Recently, u/chaseinthyface asked the people of Reddit to share the common misconceptions people have about their jobs, and the responses were all over the place and super interesting. From airline pilots to retail workers, all kinds of folks shared what people are always getting wrong about their jobs. Here are some of the most-upvoted replies:
1. "As a Certified Nursing Assistant I get 'you wipe butts for a living' a lot. Yes, I do wipe butts. I also feed, wash, and put them to bed. But guess what else I do? I read that letter or card you sent to them. I sit and hold hands and offer comfort when the 90-year-old with dementia just realized her parents must be dead. I cheer the physical accomplishments, hard won in therapy. Sometimes I know them so well I can take one look and KNOW something is wrong. I've caught numerous issues before they got too severe simply by NOTICING."
2. "Airline pilot. Misconception: That it’s easy and we don’t do anything most of the flight. Truth: The automatics take care of the mundane ‘flying’ part a lot of the time, but they need constant monitoring and frequent adjustments. Our time is spent contingency planning for if the worst happens. Should we experience an engine fail, cabin pressure loss, or instrumentation fail, we need to have an immediate plan and know our closest diversion airports and weather. We spend most of our time planning for what we never want to happen."
3. "I work in higher education. People think I get summers off. That's gonna be a negative. I'm not faculty. I work full-time, 12 months, five days a week. Also: 'Doing anything for spring break?' Yes, working."
"Yep. I just retired from a higher ed staff job. Some years we would get one day off during spring break, but often not.
And in many ways, summer is even busier than other times because that's when you work on all those projects you can't get to during the rest of the year, and it's when you prep for the influx of new students and faculty in September. Any real down time I ever had was between Thanksgiving and the winter break, and that was only relative to other times."
4. "I work from home and people assume that means I get to literally do whatever I want. I, in fact, do not. Productivity is monitored, and I have a large list of things I need to do every day. When I'm working, it's exactly the same as when I'm in the office except I'm in pajamas."
5. "Software engineer. Most people think my job is to write code all day. In actuality, most of my time is spent designing solutions to our problems. My desk is usually covered in sketches of boxes and arrows. It's a pretty great day when I get to spend more than an hour or so actually writing code."
6. "Psychotherapist here. That you can tell everything about a person after speaking to them for five minutes. Also, total randoms on a night out saying, 'are you psychoanalyzing me right now?' Bro, you're literally a stranger I just met. I'm a psychotherapist, not some magical mind reading witch."
"Therapist. That I want to hear all about your deeply personal information. I promise you I do not.
That I'm analyzing everyone I meet. Very low chance of this unless you are a giant asshole (in which case I will totally diagnose you in my head as being a giant asshole)."
7. "I'm an attorney. You don't automatically win if you get a 'better attorney' than the other guy. It's not a duel. Having a bad attorney can definitely screw you, but at a certain threshold of competence, the only thing that matters is the facts of your situation and what brought you to see us. If you deliberately ran somebody over while screaming, 'I'm going to murder you and I'll never give your daughter the money I agree that I contractually owe her!' directly into a high-res security camera, there's not a lot your attorney can do for you. It's shocking how many people believe that the law is some sort of eldritch battleground where attorneys hurl spells at each other until only the best attorney is left standing."
8. "Mechanical Engineer. People think engineers are intelligent and good with math. I am very stupid and good with math."
"That's interesting, I came here to say I'm a mechanical engineer and I'm not smart nor good at math! People hear engineer and think intelligent inventor type but really all types of personalities become engineers."
9. "I'm a hospital clinical pharmacist. 'All you do is count pills. So, what, you like hand out prescriptions when a patient goes home? You counted their pills right?' We dose drugs, round on patients, make recommendations for starting or stopping meds, attend codes where we draw up meds, and also make sure things are being given and recorded properly. We get labs when needed to monitor drug levels or other things, and we look at labs and vitals to make recommendations on starting/stopping/changing antibiotics. I think most people don’t even know there are pharmacists in hospitals."
"The world of pharmacy is so unknown to most people. Even in retail, people don't understand the scope. Vaccines, insurance, interactions, counseling."
10. "McDonald’s Crew here: Everyone thinks we’re lazy teenagers or criminals who just needed a job. McDonald’s is somewhat stable and has alright benefits if you know how to get them. Everyone I’ve met there is a really hard worker. We do care."
11. "Tutor. I have at least one student a day (usually more) who doesn't attend lecture and then comes to me expecting me to do their homework for them."
12. "Social worker in mental health. People assume I have a magic wand and can make waitlists disappear and create services out of thin air that don’t exist in the community. They also think I can solve the mental health and addiction issues of my family members. It is so different when it is your own family, and it's not ethical for me to work with them in a professional capacity."
"I'm also a social worker, but in child protection. Bad assumption: that we’re child snatchers. Worst assumption: that we have targets or get commission for removing children."
13. "Software dev. People think fixing a typo is a simple one-line commit. Sometimes it is. But, sometimes you have to link it with a tangentially related work item to get your manager to approve the change. Sometimes you need a production person to approve all changes. Sometimes there's no way to report it as a bug in a way that will get back to developers as a ticket, so they will just never know. Sometimes an automated test depends on the typo, so fixing the typo will break the build unless you fix the relevant test. Sometimes clients build integrations that rely on the typo. If nobody at the client can do maintenance on the integration, they might ask you to revert the change, support that typo version specifically for them. And this would likely only come after the change hits production, meaning it's a bigger headache."
14. "I’m a tax preparer. Some people expect us to know all information about all tax laws. We have different experience levels. We specialize. We don’t all know everything about every tax law."
15. "Teacher. That I indoctrinate students with my liberal ideas and agenda."
16. "I’m a vet tech. 'It must be nice to play with puppies and kittens all day' is something we’ve all heard a ton of times, and I usually just smile and say, 'yes, those appointments are nice.' They’re also far and few between compared to the rest, and sometimes instead of being a welcome different pace, they can be exhausting when you’re stressed about your surgery patients and emergency admits in the treatment area."
17. "I work in retail management. I don’t think people realize how much large companies can pay their managers. I’m the Assistant Manager and I make $50k and I’ve been here for two years. My boss who’s been here for 10 makes $100k. I’m 33 and people still ask if I’m a student or act like my job is transitional. I get five weeks paid time off (which will increase at five years). I never work over 40 hours. Soooo… it’s pretty okay."
18. "Retail. That the 'back' is some sort of wormhole where extra products just magically exist and spontaneously appear. Ma'am, no, we do not have any 'in the back.'"
19. "I'm a waitress. It's considered 'unskilled' labor, but the amount of actual skill and emotional intelligence you need to perform everyday is huge. Not to mention you have to teach yourself to act. Literally one muscle out of place will bring a $20 tip to $5."
20. "Executive Assistant. The misconception is that we do not make much money and that all we do is basic stuff like typing letters and booking meetings. I make between $70k — $80k a year, and I know some career executive assistants that make six figures. I haven’t booked one meeting or written one letter. I am in charge of monitoring the training for employees, supply orders, and off-boarding. I support a Human Resources office so it varies by company regarding what executive assistants do."
21. "I work in finance. No, it's not a bunch of unethical bloodsuckers who are robbing and scamming hardworking Americans left and right. Most of our clients are normal people saving for retirement, their kid's college, a home, etc., and that is precisely what our advisors are doing for them. There are so many controls in place to make sure we are acting in the best interest of the client, and if any money was stolen or unethical behavior took place it would be discovered very fast and whoever did it would be booted from the industry forever. Not just that, most people I work with are some of the nicest I've ever met."
22. "Boudoir photographer. People think it’s this super sexy, glamorous thing, or that I’m some kind of sex worker. I mean, I have nothing against sex work, as long as it’s done safely, but no. I own my business, so a great majority of my work is executive and admin — marketing, accounting, working out budgets and travel, answering emails, planning, all that normal business stuff. When I actually shoot, I’m on my feet for about 10 hours, twisting into awkward positions to get the shot and demonstrating poses. I see the person, but as a subject only. I just go into work mode. I think it’d be super uncomfortable for everyone if it WAS sexy."
23. "HR. People think we get to make decisions. HR is there to keep things running, communicate, and ensure things are done legally. We advise management in conflict situations and we may communicate the results, but we aren't the ones making your life miserable. That's the boss. Most people I know work in HR because they want to help people. They really care about their employees and sometimes have to tell employees things they don't agree with. HR is often the bearer of bad news because your boss doesn't have the guts to tell you themselves. If HR had the decision making power people think they did, you'd be paid way more, have killer benefits, and we'd work a lot more with you when you're struggling. That's what we really want to do."
24. "Graphic Design. That we'll work on a large project either for Instagram points or for super cheap. No. I create logos, infographics, business cards, and on occasion, I'll do commission work for something like illustrating someone's favorite video game/anime character. I have bills to pay, and the amount of entitled people who demand I lower my price for a project that'll take well over a few days is too much."
25. "Flight Attendant is NOT a glorious job by any stretch. Most days we are exhausted beyond belief, and tired of being sexually harassed by everyone including the pilots."
26. "Game developer: people online grossly underestimate how much time and effort each simple small feature takes to implement. And not only implement, but design, test, make sure it's balanced, etc. The amount of comments I've seen saying that adding this or that could be done in a day makes my blood boil."
27. And finally, "I work for a funeral home and there are a lot of people laboring under the misapprehension that it is fun or interesting or in any way exciting. I assure you, it’s actually a very dull office job. Person dies, we grab the body, the family comes in and makes arrangements, we accommodate those arrangements whatever they are, then move on to the next case. There really is nothing to it that you wouldn’t expect. And no, the building is not haunted."
Note: Comments have been edited for length and clarity.
What are some misconceptions about your job that get on your nerves? Sound off in the comments.
And for more stories about work and money, check out the rest of our personal finance posts.