They say that if you choose a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life. But that's just not true — even the best jobs have downsides.
Recently, u/HalosOpulence asked, "Why would you not recommend your career?" Here are some of the best responses:
Content note: mentions of drug addiction and assault.
1. "Pediatric cancer scientist. A lot of the kids that end up on our research protocol are going to die. The prognosis for the 'we've tried everything else' cases that come to us is not great."
2. "Librarian. The pay is shit. Coworkers have been punched, screamed at, and spit at. We find bodily fluids all over the place. We are expected to act as untrained social workers as much as we're expected to recommend books."
3. "Call center tech support. Need I really say anything? The whole job is trying to help people who treat me like I'm the person who broke their shit."
4. "I became a book editor because I used to love reading. Now, I see books as work and never touch them outside work hours."
5. "As a US merchant sailor, I'm away from home majority of the year. Sleep can be a challenge, because I work 6 hours on/6 hours off around the clock for 28 days straight. Being sea sick is the worst. I have to avoid getting thrown into rotating machinery in the engine room. And there's a zero tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol — the swashbuckling days of sailing are over."
6. "Funeral industry smells are horrendous. On top of that, you need to maintain a pokerface the entire time when facing clients."
7. "Paramedic. If you can wake up at 3 a.m. and shotgun an energy drink on the way to a call because railing a line of coke is illegal, this field is perfect for you — especially if you don't mind being poor."
8. "Zookeeper. Have you smelled lion spray? It's crap, oily and fishy and laced with territory-marking musk? Yeah, you don't want to. You can't even imagine how badly you don't want to, especially not for minimum wage. My nostrils have never forgiven me."
9. "Machine operator. I've had six lung infections in the past year and a half from all the welding fumes. I wear a respirator, but it only filters out so much."
10. "US social worker. Every system we have to work within is failing or already broken. The trauma these children go through — sometimes at the hands of your own agency — will shatter you."
11. "I'm an urban planner and get so much NIMBY rage directed toward me, often with the city council joining in. And public hearings sometimes last until 2 a.m."
12. "I was a nurse for over a decade. The job exacerbated my alcoholism and PTSD from war. No thanks. I'll never do that shit again."
13. "I'm a scientist. That means we don't make much money, and no one listens to anything we say."
14. "I've been a crime scene investigator for 17 years, and that's long enough. Seeing so many dead people from so many causes (murder, suicide, overdose, infant death, etc.) takes a toll. The pay isn't great, and the emotional trauma just compounds. My first day was an autopsy for a 2-year-old, and I can still picture that kid."
15. "I'm a janitor, and humans can be brainlessly disgusting. Today alone, I cleaned up used tampons off the floor and horse manure that someone tracked around the shop. Somehow, it got on the sofas, too."
16. "I work in corrections. 90% of the time, it’s pretty chill. But the other 10% is fighting back just enough to gain control while the inmate LITERALLY tries to kill you."
17. "I'm a union laborer — mainly concrete work. Countless people I work with are addicted to all sorts of painkillers because the job is so rough on the body. I’m only 27, and my body aches all the time."
18. "I'm an accountant and auditor. It’s mentally exhausting. Some clients get very defensive. People also don’t understand the importance of little things like keeping receipts and invoices. It’s rare to find business owners who are organized AND know anything about accounting. You have to absolutely drag information out of people."
19. "I worked in a comic store. Most people are resellers who don't preorder shit, then complain when you don't let them have 10 copies of something popular on release day."
20. "I work in passenger railway as an operations functionary. I constantly have to explain to some screaming pencil pusher what external problem caused the train to be late. They don't give a fuck, because their bonus is at stake. For example, say there's a single line working two-way traffic. You don't need to be Einstein to figure out only one train can go through at any one time."
21. "Realtor. You will make zero money in the first year. If you don’t market yourself hardcore in your community like a jackass, you won’t have any clients. And so many realtors get sued because they didn’t know something was legally binding."
22. "Public relations is definitely used as propaganda for political campaigns and questionable industries."
23. "Journalism. People are fleeing the industry because they fear their safety. We already get paid pennies on the dollar — we don't deserve constant vitriol and threats while simply trying to do an important job."
24. "As a pornstar, I'm constantly keeping up with new tech, working long hours, going through bureaucratic bullshit, and dealing with burnout."
25. "My father is a doctor and wouldn’t recommend it to his six children. My oldest brother is a math professor and wouldn’t recommend it. My sister is a lawyer. Doesn’t recommend it. I’m an electrical engineer who does integrated circuit design...I wouldn’t recommend it."
H/T r/AskReddit
Some replies have been edited for length and clarity.