People Are Sharing The Glamorized Jobs That Are Actually Miserable, And I Was Not Expecting Some Of These
“I gave it just over a year and noped out as soon as my husband asked me to quit.”
Movies, TV shows, and social media do a fair job at romanticizing or glamorizing certain jobs and careers, but in reality, that might not be the case. Recently, Redditor u/bjmarmy0003 asked those in the Reddit community to share the jobs that may appear glamorous but are actually miserable, and the responses were surprising:
1. “I’m an archaeologist, and people think I’m doing some wild Indiana Jones shit all day long. But no, 90% of my working time is me writing little numbers on ceramic fragments, and the other 10% is me standing on a construction site in the rain.”
2. “Event planning. Seriously, it’s not glamorous. I’ve had to clean up vomit (many times), deal with Bridezillas, and crawl under a spider web-infested building to figure out why the power went out — just to name a few.”
—Luv_My_2Cats
3. “Personal assistant. Rich and famous people suck.”
4. “Consulting. It’s like you’re flying all over the world but never leaving the office. And you never get to see friends and family.”
—carminex3
5. “Anything that requires travel. People always say stuff like, ‘Oh, wow, it must be so cool getting paid to go all around the world.’ No, it’s fucking terrible, and any excitement it does have wears off in under a month. Work travel isn’t some glamorous, open-ended vacation filled with new and exciting experiences. Work travel is a constant depressing slog characterized by sad hotel rooms, sad fast-casual restaurants, sad happy hours, and sad corporate meetings with sad dipshits. Do you have friends, family, pets, hobbies, or even a home? Well, THAT SUCKS, because you just traded it in for the sad list of stuff I listed.”
6. “Starting a business. Everyone thinks you’re rich, but all your money is reinvested into the business. Unlike a 9–5 where you know you’ll get paid every month, you have no security or spending income.”
—Xintrean
7. “Anything in the veterinary field. People assume it’s all playing with puppies and kittens all day, but it’s far from it.”
8. “The whole advertising industry. People think it’s just like Mad Men, but the only holdover from that era is that the men are still running everything. I’m in marketing strategy, and my job is 99% math. I do math all day. Graphic design folks have it worse, though, because they’re typically the first to be laid off or outsourced. If you had told 12-year-old me that this would be my adult life, I would’ve laughed in your face.”
—gimmiesnacks
9. “Firefighters. Folks think it’s just fighting fires and doing rescues like on TV, but 99% of the time, it’s just driving a million-dollar apparatus to go see meemaw, whose toe has been hurting for nine months and needs to go to the emergency room.”
10. “Working for fashion designers and fashion shows. I was an assistant for a few New York Fashion Weeks years ago, and it’s so depressing behind the scenes. Everyone is in a bad mood, everyone’s stressed, the models don’t eat, and the show is, like, less than five minutes! All for fancy clothes that no one actually cares about or will wear. It’s very odd.”
—slickrick_27
11. “Modeling. It’s MISERABLE. Even if you become super successful, your body is never truly yours. While everyone is enjoying the perks of fame and money (if you even get to that level), you can’t eat what you want, drink the fun drinks, or stay out late partying and enjoying the rich life you worked so hard for, unless you retire. And then you get old and are considered ‘washed up’ by many. My mother has a friend who was a very famous supermodel from the ’90s. She still works, but she said she wouldn’t wish the life on anyone.”
12. “I’m an anesthesiologist. The reality is that this career robbed me of my 20s and early 30s and gave me PTSD from years of being on the COVID-19 frontlines for less than minimum wage. It’s constantly stressful and sometimes requires working 100+ hours a week, all hours of the day, and every day of the year. I would quit my job in a second if I didn’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical school debt.”
—phargmin
13. “Most influencers. You have to be this fake persona most of the time, and you have to constantly upload videos after editing them.”
14. “Professional dancer. The competition is fierce, and you’ll go to so many auditions and not get picked for the weirdest reasons, like being slightly too short or not slim enough. You’re worked incredibly hard, and the pay is awful.”
—Admirable-Cookie-704
15. “Working on a yacht. Sure, the boats are glamorous and the ports can be exotic and fun, but the work it takes to create the luxury experience for out-of-touch yacht owners and guests is often a thankless toil. Close-quarter living with other full-time crew is like working in a pressure cooker, and crew turnover is high because of it.”
16. “The film industry. Most people think you’re having fun shooting exciting stuff and going to different sets, when in reality, most of the time you’re standing around and watching two people do the same scene for hours and hours. And it’s worse when you’re a PA and you have to run around and do errands.”
—louie3723jr
17. Lastly: “Being a flight attendant. They look incredible on the terminal catwalk, but life is half picking up garbage and dealing with people who think that being locked in a tube 30,000 feet in the air means they can be an asshole, and half being expected to perform flawlessly for 12–16 hours on federally-mandated minimum rest. I gave it just over a year and noped out as soon as my husband asked me to quit. I love flying, but I won’t ever work for a commercial carrier again.”
Unfortunately, I was kind of hoping that all archaeologists were on that Indiana Jones-type stuff. What’s a glamorized job that actually isn’t all that? Let us know in the comments, or you can anonymously submit your thoughts using the form below!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.