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We currently have jobs that didn't exist 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. In fact, by one popular estimate, around 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in a career that's not even on our radar yet.
Interested in the changes of the labor market, Redditor u/jaysmith007 asked other platform users last week, "What profession was once highly respected, but is now a complete joke?"
And people gave plenty of examples. From flight attendants to nurses, continue scrolling to check out those that have received the most upvotes.
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#4
Nursing. Long hours, hard work, front line workers for dealing with annoying [butt] and insane people, the definition of “I don’t get paid enough for this s**t!” Edit: thank you for the awards! My first ones :)
#5
Farmers. Agriculture used to be something everyone had to do. Now people don't give a second thought about where there food comes from.
#7
Journalist. It used to be a respected and necessary career, now, for more than one reason, it's lost almost all the respect it had.
#8
Philosopher. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. Now if someone tells you they are a philosopher you probably assume they don’t have a job and do a lot of drugs.
#10
Lawyer. I’m one and I’ve already heard all the jokes, thanks. In the 19th century it really was a position of prestige. In the mid-20th century it meant Atticus Finch. Now it’s just the equivalent of ambulance chaser in the minds of most people. And it’s too bad, because when you actually need one, you see what they genuinely do.
#11
News media, regardless of their "slant." We've gone from Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite to talking heads and sound bites. Kids today won't believe that back in the day somebody came on TV or the radio and told you the who, what, where, when, why and how- and you were expected to make your own mind about it. Yes, there were editorial/opinion sections, but they were separate from the news reporting. And "journalistic integrity" is filed away somewhere with buggy whips and vacuum tubes.
#12
Human Resources. I get it, the protect the company and not the employee, but over the last 20 years that scale has tipped so far that modern HR practices are [young] and usually unethical.
#13
Critic, for the most part. It used to be that to be taken seriously as a critic, you had to have some accomplishments in the field you were critiquing, to show that your opinion on the subject was worth some value. Somewhere along the way, the position devolved to "any as***le with an opinion is a critic". It has fallen even further in the internet age, with "critics" giving obviously stupid "hot takes" just so their name can be spread out among the media.
#15
School principal. Teachers who fail in the classroom flee to administration because they're too heavily invested to quit and start a new career. Of those, the ones with high ambition, low self-awareness, and weak personal character tend to fail upwards by parroting trendy buzzwords and supporting failed pedagogy. You'll meet the odd unicorn, but most principals are incompetent at everything except camouflaging their incompetence behind buzzwords and task-offloading.
#16
Chef. My dad was a chef and in his day you could have your pick of jobs. Literally walk out of a restaurant and into another by the end of the day. People respected them and allowed creative and financial freedom. Now I work as a chef and I constantly have to answer to people ( managers, waitresses etc ) who have absolutely 0 culinary experience. The pay is sh**ty, the hours are ridiculous it's about 3 decades behind in terms of workers rights. This goes double for smaller places like non-chain bars and restaurants. They know that theirs always another chef looking for a new gig and often have no problems treating chefs like absolute dogs**t.
#18
Spinster. In the middle ages, it was a respected career which could keep a woman financially independent and secure. She worked [darn] hard and had to be physically strong and good with money. And a spinster could choose to be in a relationship, but it wasn't imperative for her survival. Nowadays it's just become a term for middle aged or older single women and the fact it used to be a respected job title has been all but forgotten.
#22
For me personally, doctor. I used to hold them in high regard until I started working with them. Most are lazy, greedy and do not know a single thing outside of medicine. Some don't even know medicine!
#24
Elevator attendants. Once revered engineers capable of lifting humans hundreds of feet in the air. Now a comedic relic of a by gone era.
#26
Optician. Back in the day, if you were an old-school Optician you knew absolutely everything about complicated prescription issues, making glasses, grinding lenses, manufacturing a complete set of glasses yourself from your own lab in the back of the store. Nowadays it’s mostly 20 yr old idiots who take a cr**py little express program to certify themselves as ‘Opticians’ , but all orders are sent to an outside lab to be made. If you have a problem with your glasses, 90% of these ‘opticians’ have no idea how to solve your problem. It’s also now essentially just a glorified salesperson job. Source: Im an ex-optician who’s biggest mistake in life so far was wasting years on that sh**ty low-paying “career”
#27
Translators used to be members of royal courts, but are now full-on taken advantage of by agencies who know nothing about the industry, but hold all the clients. They often expect people with B.A.s, M.A.s, multiple certifications, and decades of experience to work for very low pay
#28
My friends Dad was a pretty successful ad salesman for yellowpages. After no one needed phone books anymore and he cheated on his wife and had 2 divorces, and bought a purple harley with a dragon on it, he then became a seller of funeral packages...
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