As you may have learned by now, expectations don't always live up to reality. And, as a recent post on r/AskReddit shows, that can be true even when you embark on what you believed to be the best career in the world.
Created by user u/American-pickle, it asked people, "Did you ever obtain your 'dream job' to realize it wasn't actually what you wanted—why did it not live up to expectations?"
Immediately, zookeepers, flight attendants, and many other professionals started replying, explaining how the day-to-day realities such as long hours, monotony, and workload have disappointed them.
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I dreamt about working in Veterinary Medicine my whole life. When I finally did, I ended up traumatized. It wasn't the blood, the abuse, or even the euthanasia. It was how we just didn't talk about it. Bad day? Don't talk about it. Got hurt? Don't talk about it. Rude pet parent? Don't talk about it. Burnt out? Don't talk about it. I felt so alone in situations where having support was essential.
I was actually looking to see if someone would put being a vet. I can't imagine being the person that puts down people's pets everyday while the family cries around you
We managed to get in touch with u/American-pickle and they agreed to tell us more about their now-viral question and the discussion behind it.
"Before posting I was reflecting on how many times I changed majors in college — always feeling like I couldn't figure out what direction to take my career in as it seemed like too major of a decision for someone fresh out of high school and 18 years of age to make," the Redditor told Bored Panda.
"I thought it was quite funny, my career has nothing to do with anything I decided to study, but I find it quite enjoyable. I thought it was ironic that I stumbled into a profession I never once before considered, while thinking about others who are dead set on a career choice from a young age, only to end up miserable in a situation completely unlike they imagined."
All throughout childhood and college I wanted to be a zookeeper.
When I was finally offered the internship though, it took me less than a week to realize I couldn't stomach it.
It's a lot less "playing with and training cute animals" and a lot more "cleaning up the vilest messes and being bombarded with the absolute worst smells on planet earth" than I imagined.
u/American-pickle said that most replies "were similar in that ambition of their employees is not something businesses nurture and grow."
"I feel from reading most responses, if these people had better leadership within their companies, that they would feel more fulfilled. When people feel fulfilled it can only bring the business more productivity. [The thread] shows how disconnected we are from how to achieve real and long-term results."
Yes I wanted to be a freelance graphic designer because I heard you work for yourself. Turns out you can have 18 a hole bosses at once.
The Redditor thinks that so many people form wrong impressions of the job market because our culture likes perpetuating myths.
"Nobody hears about a person who fails miserably at their job and then sets themselves up to follow in that path. These unrealistic standards of how they view their future career set them up to never feel fulfilled. Perhaps that's why I love what I do — I never thought about how great I would be at it during my teen or college years. I get to accept the position for what it is and not what I imagined it to be.
"Don't let your career run your life," the author of the post added. "Take your PTO. When your time comes, no one will be reading your performance reviews at your funeral."
I always wanted to be a flight attendant. Then I actually was one. No thanks ever again but for a few years it was fun, then it just became a series of indistinguishable hotel rooms and it wasn't worth putting up with the passengers anymore
I had a few friends who became flight attendands. While they hammer into you that you are there for the passanger safety first and foremost, 90% of the time you are just a travelling waitress. Except your customers are tired, irritated and don’t tip. None of my friends lasted more than three years.
Never really enjoyed driving but always wanted to learn to fly. Dropped 10k on a pilots license and found out flying was just driving with up and down added. Weird was how quickly a childhood dream turned to meh.
I got to work on 3d models in a large game studio.
Turns out I hate working in an office setting, I can't stand office culture, and they don't pay living wages for new employees.
Now I get to help sick and injured people while living in a small mountain town, making enough money to buy a house and travel when I want.
Being a professor. The academe is full of know-it-alls and stuffy experts with attitude problems. Hard to work when it feels like you're walking on eggshells every time you approach a senior faculty member. Plus, they exploit the living hell out of the younger faculty members, saying that this is for experience when it is clearly just running tasks that they don't want to do.
Doctor.
Currently working 7am-7pm 6 days a week for months at a time. 4 weeks of vacation a year. I am getting paid about $12 per hour when you do the math out.
That is residency. I wanted to help people but this field takes advantage of that and the hospital CEOs and decreasing insurance reimbursement takes advantage of that.
I chose to do diagnostic radiology because this internal medicine lifestyle and workload is just ridiculous.
I don't know how it is in other countries, but here in the US there is such a ridiculous culture of over-working healthcare professionals, such as doctors and nurses. How does it make any sense to put these people through long hours and brutal shifts when they're responsible for people's health? Makes no sense.
My first job out of college was as a forestry field tech. Turns out camping is way less fun when you worked 10 hours, don't have cell service, are on a random flat spot you found, and there's no one to talk to. Now make that 8 days in a row, your only water is in jugs in the work truck, and you're covered in grime and wearing the same clothes for the entire time.
Now I get to stay in a cabin during field season. Having running water, a bed, and four friendly people on the crew is a godsend. I am so much happier just having company and running water, "adventure" be damned.
This one is the closest one to my current job (park ranger). I still do quite a bit of forest field tech these days, and I enjoy it a lot! I however have a small hut rather than a tent, and I do have cell service hence my online presence. I love having no one to talk to because people don't tend to like me very much and the feeling is mutual!
Sort of. I got close to it. Close enough to see what that life would actually be like. And it sucked. It turns out, I don’t like working on celebrities. They’re kind of annoying clients. It’s not fun and glamorous. It’s unnecessarily stressful. And I don’t want to be a famous stylist or famous anything. It makes people weird. Mark Ruffalo is only normal because he hasn’t figured out he’s famous yet.
I still enjoy doing hair. And I still like people, for the most part. So I went with a more low key path. I’m very happy with my choices. Sometimes on the way to your dream job, you have to make adjustments.
I'm not sure if I should be glad that Mark Ruffalo seems to still be a nice guy, or if I should be sad that he will eventually become annoying as well. ;o)
Healthcare.
It's one of the most soul crushing jobs out there.
A kid in the pediatric intensive care unit with severe injuries while his parents tell conflicting stories on how he got injured.
Knowing and seeing what "teratogenic" is.
Children getting severe infections and getting declared brain dead and then you have to tell the parents that their kid is now just a living meat bag.
Pay is good at least.
Teaching. Thought it be nice but was totally not suited to it, was dreadful at managing behaviour and just couldn't understand how to plan or deliver lesson. I sucked. It amazes me how much teaching is promoted by the mass media and society as a "anybody can do it job". It certainly isn't and I met some unhappy colleagues who hated it too or that weren't suited to it either when I was there but were trapped in it.
Also if you can't control a class don't expect management to understand,they won't. They'll see it as your fault. To them, the school is their business and the kids and their parents are their customers they want kept happy. Parental complaints look bad on you so don't expect management to side with you or have empathy. They often see it as your fault and you as the problem.
It definitely is a marmite profession that comes back to your personality type. Just being able to manage kids alone isn't enough, it's so much more that requires a massive array of skills and talent. You either have the knack or you don't and in my new profession now I'm often asked why I left such a "cushy job/ handy number" like teaching. The same people won't believe me when I try to tell them and believe it's an easy gig. People appear to think because the holidays are good it makes it a dream job and negates everything else.
I was a public school teacher for 25 years and I totally understand. I began my career teaching elective classes in high school. The fun classes. The classes the students choose to take. I THOUGHT I wouldn't have discipline issues because they want to be there. I got a HUGE wake up call before my very first class even started. I will never forget what this kid told me on his way into class:. "We ran off the last teacher, we'll run you off too." Through the years I became a robot. It became teach to the test. There was more teachable moments. Drill, drill, drill!!!! I could handle discipline for the most part. My last 7 years I taught first grade. I love it, except the parents, "the work was to hard, the work was to easy, my 'other' child was reading by now, why does she have to do this, he doesn't do that at home, you will not keep him out of recess again, do not call on my child during class, (the child was extremely smart, the parent wasn't) I could go on and on.
I worked a lot of physical demanding jobs during my 20s and had these recurring fantasies about working in a store, sitting all day waiting for people to buy something, and have all that free time
Well a couple months ago I found that job. Great pay, some benefits, great bosses, but every day it's slower than the last, and weirdly enough I come back home tired from doing almost nothing all day long, tf with that?
Now sometimes I fantasize about going back to my old job, where I would end up covered up in sweat and dirt but at least there was a feeling of accomplishment
So dumb, I hate it
You are not alone in your experience. A friend of mine told me about his in- law who experienced this exact same thing. It’s astonishing how exhausting being in an office “behind a desk.”
Working as a chemist in an academic research lab.
Academia is full of narcissistic nutjobs that pretend like their research is the holy grail of their field when it's actually practically inconsequential. The stakes are so low that the results dont matter and everyone is just scavenging for what little funding they can pull together for something nobody really wants or needs. The amount of pettiness, sabotage and frankly fraud is rather pathetic. But they face little to no repercussions because, again, nobody cares.
Which is why I now do research in a corporate lab.
Read that as "alchemist" first and thought "cool, that's a real job?!?!?"
Teaching at a college
I ***love*** my field and I love research. It's easy to ramble for hours on end about a topic. The passion and curiosity I held for my discipline, I thought, would make me a good instructor. What I did not expect was how much hatred, contempt, jealousy, and sabotage would come from administration.
* "Oh, you're enjoying teaching an entry level class with 30 students? We'll raise the cap so it has 75 enrolled. Have fun grading until you cry each week!"
* "Oh, you want to be an expert educator in one area? Then you get to be the (unpaid) consultant on *all* department exams on that topic. Enjoy re-writing 7 midterms for your colleagues with one week's notice!"
* "Oh, you haven't had a raise in six years? The football coach *needs* to be highest paid person in the state. If you ask for a cost of living increase again we'll set the students against you by claiming inflation adjusted raises for instructors would result in doubling tuition costs for students!"
And so many of the students see the courses as box checking and are burnt out from previous bad educational experiences. I don't blame them, but no matter how hard I tried to be kind and share my excitement for the subject it felt like throwing a dandelion into the grand canyon of despair.
The internet is full of teachers stories like this, so unfortunate and still nothing seems to be changing
Yes I did. I went to culinary school, worked my way up in restaurants (as a woman) washing dishes, being the fry cook, closing two stations without a change of pay at a couple places, and finally made it to an up scale restaurant in DTLA where the owners had, STILL have, a great reputation in the industry. We were nominated for two Michelin stars while I was working for them (I was a pastry cook and worked directly with the owner/head pastry chef). I finally had that job I worked so hard for, but I was extremely unhappy, unfulfilled and burnt out. I came to realize that it was always going to be “go go go” and I was never fully going to be able to rest and spend time with family. I knew it was a laborious job going in, and I was ready. What I did not expect was that I was never going to be properly compensated. Cooks are extremely underpaid, over worked and undervalued. It was a huge disappointment finding out that I would never make enough to live on my own, let alone start my own business which was my end goal.
I do not regret taking that path though. When I began I was shy, quiet, and didn’t know how to speak up for myself. It doesn’t happen with everyone, but working those 8 years in the industry toughened me up, and gave me the confidence and courage I needed to accept that I was unhappy and had the option to change careers.
There's a lot of burnout in that industry. Also, a lot of burnouts, as in drug addicts and ex cons...not that that's a bad thing, per se - everyone needs to have a chance to work and rebuild their life - but when the demands of the job are constant hard labor being on your feet for an entire 8+ hour shift, low pay, and a willingness to basically accept subpar working conditions while the glorified front of house staff are the ones taking home hundreds or sometimes thousands of dollars in cash every night despite YOU being the one to make the product that's bringing in the customers, it tends make anyone with the option to pursue something else do exactly that while the ones who need a job just for the sake of having one tend to stick around cuz they'll head back to jail or back on the streets if not. My husband worked as a cook for years & experienced everything OP did as well. When he FINALLY quit for good, my son & I were so glad. He's still depressed & resentful from that grind.
Got a job with a U.S. state as a child abuse investigator. Like great, I get state benefits, I get to help kids, I thought it was a lot of money.
How wrong I was.
Chronically understaffed, overworked, underpaid, kids lying to get their step parents in trouble. Plus the actual cases… my god. I’ve never cried so much in my life from the stress and sadness.
I now appreciate the life lessons it taught me. I was only 22 when I started that job. We celebrated people lasting 6 months. I made it 18 haha.
I now work in order management for a big U.S. corporation. It’s boring but it pays the bills without life or death consequences.
For sure! Worked in forensics and while the gruesome parts didn't affect me directly, I kinda lost my smile? It's a dark world, yet exciting. Worst part was for sure the work place and how it was managed.
I dreamt of working at Disney World for YEARS, finally got hired at 23. The first couple of years weren’t that bad (I had blinders on). Year 3 I realized I was literally paying to work there I was getting paid so little. Took me 4 more years to get out of the mouse trap but once I was gone I’ve never looked back.
I've worked at a few nonprofits. I like my current job well enough but some things I've noticed:
1. They tend to be filled with overdramatic people. More so than other jobs I've had like retail or fast food.
2. The pay ranges from sucks to poverty.
I worked for 3 years with one of the top 5 non-profits in my country. I started as a volunteer at a very disillusioned time in my life and that experience gave my life meaning. So, I thought I'll make my career in it. So what if it pays less at least it's meaningful. I ended up taking a full time role with them which was basically recruiting paid volunteers for the program. And I realised how truly f****d everything was. How target driven, corporate and down right sales it was. How impact was just another word for numbers fudged up to suit organisations agenda. It wasn't all bad. That job taught me a lot of planning, organisation and the best ability to b******t authentically. But at the end of the day it didn't give me any purpose and it just felt like any other job with less pay. So I moved. Now I earn more and donate directly to the people who need it the most rather than going through any of these non-profits.
Wanted to be an actress. Got a place at drama school and the thing was that from day one you learned that every basic thing you always did your whole life was wrong. Talking, going, standing, speaking, breathing.... Everything was wrong. But I guess that's okay, as this was to be expected. It's a hard job.
Problem was that I had an accident while rehearsing and the school gaslight me that this was my wrong doing and that I was not meant to do that job if a light push would break my jaw..while actually someone fell full force with their knee straight in my face, while I layed - as instructed - with closed eyes on the floor.
Long story short. That experience was very traumatic and I really couldn't do that job anymore.
When I was younger, I desperately wanted to work on the railway as the money was great, and I really loved railways and everything in that world. I eventually managed to get a job as a welder with a local firm.
It was f*****g wank. Permanent nights, working every weekend in all weather, with equipment that weighed an absolute tonne that had to be loaded up dark embankments. I was working with thermite and explosive gases, usually after pushing all the gear about 3 or 4 miles down the track. One Christmas, I worked a shift on a site where a guy was killed the previous weekend after getting his arm chopped off by an excavator. They had a collection box in the site cabin with a picture of him and his young kid on it. F*****g heartbreaking. And to top it off, everyone I worked with was a complete and utter c**t.
F*****g s**t job.
Yeah. I always wanted to be a part of the music industry but didn't want to be a performer. I went to college for audio engineering, and was a live sound engineer/stage tech/guitar tech for about seven years. I did love the job and I'm glad I did it, but it was pretty clear after I started touring that it wasn't feasible for me as a lifestyle.
In order to do the job consistently you have to basically be homeless and miss everything that happens at home. It wasn't like I was miserable and being held hostage, but after missing enough birthdays and holidays with family and instead spending them with other random stage techs that you aren't super close to, it gets hard to rationalize.
The days are long but the pay doesn't reflect that. If it was a show day, I'd usually work like 16 hours straight. I was working with pretty big-name acts but my day rate was still about $175 a day and if I asked for a raise they'd call someone else. Everything I did was also as an independent contractor, so my taxes were f****d to begin with. That was actually what forced me out of doing it full-time, the change to the tax code in 2017 pretty much ruined my career. I went from paying in $600 per year to paying in $4,000 in one year.
When I quit, I still kept doing it on the side for a few years with some of the local audio companies I worked with coming up, but it paid way less than touring which already didn't pay a lot. After about two years and the beginning of COVID, I walked away entirely to focus on my career as an electrician which is a much better fit.
I miss the experiences but I don't miss the lifestyle. Again, I'm glad I did it, but I'm glad I don't do it.
I was a keyboardist in pop and soul bands road back in the 1970's. We would pass road sign that pointed to a great natural wonder of the world and could not stop to visit it because we were on a deadline getting to the next gig. We got to travel the country and not see any of it as we were gigging six nights a week. Then when we had time off we were broke because the pay was so low and could not afford to travel.
I got my dream job as a designer of skiing magazines, but then my workload doubled with no raise, the raises I was promised never came, all of the people I liked working with left, and things just got gradually worse. I left three months ago, and they still haven't been able to fill the position because they're offering a wage that was low nine years ago for half of the work.
I actually have my “dream job.” Growing up I would watch ASPCA cops and loved the idea of being a dog trainer or behavior person to help the damaged dogs get better and be adopted by loving families.
I condemn a lot more dogs to death and see broken dogs unable to be saved that ASPCA cops did not show lol
all through college I wanted to be a software engineer. I got the job and hated everything. the work was tedious, the impact I was making was miniscule, and my team was constantly s**t on and under appreciated. I also realized I could definitely do more than code for the rest of my life
I'm loving this list. I'm a graphic designer currently studying software development. Apparently I'm in for a world of pain.
My dream job for a long time was being a paid writer and/or screenwriter. I’ve more or less reached that point where I’m making a living writing, but boy is it different than what I expected. I could be cut/let go at anytime. Years on a temp contract with no benefits. I get the weirdest notes on scripts by someone who has no idea what story telling is. It’s a lot of keeping your head down, producing content and hoping it doesn’t get noted to the point you have to restart. My freelance writing work is similar where no one has what I dreamed of being an “artistic vision”. It’s more “we can’t shoot this in Los Angeles, so change it to Seattle” and then I have to go through the script and make the changes. A lot of it is just textual grunt work. I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to make a living like this, and when I say “I’m a writer” as my living, people get all starry-eyed, but the life of a working writer is really just implementing notes and trying to make it seem like no one else can do what you do.
I thought I wanted to be a manager but ended up only having to deal with my employees personal lives and feelings and not having any time left to do the fun stuff so I left. It clearly wasn’t my thing.
I was in upper management for a while. People hate you from both above and below! It's great. (It's not)
Worked at IBM. Dream job! Especially as an OS/2 user.
The work itself was excellent. Truly excellent. Building out huge nation-spanning WANs. Deploying 1000s of workstations and the associated servers at each site. Really fun stuff.
But... the bureaucracy, OMG. The endless soul crushing pointless bureaucracy. I literally attended meetings about a meeting next month that was about a meeting a few months out that was a pre-meeting for a meeting to talk about a few hours of work. 100s of hours of time to talk about a few hours of work for 1-2 techs.
Because the work was so good I lasted 6 years, but eventually I told my boss to go f**k himself (after, for the 4th time, he tried to sneak a "promotion" past me in a review that would have made me a "manager" and also exempt from the ~$30k of overtime I was making each year.)
I wanted to say something critical about bureaucracy, but I'm still waiting for my dog and her chew toy to give their approval on it
I am a teacher and when I first graduated college, I couldn't decide what age range I wanted to teach. My first job was 4-12 orchestra. At first this was amazing, because I could guide the same students from beginners to graduating, but I quickly learned that the 4-12 position was supposed to be a three person job and not a one person job. I unfortunately had to quit because I was so overwhelmed and my school wouldn't hire anybody else. I lasted 6 years and I don't regret it, but I also don't miss it...
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In this thread: people who drank the "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life!" Kool aid for real. Little did they realize all labor sucks you just have to choose which one sucks the least for you.
Exactly! We would not do that stuff if we weren't getting paid to do it. If we loved it we would volunteer.
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A lot of these are people who lost their childhood wonder in the ordinary day to day mundane reality. But ALL jobs become mundane. If you can't still have wonder by being close to elephants or flying above the clouds, then sitting in an office or at a call centre is not going to be any better. Appreciate the little things, find that childhood wonder again, cos life doesn't get much better than that.
I'm sorry but this sounds a lot like farting rainbows and unicorns. Exhaustion and reality are eye openers and you cant condemn people for being disillusioned. They were probably the most idealistic people in the first place. Old saying: Cynics are disillusioned idealists. I forget who said it but as an old woman who started out all starry eyed I can assure you of its truth. The lucky few who never lose it are admirable but don't blame those who lose their rose coloured glasses because they've seen and experienced too much to bear.
Load More Replies... The first mistake is failing to realize it's called "work" for a reason. Flowering as an individual while at "work" is nice but don't plan on it. BTW I was an ordained minister for 22 years. I now consider myself ecclesiastically agnostic.
In this thread: people who drank the "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life!" Kool aid for real. Little did they realize all labor sucks you just have to choose which one sucks the least for you.
Exactly! We would not do that stuff if we weren't getting paid to do it. If we loved it we would volunteer.
Load More Replies... A lot of these are people who lost their childhood wonder in the ordinary day to day mundane reality. But ALL jobs become mundane. If you can't still have wonder by being close to elephants or flying above the clouds, then sitting in an office or at a call centre is not going to be any better. Appreciate the little things, find that childhood wonder again, cos life doesn't get much better than that.
I'm sorry but this sounds a lot like farting rainbows and unicorns. Exhaustion and reality are eye openers and you cant condemn people for being disillusioned. They were probably the most idealistic people in the first place. Old saying: Cynics are disillusioned idealists. I forget who said it but as an old woman who started out all starry eyed I can assure you of its truth. The lucky few who never lose it are admirable but don't blame those who lose their rose coloured glasses because they've seen and experienced too much to bear.
Load More Replies... The first mistake is failing to realize it's called "work" for a reason. Flowering as an individual while at "work" is nice but don't plan on it. BTW I was an ordained minister for 22 years. I now consider myself ecclesiastically agnostic.
