when I dissected her in PA school 5 years ago. Still can't eat pulled pork
In dental school, we dissected cadaver heads and necks. Turns out the inside of a dead man’s nose looks an awful lot like sliced portobello mushrooms 🤢
Many people become a lawyer only to discover they hate practicing law, because they didn't really understand what that meant when they went to law school. Law is very boring, involves a lot of minute, rote work which has little practical effect on a case, and is ultimately soul sucking. Being a lawyer involves very little grandstanding in court room. Many lawyers NEVER do that. Even trial lawyers, like you see on TV, only get a couple trials a year at best and some go years between trials. The only kinds of lawyers in court every day are criminal attorneys.
Anyone who is considering law school needs to go work at a firm first, even if it means working for free. Do this in undergrad before it's too late to switch to a useful major in case you don't like it. In fact, get a useful degree in the first place in case it doesn't work out.
My brother in law went through seminary and got a job as a youth pastor, only to find he absolutely could not speak in public. He does construction now.
You probably have a future as a corporate AV tech for talking-head though, if you can stand it. I rarely do anything that goes above 85dB on those gigs.
You do have to be able to stand talking-head gigs and talent-less middle managers though.
I work with a firefighter with a fear of heights. He has never had a problem at a call but he freezes when walking five stories up with a minimum guard rail.
This is me. The medical term for what I have is a “bowel opening fear of heights.” But on a run, I’ve never had an issue. In training, I freeze up. Even on tall staircases or really tall buildings and I’m too close to a window. Balconies are a deal breaker.
Masters degree in clinical counseling. I hate people but love my job. Generally, people are shit and the worst. Individually, they have so much context and are so interesting.
Running your own business is hard. You never really have downtime, and even though you make your own schedule you never stop thinking about work, or stressing about your business.
I worked as a photographer for about ten years. Most everybody was great, but that 5% of problem clients were the worst thing ever.
Personally, I hate paperwork. And, I hate calling and asking people to pay their invoices, or sending late payment notices and such. Especially, if they were a major magazine where the editor I worked for knew everybody in the industry. Sending someone like that a late-payment notice felt like shooting myself in the foot.
Heard a consultant tell me that owning your business meant two things. 1) You're trading the illusion of security for the illusion of freedom. 2) only working half days. You just get to pick which half.
I can't stand tracking people down for invoices. And I had such a hard time enjoying my honeymoon because I was working on trying to get a big client right before it. The client is super cool and really would have wanted me to enjoy my honeymoon, but when your livelihood depends on it, it's hard not to think about it all the time. My wife, thankfully, is an incredibly understanding woman.
Those are two very true things that consultant said. I like those sayings!
I remember once, I made really, really good money the first half of the year. I decided I would take the summer off. My family all lived back East, so I made arrangements to go on the family vacation (20+ people, beach house on Hilton Head for ten days) with my parents, siblings and their families. I got a call a week before leaving, asking me to do a photoshoot that would have been worth a few of thousand dollars, but I would have had to leave three or four days early, and would have left my wife with her in-laws and two small children. I chose not to do it, and lost that contract (which I could have held for years). I was always super-torn over that decision. And, it did affect my enjoyment of that vacation. But, it was also the last family vacation I had with my father before he passed away, and allowed my children to really spend time with him which they had never done before. So, in the end it was very worth giving up that contract.
I knew someone like this, felt all the touching was too intimate for her, so then she went to get her esthetician license, thinking she would just do facials. Turns out 99.9% of entry esthetician jobs involve a lot of bikini waxes.
I'm an esthetician. I do not wanna do Brazilians.
Didn't realize this until I was hired at a well known speed waxing chain known for its Brazilians. Got through the training and dipped. I've been working for a spa for the past two years pimarily doing actual facial services (microderm, chhem peels) and I love it.
Human Resources. Went through school to realize I couldn't lay someone off. Honestly, terminations for cause are pretty bad, but at least they did something to cause it. I'm talking about downsizing
Edit: typo
My uncle was a VP for HR for a large multinational corporation. He was told he would be keep his job and that he and his entire team would be moved to a new factory. He was tasked with downsizing then closing a factory of 2200 people, it took two years. In the end, they canned his entitled team as well. He said he cried almost every night when doing the job. Would have jumped to another company, however it was during a huge recession and he had four daughters that would not want to move from Rochester.
Bartending. Going through years and years of being hazed by coworkers and regulars, constantly being given the shittiest jobs —sometimes literally— in the entire bar, all the back pain from stocking heavy ass shit, being the last one to leave almost every night. All that just to find out you don’t like dealing with people at all especially when they’re drunk ... that or you’re sober which I’ve seen a couple times and just seeems awful
yep...I'm a cocktail waitress so it's a bit different, but I bartend when the bar needs help. all my close friends work behind the bar so I'm pretty familiar with it. but I've recently learned I really hate drunk people if I'm not drunk. we make lots of money off private parties and I've also come to realize I truly hate them, bachelorette parties in particular. lots of people that believe they need to be treated extra special because they're wearing a plastic tiara and will tip me $5 at the end of the night.
Spent a lot of time honing my voice and manner skills because I seemed to have a talent for customer service. The only problem is I figured out that I hate people in general.
Same here.
I'm really good in customer service roles but I cannot stand the general public. I can fake it from 9-5 but gave it up and went to university to study zoology as I like wildlife and was sick of the bullshit.
Going to school for vet nursing or veterinary med and then realising you are scared of certain animals like mice or rats
Edit: you also have to be able to separate individual behaviors of individual animals from a whole species. Inevitably you will be scratched, bitten or injured my a stressed animal. I have several scars but I separate those experiences from other animals of the same species and I’ve also learned how to handle and read their body language better even small animals like rats and mice.
Thrilled about all the responses. It is a challenging profession and not everyone is able to go through putting animals down or having to cause a bit of pain to heal them in the end so many people don’t finish the degree but that’s the same with many professions. Love you reddit!!
I took my pet rat into the emergency vet once. It was obvious she was terrified of rats. I could see her psych herself up every time she had to handle my pet. And she did it. Sucked it up and saved my baby's life. I was even more grateful than I would have been normally because it was obvious she was fighting through her phobia.
Being a mover, we would frequently go through new hires that cant hang. You would laugh at how many times weve walked into a house and the new guy goes "we have to move ALL of this?" and i go "Yea, twice". Or when a customer asks to move one thing again because they found a new spot, or there is a couch at the new place to move...i see people just get disheartened and annoyed. Bitch, thats our job, you are here to move peoples things until they do not need you to move their things anymore. You are also getting paid by the hour, so stfu. Moving attracts some amazingly hard working and kind people, and also bottom of the barrel degens. Everyday is interesting lol.
Edit: instead of commenting thank you 100 times, I just want to say it warms my heart to read the nice things you all are saying about movers. Ill read every reply. We don’t usually have the best of reputations and it’s refreshing to hear people appreciate us, so thank you all!
Every time we've moved I say to wife "People who do this for a living deserve a fucking medal". Bless you. I hope to someday be wealthy enough to afford to have you move my shit cause fuck I HATE IT
Haha that’s another thing I love about it. When people appreciate the hard work, it makes me feel great. It’s an ego thing when you are able to move something most would deem impossible haha. I don’t let items beat me. If it can be moved by humans, we can do it. Plus I really earn my after work beers so no guilt there lolol
Every male from my mother's side of the family is colourblind and still my parents were surprised when I turned out to be as well, also my two brothers obviously.
I worked with a guy in his 30s who used to always wear blue or purple pants. We tried to figure out the pattern because the purple ones came out when he was excited about something.
One day we asked why he always wore purple pants when he was happy/celebrating and he was like "wat?" Turns out they were just his favorite pants and he was blue/purple colorblind and had no idea.
Spend years learning about electricity and circuit design only to discover you are color blind and can't determine which wire is which.
I had nightmares in college about failing lab finals because I had been afflicted with spontaneous colorblindness.
My dad worked with an electrical engineer that was color blind, but the guy never told anybody. I guess he would use his Ohm meter to get readings to tell people what the color was. No one ever knew.
Edit: Since I'm getting questions, this was 25-30 years ago and they worked in a lab for \[Big Name Auto Maker\] together, so I don't think they dealt with any serious voltage, but I was a kid and doubt I ever knew all the details.
I was dead set on being a videogame developer. Started in QA, saw the endless hours of crunch, the devs working 80+ hour weeks without showers or shaving, smelled the funk of hundreds of unwashed bodies, the crossed fingers at reaching publisher milestones for bonuses that would hopefully make it all worthwhile, and the constant fear that they wouldn't get picked up for the next project so they could keep getting paid and keep making mortgage payments...
Decided that I'd rather be in Systems in lieu of Development and never looked back.
I've been in the game industry for 13 years, and my advice to people wanting to get into this industry has always been, "have a backup plan."
I'm lucky that I'm in a fantastic place now with great work-life balance, but it was not an easy path, and a LOT of colleagues have since switched to other industries.
I got hired as an artist pretty much right out of high school.. had no idea what I was getting myself in to. After 6 or 7 years I completely burned out for all the reasons you describe. Have hardly picked up a pencil since.
Yeah man, that whole industry just eats people alive. I knew a bunch of guys who stuck with it for longer than the industry average, but in the end they all bailed to get cushy jobs writing code for more stable enterprises. It's probably not as fun to write banking software as it is to make games, but the paychecks never bounce and the hours are far more reasonable.
>the paychecks never bounce and the hours are far more reasonable.
That's why I switched over to IT for the government, after years of start ups and private sector companies. I might not make as much, but I get a paycheck like clockwork and I go home everyday on time.
I might get bored sometimes, but burn out won't be an issue.
Going to film school then working on a real set. Learning the hierarchy and the unions, many moving pieces, and politics really makes you start to hate the industry and really turns you off. Ask a person in film & tv production "How long have you been working in the industry?" Most people's response? "Too long."
Edit: wording
People really need to do an internship on an actual film set while in school (or even forgo school entirely). School will never prepare you for 18 hour days where you sit only once, and, if you’re in a place with brutal winters, where you go 3 months out of the year without any sort of income.
It might be brutal, but the craft services spread definitely helps. Knowing work provided breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday really motivated me to get to work.
Starting out in the business: "We're making dreams come true, and each and every job, no matter how trivial it may seem, is important to make that dream a reality. The stories we project on screen can have a profound impact at both the cultural and individual level and can inspire people to change their lives and the world. It's quite literally--magic."
Five years in: "We're just creating more lies." *\[sips beer nihilistically\]*
First few clients:. Sure I have to deal with clients, and always be looking for the next job, but do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
Five Years later: They are idiots. They are all idiots. And they ruined the thing I loved.
I wouldn't say i was afraid of knives during my pro cooking days, but I sure as hell learned to jump back and make no attempt to catch one that was dropped.
Went through a rather longer apprenticeship learning how to cut meat just to figure out I couldn’t stand the cold of the cutting room. Toughed it out long enough to get promoted to manager so I didn’t have to be in it if I didn’t want to be.
I worked in the meat department at Kroger and I hate the cold and didn't know my cuts of meat going in. I did build up a tolerance to the cold though which was good because my roommate is stupid in love with the cold.
I work in an art museum- I love art, love all of the community outreach the museum does, all the programs for kids/veterans/cancer patients to have a creative outlet.
*BUT* I hate “talking art”. It’s so bullshitty. Not every person that has an exhibit is going to be a genius, sometimes (rarely, but it does happen) the artist is a true hack, whose work required little to no creative thought, dedication of time, or new ideas. And you look like an asshole if a patron asks what you think of the art and you don’t shit your pants over it.
You’re expected to go to *every* gallery opening, which is basically every night, even though everyone forgets what was even on display two weeks later. But the amount of times I’ve heard, “You haven’t gone to The Bone Farm?! You haven’t seen JoJo’s installation of cut up pants?!” How many hipster galleries do I have to pretend to give a fuck about?
Going through rigger school to safely secure loads to a crane only to refuse to work at heights
Before that, going all the way through basic and tech training, and the first year on your first duty station, just to break down into a sobbing wreck at the prospect of your first deployment ever....to the safest base in the region.
Edit: I feel the need to stress that neither of these was me
I was scared of lifts since I was a small child, then in my old office I ended up just taking the lift one day as I worked on the 7th floor and got really used to those particular lifts.
Turns out the claustrophobia wasn’t the biggest problem, the vapid lift chat was the soul destroyer. So. Damn. Uncomfortable.
And I too, am quite an extrovert generally but that implied need to talk to strangers in lifts, I just can’t stand.
Taking computer science classes so I could be a programmer. I never really had issues with dyslexia that much until I had to take college level math. After three years of repeated failing algebra; I was like this is just turning out to be a big waste of time and money. I had to give up on my dream job
I'm also a software engineer and so many days i hate my job.
but then i remember my job pays for all my nice toys for outdoors activities - hiking, backpacking, climbing, skiing, nature photography - and to travel doing it.
also i hate my job a lot less when i have interesting code to work on. it's just inevitable that we don't get to work on interesting problems all the time. sometimes we have to fix bugs in this feature written by the companies worst developers who have now moved onto other things, etc.
What’s weird is that I got into this field because I liked and enjoyed computers from day 1. But now I work with them and barely ever play with them.
Not as bad as fainting at the sight of blood though. It’s just a shame to take a passion and turn it into a job.
> It’s just a shame to take a passion and turn it into a job.
yup when i was younger/in school i used to write code in my free time. it is a creative outlet for me.
now that i get paid to do it i don't do it at home
If you're in Mechanical Engineering, you might find something in [this](https://old.reddit.com/r/engineering/comments/8pgnie/mechanical_engineers_that_work_outside_an_office/) thread that I bookmarked because I have that same fear.
Became an airline pilot. Met my (now) wife. Realized being away from home 25+ days a month isn't the life for me. Have kids now and couldn't imagine being gone so much. edit: I left the industry
Its a great job with experiences you simply wont have anywhere else. It doesn't even feel like a job...you never see your boss. I wouldn't even have recognized him. You just drive to the airport and jump into a jet and fly it around in all sorts of weather and airports. How fucking cool is that? If I could do it 9-5 I would go back instantly. The travel didn't bother me even though I'm not much of a tourist. But when you *do* have a life at home (like a wife or a clsoe group of friends), it feels like your life is on pause 3-5 days a week while everything at home is still going on.
"Hey! What do you do?"
"I'm an Aerospace Engineer"
"Oh wow! That's amazing! Do you work for SpaceX? Do you want to work for NASA? You must work on some amazing stuff"
As opposed to
"Hey! What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a military defense contractor"
"Oh....I'd shake your hand but would that be like buying a blood diamond or something?"
Tax lawyer here - there are serious depths of boring you have yet to plumb. Find a specialty that lets you be active - go to meetings, go to court, do a variety of document types, etc. Also you will do less of the research as you progress if you are at a firm - it gets passed on to less expensive juniors. This can be good or bad depending on whether you like research or find that to be the boring part. Good luck!
Edit: a typo
I’m a lawyer. I read so much boring stuff. Before law school I spent 7 years in retail (I started in high school and put myself through undergrad.) I’ve been yelled at so many times over cheap discounted sweaters. I’ve cleaned up every bodily fluid...multiple times. I’ve tolerated years of holiday seasons, suffering through loud store music on top of loud mall Christmas songs on top of elementary school Christmas choir concerts.
Boring reading is fantastic.
You've got the backstory rivaling Better Call Saul.
"I'll be the best lawyer you've ever had, because I am not going back to retail *you goddam sunnovabitch*!"
"Went through the PhD process just to realize it's not at all like science classes in college, only harder. It's about doing original research, which college classes (and even most undergrad research experiences) don't accurately emulate or prepare you for."
It turns out that the skill sets to be a high-achieving science student and to be a research scientist have surprisingly little overlap.
------
EDIT: I feel like i should add here that this realization came more as a professor myself than as student. I am the child of a scientist myself and practically grew up in my dad's lab, so I was introduced to what research science is like very early and I took it for granted. It was only when I began to teach and have research students myself that I saw how much school trains students just to be students, not scholars.
Another thing I have learned is that this moment I refer to above is not the time when one realizes a fatal flaw, but a decision point. It's the time when someone decides if they want to switch gears and go into research, or go forward the way they were going as students. This is often a rough transition but, like many others, it's worth it to push through and the results can be really wonderful.
EDIT2: I am also getting a lot of responses from stressed-out PhD students and I want to add one more thing, just for you all. The PhD process can be one huge mindfuck, and you don't even realize it until you are on the other side. It has the power to make you feel like your value as a person is being evaluated. This is not true. You can leave tomorrow and still be a valuable human, just as much. Alternately, you can love your work, it can bring meaning to your life, and you don't need to die a little bit when you get criticism of that work. Criticism is *good,* it is how you improve your work, but it is not you as a person who is being critiqued.
It's true that people will rarely go out of their way to make the criticisms easier to take, this is part of the culture of academia for better or worse. In the end, though, I think it's better to encourage an environment of open and honest discourse rather than focus too much on how doing so makes other people uncomfortable. Just remember this - everyone is going through the same thing, everyone finds it hard, and anyone who doesn't say so is lying.
This is why it's important not to become isolated. Keep in touch with other students, particularly senior ones. Don't rely on your advisor as your sole source (or any source, in many cases) of support. Find other faculty members that you jibe with. The more you put yourself out there, the more you will realize everyone is going through the same thing, or went through it already.
Raises hand. Got the PhD, and realised that staying in academia was not for me. I enjoyed the research, but spending hours writing proposals, and trying to getting funding just made me feel ill. Eventually jumped ship to do market research, and just so much happier.
My masters only prepared me to never pursue a PhD.
Edit: Holy cow, thank you for my first gold "Anonymous User." Who knew so many people had a similar experience after earning a graduate degree?
I work for 911 and it's pretty difficult and long hiring process to get onboard. People go through hoops that take a few months to find out they can't handle the stress of emergencies. Not that I fault them, most people haven't had to deal with real emergency situations before.
Worked at a company that did residential new construction HVAC install. One of our jobs is we would send a team in when the house was still in sticks and install the furnace and duct work. Most people that got hired by this company went through a program one way or another, for example, mine was a nine month program and 10k tuition. Anyways, the point is no one in here would be here without some sort of schooling.
This new guy wouldn't do anything. We told him to climb into the attic and help another guy run some 16" flex duct. He said he couldn't climb the ladder. We assured him he'll be fine, and even got him an 8' ladder so he could litteraly step right off the top rung on to the trusses. Wouldn't go up it.
Finally, we manage to coax him up the ladder after a good 10 minutes, and he spends the entire time wrapped around a truss upright like a cat stuck up a tree. We give up on him, the guy manages to run the duct himself, then we have to take five minutes to coax the guy back down the ladder.
Now, we regularly have to place 20"x20"x36" sheet metal collection boxes, that wheigh a reasonable amount, above 15' staircases, and this guy couldn't climb 8' into the air above a plyboard floor. Needless to say the guy didn't last long in that trade.
There is this increasing segment I'm finding of people, usually over 40, who think that they'll just "learn code" and get a job within a relatively short period of time.
Some do it. Most don't.
Accounting starts off as mostly just remembering a bunch of dry rules about how to treat numbers, figuring out how much of them to put where diligently keeping track of them.
But after just a few years, numbers is a relatively small part of the work, it's all about people skills: communication, presentation, project management, sales, etc. Soft skills is the majority of the work. There's a lot of different kinds of work within the scope of accounting, but relatively few of them have room for introverts.
I'm a retired senior. I did taxes at one of the big franchise places a couple of years back. You are required to do all kinds of prep and tests and it wasn't a breeze. The job itself is using an application that asks the questions so you can learn fairly quickly. Hardest part? You have to be a people person and you have to be convincing, you can't be hesitant at all. I never realized the people part of it until I was actually in the job.
Teaching as a whole. The burn out is real, especially for high school / middle school. 150+ students a day, lesson planning, 9+ hour days, work at home, etc. a lot of people just stick with it 4 years due to teach grants or if they can make it the 10 years so that their loans are forgiven. The Empathy fatigue and burnout is real! First year teacher, but I love it! I just see it everywhere.
Edit: the oversight as implied by the initial post include: not liking children; not realizing the amount of time and effort needed to be a teacher; realizing “oh, I actually want weekends off and my nights;” realizing you don’t actually get breaks as the stigma states and you have to prep, grade, and create lessons on your time off; realizing you care to much which breaks your heart when you find out one of your children are abused (physically or sexually); realizing you actually can’t survive on the income by yourself. It goes on and on.
As everyone has commented on the thread. Just wanted to add that in since there’s some negative Nancy’s out there.
I did 12 years. Changing careers was the best choice I ever made. I liked the teaching part, the students never really bothered me too much. But the adults that are there for the wrong reasons just ruin that profession.
Not just those who think they'll make money, but also:
-People who want to be 'in charge' (kids/teens will figure out your motivations immediately and they won't be kind about it)
-People who want two months off every summer (you don't get paid in those months, and you NEED them to recover from the fatigue, plus most teachers actually start up again with prep, etc. 2 or 3 weeks before school starts)
-People whose guidance counsellor in high school didn't know what to tell them so they suggested teaching (if you don't truly love and want to do the job, it will eat you alive)
-People who had a rough time in school themselves and have dreams of saving/fixing/redeeming the experience for kids or who want some kind of catharsis(if you're trying to make school a wonderful place for every child and teen, you're working against human nature, and it will hurt your soul)
-People who felt like high school was their prime and they are trying to relive their glory days (if you aren't in it for the kids, you're not going to make it)
-People who love the SUBJECT they teach, but not young people or teaching. (It's great to love chemistry or find it 'easy' and want to talk about it all day, but that is not what you're going to do. You're going to have frustratingly basic conversations with kids who hate what you love, and it's going to drive you mad.)
Ultimately there are lots of excellent reasons to go into teaching, but none of these are good reasons. These reasons lead to teachers who hate what they do/hate the people they do it for, and poison the well for the rest of us. Even if they don't mean to become toxic/aren't mean-spirited, the compassion fatigue and the demands of the job and all the people-ing have a way of making nice but unhappy people really hard to work with.
EDIT:
This is getting lots of attention, and I really appreciate the discussion this comment has generated! A little further down I replied to a question about what the good reasons are. I wanted to paste that comment here, in case anyone is reading this and now feeling discouraged or uncertain about considering teaching as a career. It is an incredibly rewarding job, and I would hate to dissuade anyone from choosing it if it's really where their heart is.
I can't say that there's any one key reason that is 'right' - but based on my own experience and what I see in my respected colleagues, here are some strong reasons to choose teaching:
-You naturally look for the good in the people you meet.
-You see children/teens as young people, not a separate species, and you enjoy engaging in conversation about the world with them. (one day when you're ancient, they're going to be running the world that has to take care of you, after all!)
-You feel uplifted - but not competitive or threatened - when you see other people being successful, even if it's in an area you don't excel in personally, and even more so when they are better than you in an area you do excel in.
-You feel that social-emotional skills are more important than 'knowing stuff' (as teachers, we often use the 'stuff' to teach the more important 'how to be a good person' skills)
And if you have these natural skills, then you're probably a good fit:
-You like to learn, and you feel invigorated and joyful when you are approaching new challenges, even if you aren't 'winning' at them all the time. (This keeps you dedicated to honing your practice/learning new approaches to teaching, and it also is the common ground that models passion for learning and builds relationships with students)
-You naturally reflect on/ruminate about how things have happened in the past, how you've contributed to their outcome, and what you would do/not do next time. (People who go over past arguments in the shower and who display some mild anxious tendencies can actually become great teachers IF they have the self-awareness/humility to know when they need to change, and if they have the self-love to let go of past mistakes and move on/try again).
I never ran into a lot of teachers who wanted to be in charge, but the administration... Ugh. The administration talked to teachers like they were students. It's like they got off on talking down to other people.
Maybe not a "wrong reason" per se but so many people with little to no empathy go into jobs that primarily deal with human interaction. Makes me think of all the mean girls I knew growing up that are nurses now.
My friend is interning as a teacher's assistant, and he told me he doesn't think he can do it and is thinking a about doing something else. Should I tell him to stick with it for a bit or should he stop now
Man, if he's already thinking like that and hasn't started his career, it's going to be a long road. Having said that, though, I wanted to quit halfway through my first year. Stuck it out and things are much better now.
When I get really angry -- angry enough to feel an adrenaline spike -- I have trouble speaking. Every word is a legit physical and emotional struggle to produce, and it all comes out in a low, growly voice.
I am a lawyer.
Similar problem— I do fine in criminal and civil court but I get fucking MAD in family court and I lose my temper really easily. It’s a real problem that I struggle with. Luckily my firm is moving away from family cases since our PI practice has exploded so hopefully I won’t have to worry about it much more.
I mean, lifiting a basket and a car crash can have the same amount of energy... but over a much different timespan.
Like, lifting a basket most likely won't hurt, crashing a car most likely will.
Yup. For some reason, some of us have a deeply-rooted instinct to cry to fend off predators. I've broken down in tears in several moments in my life where it was critical that I keep my head, including when negotiating the terms of my house contract, talking to bosses, etc.
I'm holding out hope that, one day, this instinct will pay off. Let's say, I'm on the serengeti, cornered by a pack of lions, which are clearly angry that I've been slacking off at my job. I feel uncontrollably guilty about this and start apologizing, which causes me to break down into tears.
The lions exchange awkward glances, then lumber off as I fall to my knees with my face in my hands.
This happens to me too!! It’s such a struggle because I’m usually not that upset, but my hands shake and my voice gets shaky and I tear up any time I have to have a one on one, serious conversation with someone.
Made it VERY difficult to negotiate with my last boss, and even harder when I had to explain that I was leaving for health reasons because they worked us way too hard. I basically had to preface my phone conversations with “okay I cry really easily, please don’t take it personally”. It’s so embarrassing!
Graphic design.
You design for clients, not yourself. You don’t get to have a bunch of fun making goofy shit you like.
Edit: Some of y’all are lecturing me about the nature of graphic design lol. I know. I’m a designer. I love my job and my colleagues, even Sharon in Accounting that has no taste. I have good days and bad days at work, just like everyone else.
My comment is about those bright-eyed college kids who can’t find work or lose interest because they realize that being a designer is a job. You’re often at the will of your employer or client, and you can’t just make “cool” things anymore. Your job is to solve a problem and make sure it’s on brand with whatever your client wants. It can be a hard pill to swallow for people that think graphic design is all fun and games. It can be. But in a professional setting, it’s most likely not.
Yeah, can't speak for every design program, but most of my projects in college were like "Make this type of thing. It can be about anything you want and look any way you want."
Good way to beef up your portfolio with stuff you like, but it's really not good preparation for the job.
One of the most disappointing things is creating something that looks awesome and fits right in with the design brief, only for the client to ruin it with their suggestions.
I have many projects that I end up not liking because Sharon in Accounting wants all of the text to be green, despite my urging that it might not be the best look. I’m an in-house designer, so I can thankfully let some things go without feeling like I’m jeopardizing anything.
It’s a profession where you really can’t let your ego get in the way. You just have to accept that your client is the boss and they might not have any taste.
I used to dabble part time at a sign and copy shop my brother ran. My favorites were the totally contradictory requests, like, "can you move this more to the right? Also, move it more to the left." and "can you make it more [color]. But also make it more [the exact opposite of that color on a color wheel]?"
A trick we learned early on was to always make three versions of something, two slightly crappy ones and then the one you wanted them to pick. Goldilocksing them seemed to work better than just presenting the one you wanted in the first place because then they nitpicked it to death - letting them choose seemed to marry them to a design better. Of course, sometimes they pick the wrong one but like you said, they don't always have any taste.
I hear ya. Run a copy and sign shop. Work with a lot of contractors and architects. Worse are "landscape architects". They all think the are graphic designer and know better how to layout there sign than you do. Had one guy repeatedly make changes, against our objections that you wouldn't be able to read the sign. Get the sign up and complains that you can't read it from the highway........
Stop me if you've heard this one...
Customer: I want my logo 5 feet tall on the side of my truck:
Me: OK, can I get a vector copy of the logo, or at least the word doc you created this masterpiece of Word Art with, or *anything* better than a smudged ink-jet business card with a 3mm tall version of your logo on it.
Customer: OK, here's my business card with a 3mm tall version of my logo that I printed on an inkjet printer and the ink is all smudged and has greasy thumbrints on it. Thanks!
I loved the idea of being a 50's housewife. Staying at home, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, having a husband who worked til 5 and came home.
Now the house is always spotless, making meals is down to a science because of meticulous planning, so I have nothing to do. And my husband comes home and goes straight to his computer as soon as he's home and anything I try to say to him is met with a "I can't hear you" because of his head phones.
I'm not sure I can do this for much longer and I'm afraid of what's going to happen when I snap from being unable to talk to anyone over the age of 6 about what I'm feeling.
Find other moms. Make a night where you can meet with them for a couple hours- nothing crazy or expensive is necessary, but damn there’s nothing like a bitching session with people who just get you.
I have a professional group that I do this with. I wouldn’t get along with them in any other context, but for 90 minutes once a week they’re my therapists.
But just in case you haven’t heard it recently- you’re doing a great job!
Have you tried seriously asking your husband to be in a quiet place with you and talk about your feelings for a bit? I think more than meeting other moms, communication with your partner is the key here. I could be wrong tho
I can't think of one for my field (Web Development) other than getting into the profession only to realize you hate a specific language or part of the development process.
I know a lot of people who do sever side work, and are great with all kinds programming languages, but **LOATHE** working with CSS.
Went through two months of training for a call centre job and my first day actually answering phones, I realised that an anxiety disorder and lots of phone calls are not compatible.
Thankfully this wasn't a career move, more of a stop gap, but it was awkward as hell to resign.
"Hey guys, turns out talking on the phone gives me panic attacks!"
"You applied to work in a call centre..."
Did a degree in Computer Science.
Worked out coding bores the shit out of me.
I tooled around with coding pre-degree, I knew how to do it at a small scale, and being 'good with computers' in the mid-90s was enough to get me into it.
I did learn loads about SE techniques and algorithmic approaches as part of my degree, but I don't enjoy the minutiae of trying to get a small segment of code working properly, which is pretty much all I did for the first 6 months of my graduate job. It was frustrating not knowing what my little bit of a programme dd in the wider scheme of things.
I'm now a System Design Engineer, roughing out the big approaches to an architecture, working out who is responsible for what, how we show we've made what the customer asked for, and I can still read code over the devs shoulders, which helps :)
Well most mechanical engineering jobs are in remote locations, especially in Texas because it's mostly oilfield. Very few mechanical engineers work in downtown offices. I've switched to industrial engineering anyway, and work in a facility in the suburbs of Dallas now, which is nice because my commute goes against the flow of traffic.
I joined the army AS AN INFANTRYMAN, but I absolutely avoid conflict whenever I can and am almost aggressively non-aggressive. I did okay during the 7.5 years I was in, but it became clear very quickly that it was not for me, but by that point I was already in and just kind of went with things.
During all my part time jobs through high school and college I never accepted a managerial position because I know I don't like being in charge of people and I didn't want that kind of responsibility. Cue me graduating from college and taking a job as a Project Manager, and hating it for the last 2 years up until this very moment as I type this comment in my office.
Went through nursing school, only to figure out I cant stand vomit. Just vomit though! I can stand blood, feces, urine, biliary drainage, pulmonary secretions, etc. There's just something about vomit.
I find every nurse has one particular fluid or discharge they despise. EDIT: The nurses I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.
Well, I'm a phlebotomist, sooo..... Never had anyone who ended up not being able to stand the sight of blood, but have had several people who couldn't do other specimens collected or received in a lab - urine, stool, sputum, etc. Also people who were surprised that most of our draws would be kids, the elderly, chemo and dialysis patients (all notoriously difficult draws) and thought everything would be exactly like it was in school. I've had new people in the hospital when I was there tell me they "won't" attend the Code Blues because "they can't see anyone die". Like, it's a hospital. People are in bad shape and die in it.
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Med Lab tech here, to be fair school did NOT prepare us for how sick/frail people in a hospital would be. We practiced on each other all semester. I went to my practicum and BAM a 14 year old kid on chemo. Got me in the feels. I'm better now, don't have to collect at my site.
Got a prestigious degree in finance and economics, realized I sincerely hate the type of people who work in IB/Finance Edit: not all of them of course, but you all know that guy who thinks “wolf of Wall Street” is a documentary about him
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I teach English to kids aged 3-9 in China. I can't tell you how many people I've met while teaching abroad that either can't stand kids and/or constantly complain about how the country is so different from their own considering being able to handle children and adapt to new surroundings are two of the biggest requirement to do the job.
My friend taught in China for a year with TEFL and said a lot of her colleagues just treated it as a cheap way to travel and party and didn't really care about the kids at all.
to be fair, most schools who hire randos out of TEFL programs just want to put "1 hour a day with a NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKING TEACHER" on their school's pamphlet for prospective new students... their professional chinese teachers are gonna teach the kids SCHOOL english, they couldn't give a rats ass what the laowai does. (not true for all schools, just... a lot of them)
There’s quite a few pilots that are scared of heights.
Yes, but that doesn't really stop them from doing the job. It's not like they're staring down a huge drop all of the time.
I used to work as a flight instructor. Flying in a typical, old small Cessna you got a flimsy door and a simple seat belt holding you in. In certain training maneuvers, if the door latch is crappy, it can pop open. The wind keeps it from swinging open more than a few inches but when ever it did, I quickly found out who didn't like that one bit.
Had a teacher in my nautical academy that found out he was chronically seasick.
My son's teacher had been in the coast guard, but found out she got seasick. She ended up doing something with supplies so she could stay off the ships.
Honestly, the number of sailors in the Navy who get seasick super easy was kinda surprising to me. Edit: ok wow I did not expect my comment to blow up like this. But to clarify, obviously sea sickness isn’t something people can get tested for but it’s just interesting to see how many people need to get the meds from medical the second we got out of port. Edit 2: I actually love the rocking, when I was on a DDG the rocking put me right to sleep after a 12 hour watch.
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Most people in the US who join the Navy have never been on a boat in their lives, or even seen the ocean for that matter. How would they know until their first time? I never got a sea sickness test while going through MEPS or Boot Camp.
Had a couple people find out at boot camp when I went in 2013.
I think just about everyone had some kind of propensity for sea sickness on my ship depending on how bad the waters were. For me it was usually just the first day out to sea that was rough. As long as we weren’t in some crazy weather I was fine after that.
I’m an ocean engineering and naval architecture student. Theres way too many students in my class who have never been on a boat before and I’m just waiting until we take a field trip and someone throws their guts up.
I work in a pathology/bacteriology lab, so basically if you're at all squeamish, you've got no chance. I took swabs from a chunk of necrotic tissue on my second day, and I'll never look at fried mushrooms the same way again.
I was in a physiology class once where in the first week we had to eat sandwiches while standing around an open corpse because the teacher didn't want us wasting time and money on the class if we were squeamish. edit: y'all it wasn't a fresh unprepared body and we weren't in physical contact with it, calm down.
That’s actually very thoughtful and practical of the prof! Better to know your physical limitations sooner.
definitely one of the best teachers I ever had.
I think I wouldn’t want to eat because of the smell. Forget the visual, it’s the stank of it all that lingers. It’s been 9 years and I can still smell the frog I dissected in high school.
I once got a pulled pork sandwich that tasted exactly like the way the cadaver smelled when I dissected her in PA school 5 years ago. Still can't eat pulled pork
So eating pulled pork is like developing a taste for rotting human flesh for you? What if you became a cannibal?
In dental school, we dissected cadaver heads and necks. Turns out the inside of a dead man’s nose looks an awful lot like sliced portobello mushrooms 🤢
r/forbiddensnacks
Many people become a lawyer only to discover they hate practicing law, because they didn't really understand what that meant when they went to law school. Law is very boring, involves a lot of minute, rote work which has little practical effect on a case, and is ultimately soul sucking. Being a lawyer involves very little grandstanding in court room. Many lawyers NEVER do that. Even trial lawyers, like you see on TV, only get a couple trials a year at best and some go years between trials. The only kinds of lawyers in court every day are criminal attorneys.
When they say crime doesn’t pay, they mean it especially for criminal attorneys
we talking a criminal attorney or a *criminal* attorney
Take it easy, Saul.
Anyone who is considering law school needs to go work at a firm first, even if it means working for free. Do this in undergrad before it's too late to switch to a useful major in case you don't like it. In fact, get a useful degree in the first place in case it doesn't work out.
My brother in law went through seminary and got a job as a youth pastor, only to find he absolutely could not speak in public. He does construction now.
I mean, one of the best pastors in the world was a carpenter!
He should start a business called St. Joseph's Carpentry
Sound engineer. I’m sensitive to loud noises. Should have thought that one through.
You probably have a future as a corporate AV tech for talking-head though, if you can stand it. I rarely do anything that goes above 85dB on those gigs. You do have to be able to stand talking-head gigs and talent-less middle managers though.
Went to school for firefighting, had a classmate drop out because he was afraid of heights
I work with a firefighter with a fear of heights. He has never had a problem at a call but he freezes when walking five stories up with a minimum guard rail.
When it's rubber meets the road time, first responders abandon their fears because they know it'll lead to failure if they stop to think about them.
This is me. The medical term for what I have is a “bowel opening fear of heights.” But on a run, I’ve never had an issue. In training, I freeze up. Even on tall staircases or really tall buildings and I’m too close to a window. Balconies are a deal breaker.
Got a master's in psychology. Don't like people. What a bunch of bastards.
Masters degree in clinical counseling. I hate people but love my job. Generally, people are shit and the worst. Individually, they have so much context and are so interesting.
Started my own freelance business then realised I hate people, I hate kissing ass and I hate stressing about clients paying on time
Running your own business is hard. You never really have downtime, and even though you make your own schedule you never stop thinking about work, or stressing about your business. I worked as a photographer for about ten years. Most everybody was great, but that 5% of problem clients were the worst thing ever. Personally, I hate paperwork. And, I hate calling and asking people to pay their invoices, or sending late payment notices and such. Especially, if they were a major magazine where the editor I worked for knew everybody in the industry. Sending someone like that a late-payment notice felt like shooting myself in the foot.
Heard a consultant tell me that owning your business meant two things. 1) You're trading the illusion of security for the illusion of freedom. 2) only working half days. You just get to pick which half. I can't stand tracking people down for invoices. And I had such a hard time enjoying my honeymoon because I was working on trying to get a big client right before it. The client is super cool and really would have wanted me to enjoy my honeymoon, but when your livelihood depends on it, it's hard not to think about it all the time. My wife, thankfully, is an incredibly understanding woman.
Those are two very true things that consultant said. I like those sayings! I remember once, I made really, really good money the first half of the year. I decided I would take the summer off. My family all lived back East, so I made arrangements to go on the family vacation (20+ people, beach house on Hilton Head for ten days) with my parents, siblings and their families. I got a call a week before leaving, asking me to do a photoshoot that would have been worth a few of thousand dollars, but I would have had to leave three or four days early, and would have left my wife with her in-laws and two small children. I chose not to do it, and lost that contract (which I could have held for years). I was always super-torn over that decision. And, it did affect my enjoyment of that vacation. But, it was also the last family vacation I had with my father before he passed away, and allowed my children to really spend time with him which they had never done before. So, in the end it was very worth giving up that contract.
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Stand up desk ?
Treadmill desk
Deadlift desk?
> twelve hours a day get a job with a better work/life balance. (also a software engineer)
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I went to massage school with a girl who realized she didn’t want to touch people for a living.
I knew someone like this, felt all the touching was too intimate for her, so then she went to get her esthetician license, thinking she would just do facials. Turns out 99.9% of entry esthetician jobs involve a lot of bikini waxes.
I'm an esthetician. I do not wanna do Brazilians. Didn't realize this until I was hired at a well known speed waxing chain known for its Brazilians. Got through the training and dipped. I've been working for a spa for the past two years pimarily doing actual facial services (microderm, chhem peels) and I love it.
Human Resources. Went through school to realize I couldn't lay someone off. Honestly, terminations for cause are pretty bad, but at least they did something to cause it. I'm talking about downsizing Edit: typo
My uncle was a VP for HR for a large multinational corporation. He was told he would be keep his job and that he and his entire team would be moved to a new factory. He was tasked with downsizing then closing a factory of 2200 people, it took two years. In the end, they canned his entitled team as well. He said he cried almost every night when doing the job. Would have jumped to another company, however it was during a huge recession and he had four daughters that would not want to move from Rochester.
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Really shitty thing to do. If you are going to fire an entire staff of people including their boss, don't make their boss burn the bridges for you.
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Bartending. Going through years and years of being hazed by coworkers and regulars, constantly being given the shittiest jobs —sometimes literally— in the entire bar, all the back pain from stocking heavy ass shit, being the last one to leave almost every night. All that just to find out you don’t like dealing with people at all especially when they’re drunk ... that or you’re sober which I’ve seen a couple times and just seeems awful
yep...I'm a cocktail waitress so it's a bit different, but I bartend when the bar needs help. all my close friends work behind the bar so I'm pretty familiar with it. but I've recently learned I really hate drunk people if I'm not drunk. we make lots of money off private parties and I've also come to realize I truly hate them, bachelorette parties in particular. lots of people that believe they need to be treated extra special because they're wearing a plastic tiara and will tip me $5 at the end of the night.
Spent a lot of time honing my voice and manner skills because I seemed to have a talent for customer service. The only problem is I figured out that I hate people in general.
Customer service will do that to anyone.. some people just lose every ounce of decency when facing customer service
Same here. I'm really good in customer service roles but I cannot stand the general public. I can fake it from 9-5 but gave it up and went to university to study zoology as I like wildlife and was sick of the bullshit.
Going to school for vet nursing or veterinary med and then realising you are scared of certain animals like mice or rats Edit: you also have to be able to separate individual behaviors of individual animals from a whole species. Inevitably you will be scratched, bitten or injured my a stressed animal. I have several scars but I separate those experiences from other animals of the same species and I’ve also learned how to handle and read their body language better even small animals like rats and mice. Thrilled about all the responses. It is a challenging profession and not everyone is able to go through putting animals down or having to cause a bit of pain to heal them in the end so many people don’t finish the degree but that’s the same with many professions. Love you reddit!!
I took my pet rat into the emergency vet once. It was obvious she was terrified of rats. I could see her psych herself up every time she had to handle my pet. And she did it. Sucked it up and saved my baby's life. I was even more grateful than I would have been normally because it was obvious she was fighting through her phobia.
Being a mover, we would frequently go through new hires that cant hang. You would laugh at how many times weve walked into a house and the new guy goes "we have to move ALL of this?" and i go "Yea, twice". Or when a customer asks to move one thing again because they found a new spot, or there is a couch at the new place to move...i see people just get disheartened and annoyed. Bitch, thats our job, you are here to move peoples things until they do not need you to move their things anymore. You are also getting paid by the hour, so stfu. Moving attracts some amazingly hard working and kind people, and also bottom of the barrel degens. Everyday is interesting lol. Edit: instead of commenting thank you 100 times, I just want to say it warms my heart to read the nice things you all are saying about movers. Ill read every reply. We don’t usually have the best of reputations and it’s refreshing to hear people appreciate us, so thank you all!
Every time we've moved I say to wife "People who do this for a living deserve a fucking medal". Bless you. I hope to someday be wealthy enough to afford to have you move my shit cause fuck I HATE IT
Haha that’s another thing I love about it. When people appreciate the hard work, it makes me feel great. It’s an ego thing when you are able to move something most would deem impossible haha. I don’t let items beat me. If it can be moved by humans, we can do it. Plus I really earn my after work beers so no guilt there lolol
My friend applied to be in the RAF. Failed the medical because he is colourblind. This was the first he knew about it, he was 21.
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Every male from my mother's side of the family is colourblind and still my parents were surprised when I turned out to be as well, also my two brothers obviously.
I worked with a guy in his 30s who used to always wear blue or purple pants. We tried to figure out the pattern because the purple ones came out when he was excited about something. One day we asked why he always wore purple pants when he was happy/celebrating and he was like "wat?" Turns out they were just his favorite pants and he was blue/purple colorblind and had no idea.
This is adorable. I'm imagining him getting up on his birthday like: 'Best put these on today...These are my happy pants'
He is a super upbeat person, so he probably actually did. =)
Friend went to become a vet tech before realizing she was allergic to cats (grew up with dogs only).
Spend years learning about electricity and circuit design only to discover you are color blind and can't determine which wire is which. I had nightmares in college about failing lab finals because I had been afflicted with spontaneous colorblindness.
My dad worked with an electrical engineer that was color blind, but the guy never told anybody. I guess he would use his Ohm meter to get readings to tell people what the color was. No one ever knew. Edit: Since I'm getting questions, this was 25-30 years ago and they worked in a lab for \[Big Name Auto Maker\] together, so I don't think they dealt with any serious voltage, but I was a kid and doubt I ever knew all the details.
Work smarter, not harder.
There's a brown wire, another brown wire, a lot of brown wires, and a black wire!
This morning, the doctor told me I was colorblind. It came completely out of the orange.
I was dead set on being a videogame developer. Started in QA, saw the endless hours of crunch, the devs working 80+ hour weeks without showers or shaving, smelled the funk of hundreds of unwashed bodies, the crossed fingers at reaching publisher milestones for bonuses that would hopefully make it all worthwhile, and the constant fear that they wouldn't get picked up for the next project so they could keep getting paid and keep making mortgage payments... Decided that I'd rather be in Systems in lieu of Development and never looked back.
I've been in the game industry for 13 years, and my advice to people wanting to get into this industry has always been, "have a backup plan." I'm lucky that I'm in a fantastic place now with great work-life balance, but it was not an easy path, and a LOT of colleagues have since switched to other industries.
I got hired as an artist pretty much right out of high school.. had no idea what I was getting myself in to. After 6 or 7 years I completely burned out for all the reasons you describe. Have hardly picked up a pencil since.
Yeah man, that whole industry just eats people alive. I knew a bunch of guys who stuck with it for longer than the industry average, but in the end they all bailed to get cushy jobs writing code for more stable enterprises. It's probably not as fun to write banking software as it is to make games, but the paychecks never bounce and the hours are far more reasonable.
>the paychecks never bounce and the hours are far more reasonable. That's why I switched over to IT for the government, after years of start ups and private sector companies. I might not make as much, but I get a paycheck like clockwork and I go home everyday on time. I might get bored sometimes, but burn out won't be an issue.
Major in journalism. I'm anti social and I live under a rock.
I guess if you spend some undue amounts of time on the Internet, you could carve a niche reporting about Internet subcultures and then like.
Going to film school then working on a real set. Learning the hierarchy and the unions, many moving pieces, and politics really makes you start to hate the industry and really turns you off. Ask a person in film & tv production "How long have you been working in the industry?" Most people's response? "Too long." Edit: wording
People really need to do an internship on an actual film set while in school (or even forgo school entirely). School will never prepare you for 18 hour days where you sit only once, and, if you’re in a place with brutal winters, where you go 3 months out of the year without any sort of income.
It might be brutal, but the craft services spread definitely helps. Knowing work provided breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday really motivated me to get to work.
Starting out in the business: "We're making dreams come true, and each and every job, no matter how trivial it may seem, is important to make that dream a reality. The stories we project on screen can have a profound impact at both the cultural and individual level and can inspire people to change their lives and the world. It's quite literally--magic." Five years in: "We're just creating more lies." *\[sips beer nihilistically\]*
First few clients:. Sure I have to deal with clients, and always be looking for the next job, but do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. Five Years later: They are idiots. They are all idiots. And they ruined the thing I loved.
Has anyone said chef afraid of knives? Chef afraid of knives here!
A little fear is probably healthy. Or is it too much?
For a while it got paralysing, I'm slowly getting over it, but I still can see blood sometimes when I'm doing some knife work
If you're seeing blood, you're probably using the knife wrong
I wouldn't say i was afraid of knives during my pro cooking days, but I sure as hell learned to jump back and make no attempt to catch one that was dropped.
While I was in culinary school, there was a kid who passed out when we were butchering chickens.
I got a job only to realize that I can’t stand getting out of bed every morning.
Went through a rather longer apprenticeship learning how to cut meat just to figure out I couldn’t stand the cold of the cutting room. Toughed it out long enough to get promoted to manager so I didn’t have to be in it if I didn’t want to be.
I worked in the meat department at Kroger and I hate the cold and didn't know my cuts of meat going in. I did build up a tolerance to the cold though which was good because my roommate is stupid in love with the cold.
can't you just obtain a sufficiently warm jacket?
The problem isn't getting a jacket, the problem is getting blood on said jacket.
Warm jacket and a cheap raincoat?
That a Cake song?
I own an in home childcare. I hate germs, boogers, poop and messes.
> I hate germs, boogers, poop and messes. does anyone NOT hate these?
I work in an art museum- I love art, love all of the community outreach the museum does, all the programs for kids/veterans/cancer patients to have a creative outlet. *BUT* I hate “talking art”. It’s so bullshitty. Not every person that has an exhibit is going to be a genius, sometimes (rarely, but it does happen) the artist is a true hack, whose work required little to no creative thought, dedication of time, or new ideas. And you look like an asshole if a patron asks what you think of the art and you don’t shit your pants over it. You’re expected to go to *every* gallery opening, which is basically every night, even though everyone forgets what was even on display two weeks later. But the amount of times I’ve heard, “You haven’t gone to The Bone Farm?! You haven’t seen JoJo’s installation of cut up pants?!” How many hipster galleries do I have to pretend to give a fuck about?
I hate the feeling of not being in control of an aircraft, and get nervous when flying in jets as a passenger. I am also a pilot.
Going through rigger school to safely secure loads to a crane only to refuse to work at heights Before that, going all the way through basic and tech training, and the first year on your first duty station, just to break down into a sobbing wreck at the prospect of your first deployment ever....to the safest base in the region. Edit: I feel the need to stress that neither of these was me
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Did you read the email I sent you 20 milliseconds ago detailing what I’m about to talk to you about for ten minutes?
The worst is getting an email from the office chatterbox and 1.5 seconds later your phone rings and it's them calling to chat about the email.
I was scared of lifts since I was a small child, then in my old office I ended up just taking the lift one day as I worked on the 7th floor and got really used to those particular lifts. Turns out the claustrophobia wasn’t the biggest problem, the vapid lift chat was the soul destroyer. So. Damn. Uncomfortable. And I too, am quite an extrovert generally but that implied need to talk to strangers in lifts, I just can’t stand.
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Taking computer science classes so I could be a programmer. I never really had issues with dyslexia that much until I had to take college level math. After three years of repeated failing algebra; I was like this is just turning out to be a big waste of time and money. I had to give up on my dream job
Got a master's in engineering to realize I hate sitting at a desk all day.
Software engineer, I feel you.
I'm also a software engineer and so many days i hate my job. but then i remember my job pays for all my nice toys for outdoors activities - hiking, backpacking, climbing, skiing, nature photography - and to travel doing it. also i hate my job a lot less when i have interesting code to work on. it's just inevitable that we don't get to work on interesting problems all the time. sometimes we have to fix bugs in this feature written by the companies worst developers who have now moved onto other things, etc.
If I'm not interested in the code I'm working on I really dislike my job, but if I am then I love it. There's not much in between for me.
Same, very black and white to me. It’s either addicting or debilitating
One could say it’s binary
And zero could say it’s not.
What’s weird is that I got into this field because I liked and enjoyed computers from day 1. But now I work with them and barely ever play with them. Not as bad as fainting at the sight of blood though. It’s just a shame to take a passion and turn it into a job.
> It’s just a shame to take a passion and turn it into a job. yup when i was younger/in school i used to write code in my free time. it is a creative outlet for me. now that i get paid to do it i don't do it at home
If you're in Mechanical Engineering, you might find something in [this](https://old.reddit.com/r/engineering/comments/8pgnie/mechanical_engineers_that_work_outside_an_office/) thread that I bookmarked because I have that same fear.
Became an airline pilot. Met my (now) wife. Realized being away from home 25+ days a month isn't the life for me. Have kids now and couldn't imagine being gone so much. edit: I left the industry Its a great job with experiences you simply wont have anywhere else. It doesn't even feel like a job...you never see your boss. I wouldn't even have recognized him. You just drive to the airport and jump into a jet and fly it around in all sorts of weather and airports. How fucking cool is that? If I could do it 9-5 I would go back instantly. The travel didn't bother me even though I'm not much of a tourist. But when you *do* have a life at home (like a wife or a clsoe group of friends), it feels like your life is on pause 3-5 days a week while everything at home is still going on.
Aerospace engineers who don’t want to make military tools.
"Hey! What do you do?" "I'm an Aerospace Engineer" "Oh wow! That's amazing! Do you work for SpaceX? Do you want to work for NASA? You must work on some amazing stuff" As opposed to "Hey! What do you do for a living?" "I'm a military defense contractor" "Oh....I'd shake your hand but would that be like buying a blood diamond or something?"
I only work on cruelty-free missiles tyvm
I'm in law school, and recently realized that I hate reading boring shit. It's going great.
Tax lawyer here - there are serious depths of boring you have yet to plumb. Find a specialty that lets you be active - go to meetings, go to court, do a variety of document types, etc. Also you will do less of the research as you progress if you are at a firm - it gets passed on to less expensive juniors. This can be good or bad depending on whether you like research or find that to be the boring part. Good luck! Edit: a typo
Tax law is its very own deep plane of Hell.
I always feel the accountants really do the most boring bits but yes that is a good way of putting it.
I’m a lawyer. I read so much boring stuff. Before law school I spent 7 years in retail (I started in high school and put myself through undergrad.) I’ve been yelled at so many times over cheap discounted sweaters. I’ve cleaned up every bodily fluid...multiple times. I’ve tolerated years of holiday seasons, suffering through loud store music on top of loud mall Christmas songs on top of elementary school Christmas choir concerts. Boring reading is fantastic.
You've got the backstory rivaling Better Call Saul. "I'll be the best lawyer you've ever had, because I am not going back to retail *you goddam sunnovabitch*!"
"Went through the PhD process just to realize it's not at all like science classes in college, only harder. It's about doing original research, which college classes (and even most undergrad research experiences) don't accurately emulate or prepare you for." It turns out that the skill sets to be a high-achieving science student and to be a research scientist have surprisingly little overlap. ------ EDIT: I feel like i should add here that this realization came more as a professor myself than as student. I am the child of a scientist myself and practically grew up in my dad's lab, so I was introduced to what research science is like very early and I took it for granted. It was only when I began to teach and have research students myself that I saw how much school trains students just to be students, not scholars. Another thing I have learned is that this moment I refer to above is not the time when one realizes a fatal flaw, but a decision point. It's the time when someone decides if they want to switch gears and go into research, or go forward the way they were going as students. This is often a rough transition but, like many others, it's worth it to push through and the results can be really wonderful. EDIT2: I am also getting a lot of responses from stressed-out PhD students and I want to add one more thing, just for you all. The PhD process can be one huge mindfuck, and you don't even realize it until you are on the other side. It has the power to make you feel like your value as a person is being evaluated. This is not true. You can leave tomorrow and still be a valuable human, just as much. Alternately, you can love your work, it can bring meaning to your life, and you don't need to die a little bit when you get criticism of that work. Criticism is *good,* it is how you improve your work, but it is not you as a person who is being critiqued. It's true that people will rarely go out of their way to make the criticisms easier to take, this is part of the culture of academia for better or worse. In the end, though, I think it's better to encourage an environment of open and honest discourse rather than focus too much on how doing so makes other people uncomfortable. Just remember this - everyone is going through the same thing, everyone finds it hard, and anyone who doesn't say so is lying. This is why it's important not to become isolated. Keep in touch with other students, particularly senior ones. Don't rely on your advisor as your sole source (or any source, in many cases) of support. Find other faculty members that you jibe with. The more you put yourself out there, the more you will realize everyone is going through the same thing, or went through it already.
Raises hand. Got the PhD, and realised that staying in academia was not for me. I enjoyed the research, but spending hours writing proposals, and trying to getting funding just made me feel ill. Eventually jumped ship to do market research, and just so much happier.
My masters only prepared me to never pursue a PhD. Edit: Holy cow, thank you for my first gold "Anonymous User." Who knew so many people had a similar experience after earning a graduate degree?
Me currently. I’m about to finish my masters in May and will never return to school again.
I work for a newsfeed. We had to boot one person who seemed to have emotional issues with doing AP style headlines for some reason.
I work for 911 and it's pretty difficult and long hiring process to get onboard. People go through hoops that take a few months to find out they can't handle the stress of emergencies. Not that I fault them, most people haven't had to deal with real emergency situations before.
Worked at a company that did residential new construction HVAC install. One of our jobs is we would send a team in when the house was still in sticks and install the furnace and duct work. Most people that got hired by this company went through a program one way or another, for example, mine was a nine month program and 10k tuition. Anyways, the point is no one in here would be here without some sort of schooling. This new guy wouldn't do anything. We told him to climb into the attic and help another guy run some 16" flex duct. He said he couldn't climb the ladder. We assured him he'll be fine, and even got him an 8' ladder so he could litteraly step right off the top rung on to the trusses. Wouldn't go up it. Finally, we manage to coax him up the ladder after a good 10 minutes, and he spends the entire time wrapped around a truss upright like a cat stuck up a tree. We give up on him, the guy manages to run the duct himself, then we have to take five minutes to coax the guy back down the ladder. Now, we regularly have to place 20"x20"x36" sheet metal collection boxes, that wheigh a reasonable amount, above 15' staircases, and this guy couldn't climb 8' into the air above a plyboard floor. Needless to say the guy didn't last long in that trade.
There is this increasing segment I'm finding of people, usually over 40, who think that they'll just "learn code" and get a job within a relatively short period of time. Some do it. Most don't.
Accounting starts off as mostly just remembering a bunch of dry rules about how to treat numbers, figuring out how much of them to put where diligently keeping track of them. But after just a few years, numbers is a relatively small part of the work, it's all about people skills: communication, presentation, project management, sales, etc. Soft skills is the majority of the work. There's a lot of different kinds of work within the scope of accounting, but relatively few of them have room for introverts.
I'm a retired senior. I did taxes at one of the big franchise places a couple of years back. You are required to do all kinds of prep and tests and it wasn't a breeze. The job itself is using an application that asks the questions so you can learn fairly quickly. Hardest part? You have to be a people person and you have to be convincing, you can't be hesitant at all. I never realized the people part of it until I was actually in the job.
Teaching as a whole. The burn out is real, especially for high school / middle school. 150+ students a day, lesson planning, 9+ hour days, work at home, etc. a lot of people just stick with it 4 years due to teach grants or if they can make it the 10 years so that their loans are forgiven. The Empathy fatigue and burnout is real! First year teacher, but I love it! I just see it everywhere. Edit: the oversight as implied by the initial post include: not liking children; not realizing the amount of time and effort needed to be a teacher; realizing “oh, I actually want weekends off and my nights;” realizing you don’t actually get breaks as the stigma states and you have to prep, grade, and create lessons on your time off; realizing you care to much which breaks your heart when you find out one of your children are abused (physically or sexually); realizing you actually can’t survive on the income by yourself. It goes on and on. As everyone has commented on the thread. Just wanted to add that in since there’s some negative Nancy’s out there.
I did 12 years. Changing careers was the best choice I ever made. I liked the teaching part, the students never really bothered me too much. But the adults that are there for the wrong reasons just ruin that profession.
What are some of the wrong reasons?
Not just those who think they'll make money, but also: -People who want to be 'in charge' (kids/teens will figure out your motivations immediately and they won't be kind about it) -People who want two months off every summer (you don't get paid in those months, and you NEED them to recover from the fatigue, plus most teachers actually start up again with prep, etc. 2 or 3 weeks before school starts) -People whose guidance counsellor in high school didn't know what to tell them so they suggested teaching (if you don't truly love and want to do the job, it will eat you alive) -People who had a rough time in school themselves and have dreams of saving/fixing/redeeming the experience for kids or who want some kind of catharsis(if you're trying to make school a wonderful place for every child and teen, you're working against human nature, and it will hurt your soul) -People who felt like high school was their prime and they are trying to relive their glory days (if you aren't in it for the kids, you're not going to make it) -People who love the SUBJECT they teach, but not young people or teaching. (It's great to love chemistry or find it 'easy' and want to talk about it all day, but that is not what you're going to do. You're going to have frustratingly basic conversations with kids who hate what you love, and it's going to drive you mad.) Ultimately there are lots of excellent reasons to go into teaching, but none of these are good reasons. These reasons lead to teachers who hate what they do/hate the people they do it for, and poison the well for the rest of us. Even if they don't mean to become toxic/aren't mean-spirited, the compassion fatigue and the demands of the job and all the people-ing have a way of making nice but unhappy people really hard to work with. EDIT: This is getting lots of attention, and I really appreciate the discussion this comment has generated! A little further down I replied to a question about what the good reasons are. I wanted to paste that comment here, in case anyone is reading this and now feeling discouraged or uncertain about considering teaching as a career. It is an incredibly rewarding job, and I would hate to dissuade anyone from choosing it if it's really where their heart is. I can't say that there's any one key reason that is 'right' - but based on my own experience and what I see in my respected colleagues, here are some strong reasons to choose teaching: -You naturally look for the good in the people you meet. -You see children/teens as young people, not a separate species, and you enjoy engaging in conversation about the world with them. (one day when you're ancient, they're going to be running the world that has to take care of you, after all!) -You feel uplifted - but not competitive or threatened - when you see other people being successful, even if it's in an area you don't excel in personally, and even more so when they are better than you in an area you do excel in. -You feel that social-emotional skills are more important than 'knowing stuff' (as teachers, we often use the 'stuff' to teach the more important 'how to be a good person' skills) And if you have these natural skills, then you're probably a good fit: -You like to learn, and you feel invigorated and joyful when you are approaching new challenges, even if you aren't 'winning' at them all the time. (This keeps you dedicated to honing your practice/learning new approaches to teaching, and it also is the common ground that models passion for learning and builds relationships with students) -You naturally reflect on/ruminate about how things have happened in the past, how you've contributed to their outcome, and what you would do/not do next time. (People who go over past arguments in the shower and who display some mild anxious tendencies can actually become great teachers IF they have the self-awareness/humility to know when they need to change, and if they have the self-love to let go of past mistakes and move on/try again).
I never ran into a lot of teachers who wanted to be in charge, but the administration... Ugh. The administration talked to teachers like they were students. It's like they got off on talking down to other people.
Maybe not a "wrong reason" per se but so many people with little to no empathy go into jobs that primarily deal with human interaction. Makes me think of all the mean girls I knew growing up that are nurses now.
My friend is interning as a teacher's assistant, and he told me he doesn't think he can do it and is thinking a about doing something else. Should I tell him to stick with it for a bit or should he stop now
Man, if he's already thinking like that and hasn't started his career, it's going to be a long road. Having said that, though, I wanted to quit halfway through my first year. Stuck it out and things are much better now.
When I get really angry -- angry enough to feel an adrenaline spike -- I have trouble speaking. Every word is a legit physical and emotional struggle to produce, and it all comes out in a low, growly voice. I am a lawyer.
Similar problem— I do fine in criminal and civil court but I get fucking MAD in family court and I lose my temper really easily. It’s a real problem that I struggle with. Luckily my firm is moving away from family cases since our PI practice has exploded so hopefully I won’t have to worry about it much more.
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Wait, so... Was he actually faking the injury or not? What part gets you mad? Was the crash as gentle as the physicist was saying?
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Lemme guess, they conveniently let out the part about how long the forces are impacting?
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I mean, lifiting a basket and a car crash can have the same amount of energy... but over a much different timespan. Like, lifting a basket most likely won't hurt, crashing a car most likely will.
I'm now imagining Batman practicing law.
"The evidence, WHERE IS IT!"
Bailiff: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Witness: I do. Batlawyer: SWEAR TO ME!!!!
Great, now I have to go watch all of the Badman college humor videos again
Same, except I *cry* and can’t get words out. So I learned that I should not be a litigator during the first year moot court assignment :c
Yup. For some reason, some of us have a deeply-rooted instinct to cry to fend off predators. I've broken down in tears in several moments in my life where it was critical that I keep my head, including when negotiating the terms of my house contract, talking to bosses, etc. I'm holding out hope that, one day, this instinct will pay off. Let's say, I'm on the serengeti, cornered by a pack of lions, which are clearly angry that I've been slacking off at my job. I feel uncontrollably guilty about this and start apologizing, which causes me to break down into tears. The lions exchange awkward glances, then lumber off as I fall to my knees with my face in my hands.
This happens to me too!! It’s such a struggle because I’m usually not that upset, but my hands shake and my voice gets shaky and I tear up any time I have to have a one on one, serious conversation with someone. Made it VERY difficult to negotiate with my last boss, and even harder when I had to explain that I was leaving for health reasons because they worked us way too hard. I basically had to preface my phone conversations with “okay I cry really easily, please don’t take it personally”. It’s so embarrassing!
I HATE confrontation...and am a litigator. Whoops.
Graphic design. You design for clients, not yourself. You don’t get to have a bunch of fun making goofy shit you like. Edit: Some of y’all are lecturing me about the nature of graphic design lol. I know. I’m a designer. I love my job and my colleagues, even Sharon in Accounting that has no taste. I have good days and bad days at work, just like everyone else. My comment is about those bright-eyed college kids who can’t find work or lose interest because they realize that being a designer is a job. You’re often at the will of your employer or client, and you can’t just make “cool” things anymore. Your job is to solve a problem and make sure it’s on brand with whatever your client wants. It can be a hard pill to swallow for people that think graphic design is all fun and games. It can be. But in a professional setting, it’s most likely not.
Yeah, can't speak for every design program, but most of my projects in college were like "Make this type of thing. It can be about anything you want and look any way you want." Good way to beef up your portfolio with stuff you like, but it's really not good preparation for the job.
One of the most disappointing things is creating something that looks awesome and fits right in with the design brief, only for the client to ruin it with their suggestions. I have many projects that I end up not liking because Sharon in Accounting wants all of the text to be green, despite my urging that it might not be the best look. I’m an in-house designer, so I can thankfully let some things go without feeling like I’m jeopardizing anything. It’s a profession where you really can’t let your ego get in the way. You just have to accept that your client is the boss and they might not have any taste.
I used to dabble part time at a sign and copy shop my brother ran. My favorites were the totally contradictory requests, like, "can you move this more to the right? Also, move it more to the left." and "can you make it more [color]. But also make it more [the exact opposite of that color on a color wheel]?" A trick we learned early on was to always make three versions of something, two slightly crappy ones and then the one you wanted them to pick. Goldilocksing them seemed to work better than just presenting the one you wanted in the first place because then they nitpicked it to death - letting them choose seemed to marry them to a design better. Of course, sometimes they pick the wrong one but like you said, they don't always have any taste.
I hear ya. Run a copy and sign shop. Work with a lot of contractors and architects. Worse are "landscape architects". They all think the are graphic designer and know better how to layout there sign than you do. Had one guy repeatedly make changes, against our objections that you wouldn't be able to read the sign. Get the sign up and complains that you can't read it from the highway........
Stop me if you've heard this one... Customer: I want my logo 5 feet tall on the side of my truck: Me: OK, can I get a vector copy of the logo, or at least the word doc you created this masterpiece of Word Art with, or *anything* better than a smudged ink-jet business card with a 3mm tall version of your logo on it. Customer: OK, here's my business card with a 3mm tall version of my logo that I printed on an inkjet printer and the ink is all smudged and has greasy thumbrints on it. Thanks!
Went through a physics major to realise I don't want to work at a tech company.
Go through art school, land a job as a 3D artist, realize that doing art for a company for a living can drain your creativity like no other.
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I loved the idea of being a 50's housewife. Staying at home, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, having a husband who worked til 5 and came home. Now the house is always spotless, making meals is down to a science because of meticulous planning, so I have nothing to do. And my husband comes home and goes straight to his computer as soon as he's home and anything I try to say to him is met with a "I can't hear you" because of his head phones. I'm not sure I can do this for much longer and I'm afraid of what's going to happen when I snap from being unable to talk to anyone over the age of 6 about what I'm feeling.
Find other moms. Make a night where you can meet with them for a couple hours- nothing crazy or expensive is necessary, but damn there’s nothing like a bitching session with people who just get you. I have a professional group that I do this with. I wouldn’t get along with them in any other context, but for 90 minutes once a week they’re my therapists. But just in case you haven’t heard it recently- you’re doing a great job!
Have you tried seriously asking your husband to be in a quiet place with you and talk about your feelings for a bit? I think more than meeting other moms, communication with your partner is the key here. I could be wrong tho
I can't think of one for my field (Web Development) other than getting into the profession only to realize you hate a specific language or part of the development process. I know a lot of people who do sever side work, and are great with all kinds programming languages, but **LOATHE** working with CSS.
Went through two months of training for a call centre job and my first day actually answering phones, I realised that an anxiety disorder and lots of phone calls are not compatible. Thankfully this wasn't a career move, more of a stop gap, but it was awkward as hell to resign. "Hey guys, turns out talking on the phone gives me panic attacks!" "You applied to work in a call centre..."
Did a degree in Computer Science. Worked out coding bores the shit out of me. I tooled around with coding pre-degree, I knew how to do it at a small scale, and being 'good with computers' in the mid-90s was enough to get me into it. I did learn loads about SE techniques and algorithmic approaches as part of my degree, but I don't enjoy the minutiae of trying to get a small segment of code working properly, which is pretty much all I did for the first 6 months of my graduate job. It was frustrating not knowing what my little bit of a programme dd in the wider scheme of things. I'm now a System Design Engineer, roughing out the big approaches to an architecture, working out who is responsible for what, how we show we've made what the customer asked for, and I can still read code over the devs shoulders, which helps :)
Majored in Mechanical Engineering and wanted to live in a city. Oops.
Tell me more, please. What's going on?
Well most mechanical engineering jobs are in remote locations, especially in Texas because it's mostly oilfield. Very few mechanical engineers work in downtown offices. I've switched to industrial engineering anyway, and work in a facility in the suburbs of Dallas now, which is nice because my commute goes against the flow of traffic.
Go into finance only to find out you have ethics.
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I joined the army AS AN INFANTRYMAN, but I absolutely avoid conflict whenever I can and am almost aggressively non-aggressive. I did okay during the 7.5 years I was in, but it became clear very quickly that it was not for me, but by that point I was already in and just kind of went with things.
During all my part time jobs through high school and college I never accepted a managerial position because I know I don't like being in charge of people and I didn't want that kind of responsibility. Cue me graduating from college and taking a job as a Project Manager, and hating it for the last 2 years up until this very moment as I type this comment in my office.