2.
“Architecture. Expectations: building a Greek temple and talking to rich people. Reality: Managing subcontractor screwups, managing planning department requirements.”
3.
“I’m a zookeeper. It’s not always miserable, but working in 100+ degrees, the physical labor, constantly trying to explain to people that the animals do in fact have water even if you don’t see a bowl, and saying goodbye to so many friends takes it’s toll. I’m still so happy to do it, but some days are so damn hard.”
4.
“Being a chef looks all fancy on TV but in reality it’s heat, burns, stress, and no social life.”
5.
“Teaching English in Japan. Unless you have a masters and a license in your home country, you’ll never be a real teacher. The pay is stagnant. There is no growth. Most English teaching jobs are either sales, or babysitting.”
6.
“Being a celebrity looks glamorous and it can be at times but it can also be miserable. Your mental health suffers, you get zero privacy, and the hours on set can get horrible. People also act like they’re entitled to your time and attention just because they saw you on a screen. You sometimes don’t know who likes you for you or if it’s just the fame and money.”
7.
“I’ve been a touring musician for 20+ years and played with some good-sized acts and a few icons. ‘Going on tour’ sounds great because you get to travel the world and you’re ‘the event’ and there’s a party going on all of the time, but you mostly see the inside of hotel rooms in all of those places (but it is pretty seeing places from a bus window). The energy from the shows takes a while to come down from, and there’s only so many things to do in the hours after the concert ends. If you don’t party or cheat on your wife, the only option left is pretty much late-night TV. Then there’s travel time (tons of audiobooks), hurrying up to get places, then waiting around til they call you for soundcheck, then waiting til the show. You can’t really leave (unless the whole band goes together), but it is kinda nice having everything brought to you.”
8.
“Fitness, specifically boutique Pilates. Looks pretty on the outside — beautiful people in beautiful studios — but the reality is I work 45 hours a week on my feet, teaching (in part) Pilates to wealthy people who treat me like the help, then I go home with my emotional and physical battery completely drained.”
9.
“Working on a cruise ship. Twelve-hour days, little to no days off, and little pay. Eight to twelve months straight contract. You think you get to see the world, but you rarely really leave the ship. Plus extremely cramped living quarters with little to no privacy.”
10.
“Archeologist! If you are doing field work (actually at the dig site and not in the lab), you are out in the elements… In order to dig those holes, you have to carry a screen, a bucket, a shovel, and your trowel. You are carrying this, plus your stuff and some water, up over sometimes less-than-kind terrain. Think overgrown grass on hillsides with bugs. And you are outside. In the sun. Because digging when it’s raining is just not a good idea.”
11.
“Personal trainers. It’s very hard to make a livable wage unless you’re self-employed. Work hours are typically before and after people get out of work… You’re going to teach the same things, usually to beginners, over and over… It can be a highly toxic work environment.”
12.
“Graphic design. You think: I’ll make super cool stuff. It’ll be things I’m proud of, it’ll be so amazing. But in reality, you’re working at some corporation that doesn’t give a fuck about creativity or your ‘vision.’ You stick to the branding guidelines built by some ad agency that thinks it’s God’s gift to creation. Buzzwords abound surrounding whatever logo and brand elements are chosen. You are a template maker. A pixel pusher with no real agency. People who don’t get design will be your bosses and make all the decisions for you.”
13.
“I would NOT call it miserable — but being an actor means rejection after rejection after rejection and constant comparison. There’s a reason so many people leave. It’s not just the, ‘they weren’t talented’. The toll the hours take on your physical health, the financial uncertainty, and the isolation that it can bring is not for everyone.”
14.
“Marine biologist. People think it’s scuba diving in tropical coral reefs and swimming with dolphins. It can be that sometimes, but usually it’s worrying about the pH level of tanks before your fish die and being a glorified janitor in cold, dark, wet rooms. And the pay sucks.”
15.
“I was a ballerina as a teenager and trained at a well-known school. It was normal for instructors to pinch girls’ waists and tell them to lose weight. It was really toxic.”
16.
“Modelling was fun at first, but very quickly felt a bit empty. Apart from the pressure to look ‘perfect’, you’re also mostly treated like a human mannequin — it’s just a strange feeling to have a number of people fuss over you, your clothes, your hair, your makeup, but at the same time also totally ignoring you as a person.”
17.
“Content creation sounds like my own personal hell. You have to keep up the grind, every hour you think and search for new content. There are all the hours of editing if you don’t pay an editor. You can’t take a long break because the algorithm will fuck your career, and you have to bust your ass to make time. You might not even net that many followers.”
18.
“Tattoo artist. Unless you’ve been working on your technical skill, creative ability, colour understanding, and doing daily stretches, you’re fucked. Yes, you can make decent money, but you’re pulling long hours, working late into the night, sometimes not taking a day off for weeks. This can go on for years until you establish a client base.”
19.
“Luxury hospitality/hotels. People are so so cruel/awful when they expect you to be their slave because they paid a lot. It’s not fun, and you get no better perks than other places, other than the building looks prettier.”
20.
“Dog groomer. It looks so fun to give puppies cute haircuts, but in reality, it’s all just poop and neglect.”
21.
“Wedding planner and the wedding industry in general! Working most weekends, missing birthdays, our own family weddings, and funerals, then turning back around and doing admin during the week. Ten to twelve-hour days on your feet, putting out tiny little fires everywhere. It’s truly a labor of love and most people burn out so quickly.”
22.
“I wouldn’t say miserable, but as a florist, people would often say ‘it must be lovely playing with flowers all day’ and I’d be, like, wow, you think this is a game?? On my feet 60+ hours a week, lots of heavy lifting, terrible arthritis, my hands are covered in scratches and permanently dirty. Spend half a shift bending over to scrub buckets with bleach. I love the ,work but it’s not glamorous, no matter what the Hallmark channel tells you! Oh, and the customers are NUTS!!!”
23.
“Media — radio, in my personal experience. Long hours, poor pay, rampant sexism and being constantly told there’s a line of people wanting your job if you dared to ‘step out of line’.”
24.
“Journalism. I have seen so many young girls going into journalism to become Carrie Bradshaw, or young boys, thinking, they will investigate some sort of crazy political/criminal themes… In reality most of them will write boring texts, that has more to do with copywritting than with journalism.”
25.
“Being an executive in a Fortune 500 company. I think Jack Welch said ‘everybody wants my paycheck, but nobody wants my life’. You’re under tremendous stress to constantly achieve a never-ending set of raised bars of targets. You’re dealing with a lot of people, and every one of them has their unique set of problems. You don’t have the mental relaxation of knowing the work ends at 6 p.m. — work never ends. As a lot of people want your position, you have to deal with nasty office politics all the time. Your family is having a comfortable life with all the financial benefits, but because of travels and endless meetings, you miss critical moments in your children’s lives.”
26.
“Not exactly glamorous per se, but the amount of people who assume library assistants sit around reading all day staggers me. God, I wish that were the case when I’m closing the public bathrooms because someone’s destroyed them again.”
27.
“Realtors. A lot of competition, irregular pay, variety of hats to wear in order to do a bunch of things on your own.”
28.
“Sales can be like this. Free new car! Lots of travel! But that all gets old pretty quick when you have to spend so much time away from family. Lots of time away living out of a suitcase gets pretty tiring.”
29.
“Game dev. You will spend almost no time at all ‘playing’ games even if you’re QA. Upper management is almost always someone who knows nothing about how games are made.”
30.
“Flight attendants. Everyone thinks it’s glamorous traveling the world, but it’s exhausting schedules, jet lag, strict rules, and dealing with rude passengers.”
31.
“Anything marketing. It’s constant brainstorming, campaigns, social media, strategies, ads boosting, content development, PR, SEO, activations, events, and so much more. The ‘how do we go viral’, ‘make it more creative’, ‘can we make it pop’ bullshit are real challenges that we face everyday. Running out of creative juices and ideas feels like a sin, and the environment is so fast-paced it’ll burn you out before you know it. We’re nothing like Emily in Paris.”
32.
“Science and academia. Very much politics, obligatory overtime and crunches. Very little respect and egomaniac professors running down their researchers.”
33.
And finally, “A sports agent or a talent agent. All you do is babysit entitled brats.”
What career do you think looks glamorous but is actually horrible? Share in the comments or in the anonymous form below!