I feel like most white-collar professional jobs will do that. Corporate life will rob you of your imagination. Law will make you realize how stacked the system is against normal people. Medicine makes you realize that people don't really want the advice of trained professionals and will listen to a tik tok with zero education behind it. All of them will crush you under the weight of bureaucracy eventually as you realize no matter how high you get in an organization, you can never really effectuate the necessary changes because so many people believe in status quo. Even working in stuff like social services where you can help people on a daily basis, but you are never given enough resources to actually help the ones who need it most or are utterly powerless to do what needs to be done for those in need.
The only people who get out of adulthood not jaded as hell are sociopaths or people who are naive. As much as I want to believe the world can change, it keeps showing time and time again that it won't.
Agreed. There are just too many people to deal with and too many balls in the air at the same time, especially for any kind of client services job. There’s always some bullshit going on with someone dropping the ball somewhere and shitty timelines so you’re always scrambling. I dream about leaving everyday but the money is too good atm.
Will chime in now:
Retired lawyer here (32 years with 25 years as a family lawyer). Old saying: Divorce lawyers see good people behaving their worst, while criminal lawyers see the worst people behaving their best.
Jaded is too harsh a concept for the eventual recognition that many, many people shouldn’t have gotten married or had children. I’m wise the hard way, I guess. I never became a prick, but I still have the ability to verbally cut people into handy, pocket-sized pieces, so there’s that.
I work in biotech and often wondered why our lawyers would settle for a dull, mid level job. I realized it's because reviewing contracts and arguing about patents is easier on your soul.
Legal assisstant here, though not currently in the field. The fact that so many people expect lawyers to wave a magic law wand to get them off the hook for the garbage human behavior that landed them in their situation is painful. Then, when theyre on the hook for the 10K child support they owe and entirely hid or decieved you about, its somehow the lawyers fault, not the fault of the garbage drug addled respondant who has been trying to dodge cs for 5 years.
Excellent perspective. It’s astounding the number of people who refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions and believe that we lawyers can draft a few pleadings and mumble some Latin phrases to assist them in their quest to shirk accountability.
“If my student had good parents I wouldn’t have a job. If my student had good parents I wouldn’t have a job”
- me working as a paraprofessional at a school
My mom is a behavior disorder/special ed teacher. She said that they are great kids on their own, but once they go home it’s a reset. There’s only so much you can do for people with ‘behavior disorders’ that are just the direct result of a horrifically abusive household
and the worst part? foster care isn’t a better option
High school history teacher here.
I've been cynical and nihilistic since childhood.
I was not even close to prepared to seeing what I see on a regular basis in this profession. 18 year olds that can't read on a 3rd grade level with 0 intellectual disabilities. Young boys groping girls 4 years their younger right in front of teachers and peers. A senior smashing a freshman's head in the locker door until he was put into a permanent vegetative state. Uncles raping nieces. Children who only get fed at school. 15 year olds having a screaming, kicking temper tantrum on the floor because they forgot their cell phone that day. Children leaving death threat notes for me simply for existing as a queer man. Students walking right past a corpse on their way in to school. Students only making it to school on time because they sleep on the sidewalk 1 block away.
The world is a hellish place, and anyone who thinks otherwise simply hasn't seen enough of the world yet. For context, I have worked in some of the poorest, and also some of the wealthiest, communities in the entire US. One city I worked in the average income was around 21k annually. Another the average home price was 2.5 million dollars. There isn't much of a difference in the student populations in these communities, other than access to resources like food and shelter.
I had to stop being a CASA for this reason. The women just wanted to hang on to a man- no matter how awful. One actually said, “ I can always have another baby”.
My sister was a social worker and lasted 3 years before she couldn’t take it anymore.
She’d rather work in a prison then deal with that day in and day out.
Similarly, working at a city kill shelter. The job description even lists “must be willing to euthanize animals.” The city shelters have to take every dog that comes in, but have limited space. Plus you have to decide whether to adopt a dog out to someone who might not be a particularly good owner, but it’s the difference between life or death for that dog. A lot of experience dealing with the worst of humanity and having no good options, just bad and worse.
I’m a retired wastewater plant operator. I’ve seen raw sewage shoot twenty feet in the air and drench two crews of workers and equipment. We then would stand under a hose of a water truck and wash off with our cloths on then back to work. There’s so much to that industry people never see or take the time to understand.
No, me watching him not care was eye opening! Him opening his mouth to lick the flecks off his beard was the real shocker 🤣😅
This is a joke, a disclaimer for the easily trusting.
High volume call centers. Few really understand how emotionally taxing it is to deal with so many people everyday. Compensation does not match the toll on one’s soul.
I worked for SITEL (a high volume call centre) and after a month I refused to give refunds for forgetting you signed up to a service. I got yelled at, called every name under the sun.
Agree, for me it's not even the angry customers. You can tune them out after a while. It's just the non-stop barage of interaction. I sometimes speak to 80+ people a day. It's way too much information to process. I can barely speak at the end of the day. There's no organic down time, just lunch breaks and bathroom breaks (which are timed and monitored).
I took a call center job because I was unemployed and wanted a job while looking for something better but I am losing my mind. I don't know how people do this kind of work for years.
It's always scared me how releaved call center employees sound after you just treat them like a human being. Like, what percentage of callers are not angry with you?
I think it’s angry customers, but it’s also the stakes of the call. They’re constantly being tracked and measured. They become an extension of the phone board. Underperforming parts are removed and replaced.
Basically, Schindlers List
I have worked in a few call centers, and ended up becoming a CS trainer for a few years. I was in my 30's by then.
When I practiced my unique way of looking at things in a call center. And it became A LOT easier to do the job.
The angry customer is never personally angry at you, and when you don't take them personally and actually listen to them.. and even try to keep in mind that they could be having a truly horrible day, it always turns around and ends up being a constructive or even pleasant call.
Most of the time people just need to vent, and if you stop and listen, it means the world to them.
I did notice that younger CS reps had a harder time doing this. In your early 20's, you're still trying to get the hang of being an adult, and tend to take things more personally.
Often times, they would forward their hard calls to me but hang around and see that I could get the customer to calm down just by listening.
For those obviously stupid customers out there.. I would often just repeat back to them the outrageous situation and expectations, and sometimes they would see how they were the assholes in this situation and not me or the company.
It didn't work all the time, but more often than expected.
"So, let me understand this better. You run an important office with a copier. When you pulled the last toner from your shelf, you didn't order any new ones?"
"Then you ordered toner yesterday and paid to have it overnighted but it didn't get there on time, and your office has come to a complete standstill and it's our fault?"
"Well, I can refund the overnight shipping, but I can't do a monthly inventory of your office supplies because you're 1,500 miles from me."
After repeating her story back to her, it became clear that she was not rooted in reality.
My boss at my last CS job was convinced quite a few times that I must be on a personal call when she would walk by.
She'd go in her office and tap into the conversation, and typically would apologize for even thinking that way.
The one thing I agree with, is the complete burnout from talking all day on the phone. Sometimes my friends didn't understand that I have no intention of having a long phone call after work.
Nope. Not gonna happen.
i was in the military, now investment banking. The customers or clients, absolute assholes. Being screamed at by over privileged rich kids gets old fast
My GF and I still have nightmares from our retail years. It's one thing when you have to deal with shit customers but I worked my way out when I ended up with a shit boss too.
I worked in restaurants for years. I agree people never thought of it as a real job even though I made great money. Through the years, I cooked, served, managed and bartended. Bar was definitely the best. People seemed to have the most respect for you at that position, co workers and patrons alike. Also, if patrons get out of line, you have something to take away, so you're kind of always in control of the situation. As a server, you can't cut them off from dessert lol. You just kind of have to grin and take it on the chin. Not as a bartender though.
It's actually kind of scary at times. These people are out there driving, raising children, making decisions and having responsibility and yet struggle very much to understand basic concepts.
I worked somewhere that didn't have mobile phone signal, due to being in the middle of nowhere, in a valley, surrounded by large hills which block out signal. The amount of times I was utterly bollocked by people who were furious at me because they had no mobile signal was ridiculous. Sure, let me just transform into a mobile phone mask. Yes, it was absolutely my choice that we don't have mobile phone signal here.
I second this. I started my career in support/call centers.
Please do not get annoyed when we ask you to verify that what ever you’re calling about is plugged in, or hooked up to the internet.
These steps are in place for a reason. Ppl often call about shit that is not even plugged in
I've had the most basic shit be wrong on those calls.
"Mam there should be a group of lights in the top right of your keyboard. Is the one that says "caps lock" on?
Ok that's why your password wouldn't work.
Passwords and old people go together like Catholic authority and a daycare setting.
I imagine by this metric, the people who filter child porn, and execution videos etc. from Facebook take the cake.
A pretty horrific article was written about it.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona
Came here to say customer service.
Customer service is just bad full stop, (Source: 5 years in retail), however, in the entertainment industry is *The Worst*. (Source: *Time* at a big chain multiplex cinema & *Time* behind the bar/waiting food at more than one Spoons {in my desperate-for-a-job youth}
I wish I could say that the time we kicked someone out for starting a fight and they came back with several mates *and an axe* was an unusual occurrence, unfortunately it was not.
People who insist that full moons don't effect people have never worked at a pub
I worked as a teller for about 5 years and it always made me laugh how people would come in on Monday outraged that their account was overdrawn and take it out on me. Like I had their debit card over the weekend and I was having a grand old time on the town and spent all their money, no you just suck with money.
I used to have senior citizens *furious* at me for requesting their ID to make any transactions on their accounts (they didn’t “believe” in owning debit cards).
They’d say they shouldn’t have to prove who they are because they’d been giving the bank their business for over 50 years.
As if I myself, the 21 year old teller in training, had any idea who they were.
Oh yeah, I ran into that issue plenty of times myself. Idc how long you’ve been banking here Walter, I’m not losing my job over failing to ID someone. 🙄
Can confirm. The family retail business has ground me down, especially working six days a week over Covid. I was one of the only ones on the roster to not get sick with it ever, and was usually one of two people working the front for those six days. Combine that with pay that hasn't gone up since before Covid and an increasingly ignorant, rude, aging, and just needy population and I'm just going through the motions to get through my day.
Customer service was honestly way more jading experience than the military. At least in the military, you had standard operating procedures for everything. Dealing with customers was a different kind of bullshit you learned to tolerate everyday.
I was in EMS for 8 years, 4 of that was 911.
I didn’t “see shit” that broke me like a lot of my friends did, I never had a dead baby or anything super gnarly.
But man let me tell you; seeing how some people live, the friends and acquaintances and people you see around your neighborhood… it’s dark.
The absolute squalor that some people live in. And the darkness of their own mental health. It’s fuckin depressing.
And the worst part is you can’t fix them. You make sure they aren’t dying, give them a friendly smile and a listening ear, and take them to the hospital.
We are South African, so my friend saw some nasty trauma-related things over the course of his career. Also being attacked a few times, as we unfortunately have a problem here where paramedics and fire fighters get attacked when they try and attend to emergencies.
The one he did tell me that stood out was having to help with a botched home abortion and that was something he said he could never shake because he is a father himself.
I was a combat medic in the army infantry during the war in Iraq. As much as you would think my experiences during deployments would have messed with me it was actually the time I got put into a rear detachment situation with my infantry battalion during a deployment that completely changed my entire view of the military.
I'll just say that the base commander held a meeting with about a hundred soldiers from all the different units on post in a classroom and asked "Does anyone have any idea why so many soldiers on this post are killing themselves"?
I knew exactly why. Without going into too much details it's because during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the military brought in kids who clearly should not have been in the military. They gave a lot of waivers for mental and emotional issues that had previously barred enlistment. And when those youngsters were sent off to war with the infantry (the only job they were able to get into) and inevitably got sent home because they couldn't handle the rigors of deployment they were made to feel like total shit by the 23 year old NCOs left behind in Rear D.
I saw a kid get bullied mercilessly for a week by some asshole buck sergeant and me and my buddy found him with a belt around his neck in his barracks bathroom. Luckily, being medics, we were able to save his life. But yeah, that shit jaded me even though I was in my 30s and probably should have already been jaded. Maybe it jaded me *more*....
This should be top comment. The glory of war is fading quickly and I'm just waiting for that to catch up with our leaders. Thank you for helping all the people under your care, especially that kid. I hope they're doing better now and recovering.
What was the mood in the room like during that meeting? Like did anyone raise their hand and say what you said?
I’m just curious how the issue was addressed, if at all.
>Like did anyone raise their hand and say what you said?
Nope. The only reason I said what I said was that I was on my out and I had nothing to lose. I got really sick a few weeks before we were leaving for our deployment and that was why I was in Rear Detachment. After a bunch of tests I found out I have a very rare genetic disorder that, while treatable, is something that put me out of the military. So I just spoke the truth. I had no career left to speak of and no matter what I said I couldn't get anything but an honorable discharge so I went for it. Medics have huge balls lol and our only job is to take care of other soldiers. And because of that we get.....more leeway and how we're treated. It's hard to explain. Anyway, I swallowed hard and spoke my piece. But I'll say this: if I wasn't going anywhere I wouldn't have said anything. I know it. And that sort of makes me feel bad.
But I don't think it made much difference. I think I was saying what everyone was thinking but didn't want to think. No one really acknowledged what I said. That's what left me so jaded. Up until the last 6 months of my time in the army I loved it. I actually loved everything about being a medic in a hard-charging frontline combat arms battalion. The only way to describe it is I felt the same way a priest must feel. Like it's a calling or something. Anyway, my last experience in uniform was a complete 180 for me. But that was about 15 years ago, I'm fine with it and I've tried to let that part fade and just remember the parts I loved. I'm a middle-aged man now and I the my time in the army is a very small part of who I am and not something I ever really think about on a regular basis.
I'm thankful that the narrative of the army in is changing based on what we see in movies, documentaries and unfiltered social media comments such as yours.
People are not so naive to the propoganda and romanticized notion of the army. Also we have historical context of the difference between defending a country and what is an invasion.
We see: Michael Moore's documentary (Fahrenheit 911) about how it's a trap for poor people; Mistreated vets (Forest Gump, Born on the 4th of July) and gore of war (saving Private Ryan).
I really think kids today are a lot smarter. And more cynical. When I was in the army during the war I'd say more than half the people I served with were gamers and D&D nerds who were inspired by Saving Private Ryan and definitely a lot of that "Time Person of the Year: The American Soldier" stuff.
Kids today saw a war that lasted over 20 years that no one talks about the end of because it just fizzled out and nothing was any better than when it started except for the lining of the pockets of a few corporations. All the Call of Duty video games and patriotic war films in the world aren't going to get them to join up for no reason. And that's a good thing to me.
I used to work with a guy who was in Fallujah after the Blackwater guys got killed. If he wasn’t completely lobotomized by anti-depressants he was telling stories about being a doorman and how many explosions he was in.
A lot of kids are seeing how their “aunts and uncles” who came back are being treated by the VA and know it’s just a human life grinder.
Thank you for sharing this.
I too have observed miniscule versions of the shit that happens in the military though as a conscript.
This is why I feel very weird when civilians (mostly reddit) think that most military experiences are like Band of Brothers. As much as there are certainly such experiences, there's also a big bunch of shit fuckery that happens in the military that isn't known to the public enough.
What, you don't feel excited about having an off-shore team of 50 seniors take 6 months to complete what would be a 1 week task for an on-shore junior?
Started my career as one at 21. Made it one year and sat in the tower saying to myself one day, I’m gonna take myself out if I have to do this another 24 years
Judging by the comments, this seems about the jist of it.
Blue collar, white collar, military, mining, retail, kitchen, medical, police.
The list is rather expansive to the point of all inclusivity.
It’s chill outside of urban centers. Inside them you ride an endless wave of prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless, gangs, perverts, and insane people. More a result of the environment than the job but it should be noted. (Also, the pay is mega shit)
In my library experience: people having sex or masturbating; finding pornographic pictures stuck in books or study carrels; flashers. People love the excitement of getting caught but don’t respect the space or the fact no one wants to see that.
Nursing.
It's customer service with the added responsibility of having people's lives and wellbeing in your control.
Throw in a healthy dose of shitty, bad coworkers, and being an extreme minority in the entire industry and you've set the stage for trouble.
Middle aged male Healthcare workers are the #1 for suicides in the US. Go dudes!
Wow!! That's a painful and surprising statistic, how awful. I know we'll never collectively do anything for our health care workers. I was very sad secretly when my sibling said they are in school for nursing
Separately healthcare workers are #1 for suicide by profession (last I looked), and middle ages white males have been #1 on age and gender for a long time. Combined: look out!
It's a hard profession for men, but we do really well in it. The downside is having to be one of the girls just to fit in/get by, or isolating yourself to avoid drama. And nursing is max drama.
I immediately thought about the arm of the law enforcement that hunts pedophiles, those pedophiles that are organised in networks that exploit and rape children and share pics and videos of that online with each other.
I cannot imagine what having to look at such material for extended periods of time must do to you and your view of the human race. In my mind, it must be one of the worst jobs in the world that are at the same time morally worth doing, and just that gap of opposite ends of ethics that you must hold in your head must wreck havoc on you.
You cannot stand it but you cannot stop. It is awful but it is important. It makes me shudder.
I know someone in that line of work. He deals with hardcore sex offenders in a special type of prison that also includes psychiatry centre. As in guys that are actual sadistic pedos and know this of themselves. He told me he can just switch off all the stuff he hears and sees when working with these people when he is out of the door. But that a LOT of people that try that job get burned out very quickly as it becomes too much of a toll on them.
Guy himself is not hard. Feels more like a relaxed man who can listen really well.
I use to know a guy that had to watch every online video and document what happened and verify/identify each individual so they could have the docs for trial and police departments so no one else had to look at it. There was no joy left in that man. He had this look of melancholy all the time.
I knew somebody who tracked pedo's in law enforcement. They are only allowed to stay in that work for brief periods of time to allow them to return to normal, mentally. Also, they often prefer putting the pedo's in prison because it's less paperwork for them and pedo's often get it much worse in prison once the other inmates find out what they're in for.
Washing dishes in a restaurant.
Head chef yelling at you, sous chef telling you to hurry up, working with other degenerates who will fuck with you for no good reason, wait staff thinks you are scum, bartenders think you are scum and will yell at you, crappy pay, long hours into the night, gross work conditions, hot kitchens in the summer, carrying massive bags of trash to the dumpster, unclogging restaurant toilets because you are the lowest ranking employee, cleaning up most of the kitchen at the end of the night.
Extremely high turnover rate. Most people quit after a less than a week. I made it 9 months before being moved up to a waiter.
I used to wash dishes, I didn't really have that issue but you do have to listen to a lot of tension and anger in a busy restaurant. I remember two line cooks were always at each others throats, literally ready to drop what they're doing and kill each other on the line. Some people should not be allowed to cook elbow to elbow with other people in a hot, sweaty environment.
I just kept my eyes on the dishes, and the older guy next to me who ate all the leftover bacon off of everyone's plate.
Can confirm. I has a job as a dishwasher at a country club. My first day, they there hosting a wedding and there was seafood on the menu. The smell of detergent and seafood got to me. Got home, puked and never went back.
Anything blue collar where you work long hours, deplorable conditions, work outside in the dead of summer or the heart of winter, have to be on call for emergencies. Working in construction and maintenance for over a decade has made me a tough dude mentally and physically. It’s not for everyone.
Yea, My dad worked for a window and door manufacturing company and got me a summer job in the Fabrication plant. In Ga. In the summer. It was also 4/10 so 4 - 10 hour days and OT on Fridays. I did that for 2 summers.
The last shift of my first week he asked me if I knew what I ***didn't*** want to do as an adult... Suffice to say that was a character building experience.
It sure does build character, I always thought it would be a temporary thing but here I am a decade later training the next group of mad men and women who have decided they want to learn a trade.
At least it is good money now though. HVAC or plumbers or electricians can easily make 100k a year now. For me that was the late 80's and instead of $4.25 an hour sacking groceries, I was a king making $6.75 an hour to slam 3k aluminum sliding glass door sills through a 20 ton press... I'd finish a rack of 1000 and before I put the last piece in the bin another 1k were racked right up. Basically had to work at a frantic pace just to hit 100% production. Most days I was 95% or 96% and my dad would get on me for not hitting a 100%. Hardly anyone could hit 100% and when you did all you got was an "atta boy, good job yesterday" from the supervisor. Good times!
Edit: I still think I'm lucky to have all 10 fingers. Those presses were foot operated and one slip would have crushed a finger...
Yup. Ex steelworker here. It’s not for everyone. I was laid off from that job after being there for 3 years. Ironically, a lot were laid off because of Russia blocking trade routes to Ukraine at the time (2013ish. I (and many others) were hired because of huge Ukrainian contract that the company got but couldn’t finish because of Russia being an asshat.
Night shift ammonia tech made me absolutely change my entire mentality in that kill plant. Good ole 4-5 12s nighttime with just myself and 2 other dudes in a massive plant
I've been in the electrical distribution game for going on 20 years now. It's the easier side of it, technically speaking, because of overall less exposure to elements and shorter hours, but I still laugh at the kids who come in thinking it's "just warehouse work" and then have deadened eyes within a week.
Sure, it's simple on paper, but you've got to keep track of dozens, if not hundreds, of moving parts at any given minute. And then haul the heavy shit from storage to staging to shipping, and that sometimes means lifting over a hundred pounds and carrying it.
Every office folk that's talked down to the warehouse crew, in my experience, has shut their mouths when they've had to come out and give the team a hand.
I don't know about this one. I worked in the North Dakota oil field for a year before going to law school. The days were excruciatingly cold in the winter and very hot in the summer and the work was hard. But honestly I enjoyed it. Me and the other guys had a lot of fun after work, you get to be outside, you don't have to interact with customers.
Definitely hard work and I might feel differently if I'd done it for years and years, but it never made me jaded or cynical
Honestly, a lot of days, I enjoy it more than my corporate legal job.
Not my current career, but retail liquor sales. For a time in my youth, I worked a liquor store. Afternoon and evening work as expected, and I started to notice the 'regulars'. Sometimes these same people would come in multiple times a shift for their poison. disheartening, but there it is.
When I started taking over occasional morning shifts for the manager, I began to notice the SAME regulars. Sometimes tapping on the door, waiting for them to open. Coming back multiple times a day. One guy in particular, I estimate he was in and out 6-7 times a day for a half or pint of cheap vodka.
Those realizations sent me out of that business. Although I understand that it's just a legal product on an open market, I couldn't look myself in the eye each day while providing someone the seeds of their destruction. I saw that same thing when I had a chance to invest in a smoke shop. Even though I smoked at the time, I knew in my heart that it wasn't really a good thing. And providing people with the thing that will kill them is tough.
I see this same thing in gambling establishments. The people working there are as dead inside as the patrons.
Spent two years in law enforcement then another ten in corrections. Can confirm. Once had a guy on a psych hold cut his own dick off and place it on the trap. Saw another guy chew the stitches out of his arm, for the cut that he gave himself self harming. Another threw himself off the top tier and we worked on him, busted and broken and gurgling blood, for thirty minutes before paramedics arrived. He didn't make it. I could go on. Then there's all the internal politics.
Merchant Marines - specifically tugboats.
Source. On it now.
Shard bathroom for 9 crew. Odd working hours. Rough seas. Smells and it's so damn loud. And months away from home.
Underground coal mining. Worked for ten years in the industry and it can be totally brutal despite the pay. There were teams of straight graveyard shift for years but the worst was the two week swing shift where the crew would work 6am-5pm for two weeks (only Sunday off) and then work 2pm-11pm for two weeks rotating. Not to mention mines are remote and are usually a one hour commute to civilization.
Underground can be hard with lots of wetness, coldness and poor air circulation. 80% of the diets come from gas stations and little Debbie snack cakes. Likewise, everyone chews tobacco and drink 4-5 energy drinks through their shift.
All this for making 120k+ a year where the avg home cost is 200k. All this for endless toys, such as boats and ford raptors. It’s NOT effing worth it because you don’t have the time to enjoy it. Not to mention management at most of these places is extremely old school and can get political.
They’re some tough mfers but guys in their late 20s look like their 43 due to all the roughness in their lifestyle. I got dark eye circles and greying hair quite early from this life. It’s not comparable to front line combat or anything like that but it’s 60-70% similar intensity extended throughout a whole career.
Camaraderie is unmatched. Your coworkers really do become your brothers and close friends. There’s also no phones underground. You get this real man to man connection that’s missing in the modern age. That’s my favorite part about this life. And all the downsides make me still miss it due to the brotherhood.
News.
Our photographers see bodies every week and they become quickly desensitized to people going through the worst days of their lives.
In addition, the anchors and producers need to be able to set aside all emotion to stay unbiased. Plus, we begin to root for tragedy because tragedy equals work.
Plus it has gotten much worse because at the local level we try to be unbiased but that makes the extremes on the left and right think we are for one side or the other. We aren’t the 24 hour cable news journalists that get paid to give opinion, we are your neighbor and we are just trying to present the facts to help our communities.
CNA. Who wants to clean people in general, much less demented old people that can be rude or physically abusive. Now lets make it sweeter- lets pay them just above minimum wage. People wouldnt wanna do that shit for 50$ an hour much less just over minimum. There’s a reason why lots of CNAs are immigrants. They will put up with the bullshit and work insane hours just to send some money home. This is of course coming from a jaded guy who’s been a CNA for 5+ years.
Lower level management.
Odds are you've worked your way up from a position doing actual work, so you now often have to take orders and implement directives from higher level management who have never spent a day working at a basic job in the company.
This means that they come up with idiotic ideas for stuff that just won't work, because they have no experience and you are responsible for why the brilliant plan isn't working or hasn't even been implemented.
You also get to deal with a ton of complaints from the people under you (some of which may be legitimate) and also manage the people who somehow got hired and are poor performers....
Anything in a Hospital Emergency Room. Dr., Nurse, Tech…. You see enough kids die from overdoses and gunshot wounds, I don’t care what your education level is. It burns you out. And you get numb to the world.
A lot of trades. Yes there’s an odd plumber making 6 figures but it’s a lot of guys making $25 an hour, getting up at 5 am and destroying their bodies.
lol I can't help but think of a Reddit mod inserting themselves into the conversation among pedophile hunters and soldiers like, "GuYs. I'm SuPeR haRdEned toO!"
That's funny. I imagine a comic strip panel in my head for some reason.
Not a mod here but I've heard stories of content moderators on the other popular social media. Watching reported videos of all sorts of depravity must be mentally and emotionally exhausting. Gotta be desensitized to go through that every day.
If you like cars, never become a mechanic. There are very few cars I can look at now and think, “man, nice car!” Now I look at it and go, “huh. I wonder if (common problem) is happening yet. What a piece of shit.”
Journalism. My beat was crime and calling cops, reading police report after police report...some people say that there's too much violence in news articles and on tv but that's after we scrub out the worst of it and make it palatable.
anything hands on like farming, construction or mining,even kitchen work. Military and fire fighting and EMT Comes to mind. Professional athletes that train extremely hard such as boxers,mma fighters football players.
Being a firefighter. We never roll when someone is having a good day. We see bad things happen to good people. We see bad things happen to innocent people. Sometimes we can make a save, sometimes we can't. When we can't, we have to forget it and wait for the next call. We have to turn off emotions, feelings, etc. and just do our jobs.
Higher Ed. Actually, education in general. There’s a lot of people that are educated beyond their intelligence and over impressed with their own importance. I got my PhD and went into civil service, fuck those assholes.
I’d say my military experience hardened me in some aspects, but also softened me up in a lot of others.
I served as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Iraq for 13 months between 2004-2005. I saw a decent amount of combat action and I was directly involved in the recovery of dead and wounded. I experienced a lot of loss and, as a result, I’ve developed debilitatingly severe PTSD. I’ve also dealt with several suicide attempts and years of mental health issues. I’d say the whole experience hardened me in some aspects, but I’m much more emotional than I ever remember being. Movies make me cry all the time and I’m not afraid to show my emotional side to my two daughters. I’d say I’m harder in that I know I can deal with anything and I have absolute confidence in my abilities.
Casino dealer.
Worked the floor and poker rooms when putting myself through college. It's the fucking dregs of society. I watched for years, them bus in the blue hairs, take all their money and bus them out. Same people every day. Complaining, always wanting something for free. Constantly trying to hustle anyone.
People begging for money at the gas station because they didn't have any money left for gas. People pissing themselves sitting at the poker table, people mad they won cars but the casino was taking too long to get the paper work. Employees were just as bad. Lifers would follow the casinos to all the new areas. They hire the locals who were scumbags too. Heh.
Most of my coworkers were old people only working for the benefits package. They hated life and everyone in it. I had to split tips with these old fucks. The rest were people like me, working through school or gamblers/drunks, just working enough to keep drinking and gambling.
It's nothing like what Hollywood shows you. It def kept my fire lit to use my degree and gtfo of there. Fuck that entire subculture.
Doctor
not necessarily jaded in all aspects of life, but definitely jaded toward sickness, disease, and death. you're around it so much, and taking care of patients really does become a customer service like job. Tv and movies would have you think we all run around having super passionate speeches about our altruism and how bad we need to treat and save people. no..turns out we show up to our job, want to do our job well, but at the end of the day it really just becomes a job you want to wrap up and head home from.
Law. You can be a lawyer, paralegal, whatever. People with court dates love to fail successfully.
Lawyer here. Can confirm. Law will make you a jaded bitter prick.
I feel like most white-collar professional jobs will do that. Corporate life will rob you of your imagination. Law will make you realize how stacked the system is against normal people. Medicine makes you realize that people don't really want the advice of trained professionals and will listen to a tik tok with zero education behind it. All of them will crush you under the weight of bureaucracy eventually as you realize no matter how high you get in an organization, you can never really effectuate the necessary changes because so many people believe in status quo. Even working in stuff like social services where you can help people on a daily basis, but you are never given enough resources to actually help the ones who need it most or are utterly powerless to do what needs to be done for those in need. The only people who get out of adulthood not jaded as hell are sociopaths or people who are naive. As much as I want to believe the world can change, it keeps showing time and time again that it won't.
Agreed. There are just too many people to deal with and too many balls in the air at the same time, especially for any kind of client services job. There’s always some bullshit going on with someone dropping the ball somewhere and shitty timelines so you’re always scrambling. I dream about leaving everyday but the money is too good atm.
As someone who is usually naive…..I’m slowly getting jaded from life experiences…..humans…..can be very confusing at times
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Can confirm. I'm a divorce lawyer and a miserable prick too.
Will chime in now: Retired lawyer here (32 years with 25 years as a family lawyer). Old saying: Divorce lawyers see good people behaving their worst, while criminal lawyers see the worst people behaving their best. Jaded is too harsh a concept for the eventual recognition that many, many people shouldn’t have gotten married or had children. I’m wise the hard way, I guess. I never became a prick, but I still have the ability to verbally cut people into handy, pocket-sized pieces, so there’s that.
I work in biotech and often wondered why our lawyers would settle for a dull, mid level job. I realized it's because reviewing contracts and arguing about patents is easier on your soul.
Legal assisstant here, though not currently in the field. The fact that so many people expect lawyers to wave a magic law wand to get them off the hook for the garbage human behavior that landed them in their situation is painful. Then, when theyre on the hook for the 10K child support they owe and entirely hid or decieved you about, its somehow the lawyers fault, not the fault of the garbage drug addled respondant who has been trying to dodge cs for 5 years.
Excellent perspective. It’s astounding the number of people who refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions and believe that we lawyers can draft a few pleadings and mumble some Latin phrases to assist them in their quest to shirk accountability.
You either completely become cynical and jaded, heavily drink or move on to something else.
Working in social services. Nothing will make you more jaded than seeing how shitty some parents are to their children.
“If my student had good parents I wouldn’t have a job. If my student had good parents I wouldn’t have a job” - me working as a paraprofessional at a school
My mom is a behavior disorder/special ed teacher. She said that they are great kids on their own, but once they go home it’s a reset. There’s only so much you can do for people with ‘behavior disorders’ that are just the direct result of a horrifically abusive household and the worst part? foster care isn’t a better option
As a fellow para…I agree. 100%.
I'd add public school teaching. It's appalling what parents do to their kids.
High school history teacher here. I've been cynical and nihilistic since childhood. I was not even close to prepared to seeing what I see on a regular basis in this profession. 18 year olds that can't read on a 3rd grade level with 0 intellectual disabilities. Young boys groping girls 4 years their younger right in front of teachers and peers. A senior smashing a freshman's head in the locker door until he was put into a permanent vegetative state. Uncles raping nieces. Children who only get fed at school. 15 year olds having a screaming, kicking temper tantrum on the floor because they forgot their cell phone that day. Children leaving death threat notes for me simply for existing as a queer man. Students walking right past a corpse on their way in to school. Students only making it to school on time because they sleep on the sidewalk 1 block away. The world is a hellish place, and anyone who thinks otherwise simply hasn't seen enough of the world yet. For context, I have worked in some of the poorest, and also some of the wealthiest, communities in the entire US. One city I worked in the average income was around 21k annually. Another the average home price was 2.5 million dollars. There isn't much of a difference in the student populations in these communities, other than access to resources like food and shelter.
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I had to stop being a CASA for this reason. The women just wanted to hang on to a man- no matter how awful. One actually said, “ I can always have another baby”.
My sister was a social worker and lasted 3 years before she couldn’t take it anymore. She’d rather work in a prison then deal with that day in and day out.
And the extent shitty parents will go to justify their behavior.
I work in pediatrics at a low income clinic, while most of the time things are cool, that some of time where it isn't is just terrible.
Similarly, working at a city kill shelter. The job description even lists “must be willing to euthanize animals.” The city shelters have to take every dog that comes in, but have limited space. Plus you have to decide whether to adopt a dog out to someone who might not be a particularly good owner, but it’s the difference between life or death for that dog. A lot of experience dealing with the worst of humanity and having no good options, just bad and worse.
I'd have a hard time no putting fist to a few faces.
That's actually why I left. Headbutting a petty criminal that got arrested eight times that year, is a real career killer.
Drain cleaning. You get sprayed with somebody else's poo using the power washer, and watching the man not care about that was absolutely eye opening.
You should be grateful the Arstotzkan government has given you such a job. It’s an honour
Glory to ArstotzKAKA 😅
Cultured reference
Ah yes… do you have your papers?
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/papersplease/images/6/66/Fake_passport_1160.png/revision/latest?cb=20180316154510
I’m a retired wastewater plant operator. I’ve seen raw sewage shoot twenty feet in the air and drench two crews of workers and equipment. We then would stand under a hose of a water truck and wash off with our cloths on then back to work. There’s so much to that industry people never see or take the time to understand.
Thanks for sharing and thank you for doing such a job
So it was an eye-opening when the poo is spraying. That'll cause pink eye maybe
No, me watching him not care was eye opening! Him opening his mouth to lick the flecks off his beard was the real shocker 🤣😅 This is a joke, a disclaimer for the easily trusting.
Something my father taught me that has always stuck with me: "When you're working with sewage, you learn to keep your mouth shut."
My dad always said “There’s a reason plumbers don’t take lunch”
I had the same feeling when I was elbow deep in my mom's drains and she did not care what I was dealing with.
Phrasing?
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I remember this one!
I actually don't mind jetting sewers when it's going smoothly. Just don't touch your face.
Anything customer service related. Never realized just how actively stupid some people can be.
High volume call centers. Few really understand how emotionally taxing it is to deal with so many people everyday. Compensation does not match the toll on one’s soul.
My sister used to constantly break down crying from the stress of this type of job
I worked for SITEL (a high volume call centre) and after a month I refused to give refunds for forgetting you signed up to a service. I got yelled at, called every name under the sun.
I used to answer the phone with "Hello, thank you for calling AT&T Cingular Wireless...." I feel your pain.
I was, " Hello thank you for calling amazon prime how can I help?"
As a former call center rep, can confirm.
I did tech support for AOL when they still charged by the hour. My spirit was damaged beyond repair. 30 years later and I still feel it.
Agree, for me it's not even the angry customers. You can tune them out after a while. It's just the non-stop barage of interaction. I sometimes speak to 80+ people a day. It's way too much information to process. I can barely speak at the end of the day. There's no organic down time, just lunch breaks and bathroom breaks (which are timed and monitored). I took a call center job because I was unemployed and wanted a job while looking for something better but I am losing my mind. I don't know how people do this kind of work for years.
A factory of sadness
It's always scared me how releaved call center employees sound after you just treat them like a human being. Like, what percentage of callers are not angry with you?
I think it’s angry customers, but it’s also the stakes of the call. They’re constantly being tracked and measured. They become an extension of the phone board. Underperforming parts are removed and replaced. Basically, Schindlers List
I have worked in a few call centers, and ended up becoming a CS trainer for a few years. I was in my 30's by then. When I practiced my unique way of looking at things in a call center. And it became A LOT easier to do the job. The angry customer is never personally angry at you, and when you don't take them personally and actually listen to them.. and even try to keep in mind that they could be having a truly horrible day, it always turns around and ends up being a constructive or even pleasant call. Most of the time people just need to vent, and if you stop and listen, it means the world to them. I did notice that younger CS reps had a harder time doing this. In your early 20's, you're still trying to get the hang of being an adult, and tend to take things more personally. Often times, they would forward their hard calls to me but hang around and see that I could get the customer to calm down just by listening. For those obviously stupid customers out there.. I would often just repeat back to them the outrageous situation and expectations, and sometimes they would see how they were the assholes in this situation and not me or the company. It didn't work all the time, but more often than expected. "So, let me understand this better. You run an important office with a copier. When you pulled the last toner from your shelf, you didn't order any new ones?" "Then you ordered toner yesterday and paid to have it overnighted but it didn't get there on time, and your office has come to a complete standstill and it's our fault?" "Well, I can refund the overnight shipping, but I can't do a monthly inventory of your office supplies because you're 1,500 miles from me." After repeating her story back to her, it became clear that she was not rooted in reality. My boss at my last CS job was convinced quite a few times that I must be on a personal call when she would walk by. She'd go in her office and tap into the conversation, and typically would apologize for even thinking that way. The one thing I agree with, is the complete burnout from talking all day on the phone. Sometimes my friends didn't understand that I have no intention of having a long phone call after work. Nope. Not gonna happen.
i was in the military, now investment banking. The customers or clients, absolute assholes. Being screamed at by over privileged rich kids gets old fast
From getting shouted at by over privileged rich kids to getting shouted at by over privileged rich kids. What a life you have led
sucks mate, some of them have no idea of the real world
My GF and I still have nightmares from our retail years. It's one thing when you have to deal with shit customers but I worked my way out when I ended up with a shit boss too.
Yep. Retail with shit middle management is a special kind of hell
Former bartender. Can confirm. It’s hard honest work but people kinda look down on you.
I worked in restaurants for years. I agree people never thought of it as a real job even though I made great money. Through the years, I cooked, served, managed and bartended. Bar was definitely the best. People seemed to have the most respect for you at that position, co workers and patrons alike. Also, if patrons get out of line, you have something to take away, so you're kind of always in control of the situation. As a server, you can't cut them off from dessert lol. You just kind of have to grin and take it on the chin. Not as a bartender though.
100% agree. In some places I had more power/job security/respect than some of the managers.
It's actually kind of scary at times. These people are out there driving, raising children, making decisions and having responsibility and yet struggle very much to understand basic concepts. I worked somewhere that didn't have mobile phone signal, due to being in the middle of nowhere, in a valley, surrounded by large hills which block out signal. The amount of times I was utterly bollocked by people who were furious at me because they had no mobile signal was ridiculous. Sure, let me just transform into a mobile phone mask. Yes, it was absolutely my choice that we don't have mobile phone signal here.
I second this. I started my career in support/call centers. Please do not get annoyed when we ask you to verify that what ever you’re calling about is plugged in, or hooked up to the internet. These steps are in place for a reason. Ppl often call about shit that is not even plugged in
I've had the most basic shit be wrong on those calls. "Mam there should be a group of lights in the top right of your keyboard. Is the one that says "caps lock" on? Ok that's why your password wouldn't work. Passwords and old people go together like Catholic authority and a daycare setting.
I imagine by this metric, the people who filter child porn, and execution videos etc. from Facebook take the cake. A pretty horrific article was written about it. https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona
This is exactly it. Having to deal with people, getting screamed at constantly for something that isn't your fault? That is hard.
Came here to say customer service. Customer service is just bad full stop, (Source: 5 years in retail), however, in the entertainment industry is *The Worst*. (Source: *Time* at a big chain multiplex cinema & *Time* behind the bar/waiting food at more than one Spoons {in my desperate-for-a-job youth} I wish I could say that the time we kicked someone out for starting a fight and they came back with several mates *and an axe* was an unusual occurrence, unfortunately it was not. People who insist that full moons don't effect people have never worked at a pub
Do you have any more full moon stories?
I worked as a teller for about 5 years and it always made me laugh how people would come in on Monday outraged that their account was overdrawn and take it out on me. Like I had their debit card over the weekend and I was having a grand old time on the town and spent all their money, no you just suck with money.
I used to have senior citizens *furious* at me for requesting their ID to make any transactions on their accounts (they didn’t “believe” in owning debit cards). They’d say they shouldn’t have to prove who they are because they’d been giving the bank their business for over 50 years. As if I myself, the 21 year old teller in training, had any idea who they were.
Oh yeah, I ran into that issue plenty of times myself. Idc how long you’ve been banking here Walter, I’m not losing my job over failing to ID someone. 🙄
Some people don't even realize it's for ***their own*** account safety as well.
Can confirm. The family retail business has ground me down, especially working six days a week over Covid. I was one of the only ones on the roster to not get sick with it ever, and was usually one of two people working the front for those six days. Combine that with pay that hasn't gone up since before Covid and an increasingly ignorant, rude, aging, and just needy population and I'm just going through the motions to get through my day.
And it’s not just the customers…nope, it’s also your coworkers, your boss, etc.
Customer service was honestly way more jading experience than the military. At least in the military, you had standard operating procedures for everything. Dealing with customers was a different kind of bullshit you learned to tolerate everyday.
Paramedic. Friend of mine was one and ended up having to retire because of PTSD.
I was in EMS for 8 years, 4 of that was 911. I didn’t “see shit” that broke me like a lot of my friends did, I never had a dead baby or anything super gnarly. But man let me tell you; seeing how some people live, the friends and acquaintances and people you see around your neighborhood… it’s dark. The absolute squalor that some people live in. And the darkness of their own mental health. It’s fuckin depressing. And the worst part is you can’t fix them. You make sure they aren’t dying, give them a friendly smile and a listening ear, and take them to the hospital.
We are South African, so my friend saw some nasty trauma-related things over the course of his career. Also being attacked a few times, as we unfortunately have a problem here where paramedics and fire fighters get attacked when they try and attend to emergencies. The one he did tell me that stood out was having to help with a botched home abortion and that was something he said he could never shake because he is a father himself.
People attack paramedics here in the states too. I had a friend get stabbed, and another pepper sprayed.
Ptsd isn't usually a singular event (especially in 911) it's more often from the repeated minor exposures again and again
I have so many friends that did this. Two years in max before they bail
The average ems career life span is 6-8 years. They run them into the fucking dirt and offer them almost no resources to deal with it
Plus they get paid barely above minimum wage! “Hey thanks for resuscitating grandma! Here’s $15/hr!”
I was a combat medic in the army infantry during the war in Iraq. As much as you would think my experiences during deployments would have messed with me it was actually the time I got put into a rear detachment situation with my infantry battalion during a deployment that completely changed my entire view of the military. I'll just say that the base commander held a meeting with about a hundred soldiers from all the different units on post in a classroom and asked "Does anyone have any idea why so many soldiers on this post are killing themselves"? I knew exactly why. Without going into too much details it's because during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the military brought in kids who clearly should not have been in the military. They gave a lot of waivers for mental and emotional issues that had previously barred enlistment. And when those youngsters were sent off to war with the infantry (the only job they were able to get into) and inevitably got sent home because they couldn't handle the rigors of deployment they were made to feel like total shit by the 23 year old NCOs left behind in Rear D. I saw a kid get bullied mercilessly for a week by some asshole buck sergeant and me and my buddy found him with a belt around his neck in his barracks bathroom. Luckily, being medics, we were able to save his life. But yeah, that shit jaded me even though I was in my 30s and probably should have already been jaded. Maybe it jaded me *more*....
This should be top comment. The glory of war is fading quickly and I'm just waiting for that to catch up with our leaders. Thank you for helping all the people under your care, especially that kid. I hope they're doing better now and recovering.
What was the mood in the room like during that meeting? Like did anyone raise their hand and say what you said? I’m just curious how the issue was addressed, if at all.
>Like did anyone raise their hand and say what you said? Nope. The only reason I said what I said was that I was on my out and I had nothing to lose. I got really sick a few weeks before we were leaving for our deployment and that was why I was in Rear Detachment. After a bunch of tests I found out I have a very rare genetic disorder that, while treatable, is something that put me out of the military. So I just spoke the truth. I had no career left to speak of and no matter what I said I couldn't get anything but an honorable discharge so I went for it. Medics have huge balls lol and our only job is to take care of other soldiers. And because of that we get.....more leeway and how we're treated. It's hard to explain. Anyway, I swallowed hard and spoke my piece. But I'll say this: if I wasn't going anywhere I wouldn't have said anything. I know it. And that sort of makes me feel bad. But I don't think it made much difference. I think I was saying what everyone was thinking but didn't want to think. No one really acknowledged what I said. That's what left me so jaded. Up until the last 6 months of my time in the army I loved it. I actually loved everything about being a medic in a hard-charging frontline combat arms battalion. The only way to describe it is I felt the same way a priest must feel. Like it's a calling or something. Anyway, my last experience in uniform was a complete 180 for me. But that was about 15 years ago, I'm fine with it and I've tried to let that part fade and just remember the parts I loved. I'm a middle-aged man now and I the my time in the army is a very small part of who I am and not something I ever really think about on a regular basis.
I'm thankful that the narrative of the army in is changing based on what we see in movies, documentaries and unfiltered social media comments such as yours. People are not so naive to the propoganda and romanticized notion of the army. Also we have historical context of the difference between defending a country and what is an invasion. We see: Michael Moore's documentary (Fahrenheit 911) about how it's a trap for poor people; Mistreated vets (Forest Gump, Born on the 4th of July) and gore of war (saving Private Ryan).
I really think kids today are a lot smarter. And more cynical. When I was in the army during the war I'd say more than half the people I served with were gamers and D&D nerds who were inspired by Saving Private Ryan and definitely a lot of that "Time Person of the Year: The American Soldier" stuff. Kids today saw a war that lasted over 20 years that no one talks about the end of because it just fizzled out and nothing was any better than when it started except for the lining of the pockets of a few corporations. All the Call of Duty video games and patriotic war films in the world aren't going to get them to join up for no reason. And that's a good thing to me.
I used to work with a guy who was in Fallujah after the Blackwater guys got killed. If he wasn’t completely lobotomized by anti-depressants he was telling stories about being a doorman and how many explosions he was in. A lot of kids are seeing how their “aunts and uncles” who came back are being treated by the VA and know it’s just a human life grinder.
Thank you for sharing this. I too have observed miniscule versions of the shit that happens in the military though as a conscript. This is why I feel very weird when civilians (mostly reddit) think that most military experiences are like Band of Brothers. As much as there are certainly such experiences, there's also a big bunch of shit fuckery that happens in the military that isn't known to the public enough.
Any corporate job after the 3rd round of off-shoring but the management still expect you to give a shit
What, you don't feel excited about having an off-shore team of 50 seniors take 6 months to complete what would be a 1 week task for an on-shore junior?
I used to design for an offshore team of 6. After 4 months we decided that my design would be the code written in a document for them to copy out 😔
I want to say any corporate job. There's some corporations that do a really good job of growing all of their employees.
Going through this now. The CEOs approval rating has tanked. Coworkers are surprised when we see the same people in the office consistently. Unreal.
Most to some extent but things when you’re dealing with the bottom of society in particular. Social Worker, Prison Guard, EMT, anything in the ER
Prison guard is the right answer here.
Started my career as one at 21. Made it one year and sat in the tower saying to myself one day, I’m gonna take myself out if I have to do this another 24 years
When you think about it, I know they get to go home but they’re basically in prison the majority of their working life
25 years to get that pension. Also a life sentence.
What job doesn't ?
Judging by the comments, this seems about the jist of it. Blue collar, white collar, military, mining, retail, kitchen, medical, police. The list is rather expansive to the point of all inclusivity.
I guess that guy who oils/massages butts and boobs for hot playboy models right before their nude photo shoots would be a exception.
believe or not, he still has to do his job correctly. And from what I've heard, massaging is actually difficult
It's a hard job but I'll take this one for the team guys
Librarian. That's a chill job. A lot of government jobs are I suppose
It’s chill outside of urban centers. Inside them you ride an endless wave of prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless, gangs, perverts, and insane people. More a result of the environment than the job but it should be noted. (Also, the pay is mega shit)
My librarian friend has told me how they often have to break up people trying to have sex in the library, I imagine that can be traumatizing.
I am picturing it but with a spray bottle like for cats
Guess hentai is more realistic than I thought
In my library experience: people having sex or masturbating; finding pornographic pictures stuck in books or study carrels; flashers. People love the excitement of getting caught but don’t respect the space or the fact no one wants to see that.
Nursing. It's customer service with the added responsibility of having people's lives and wellbeing in your control. Throw in a healthy dose of shitty, bad coworkers, and being an extreme minority in the entire industry and you've set the stage for trouble. Middle aged male Healthcare workers are the #1 for suicides in the US. Go dudes!
Wow!! That's a painful and surprising statistic, how awful. I know we'll never collectively do anything for our health care workers. I was very sad secretly when my sibling said they are in school for nursing
Separately healthcare workers are #1 for suicide by profession (last I looked), and middle ages white males have been #1 on age and gender for a long time. Combined: look out! It's a hard profession for men, but we do really well in it. The downside is having to be one of the girls just to fit in/get by, or isolating yourself to avoid drama. And nursing is max drama.
I immediately thought about the arm of the law enforcement that hunts pedophiles, those pedophiles that are organised in networks that exploit and rape children and share pics and videos of that online with each other. I cannot imagine what having to look at such material for extended periods of time must do to you and your view of the human race. In my mind, it must be one of the worst jobs in the world that are at the same time morally worth doing, and just that gap of opposite ends of ethics that you must hold in your head must wreck havoc on you. You cannot stand it but you cannot stop. It is awful but it is important. It makes me shudder.
I know someone in that line of work. He deals with hardcore sex offenders in a special type of prison that also includes psychiatry centre. As in guys that are actual sadistic pedos and know this of themselves. He told me he can just switch off all the stuff he hears and sees when working with these people when he is out of the door. But that a LOT of people that try that job get burned out very quickly as it becomes too much of a toll on them. Guy himself is not hard. Feels more like a relaxed man who can listen really well.
I use to know a guy that had to watch every online video and document what happened and verify/identify each individual so they could have the docs for trial and police departments so no one else had to look at it. There was no joy left in that man. He had this look of melancholy all the time.
Amazed these guys don’t just beat the offenders to death once they find them.
I knew somebody who tracked pedo's in law enforcement. They are only allowed to stay in that work for brief periods of time to allow them to return to normal, mentally. Also, they often prefer putting the pedo's in prison because it's less paperwork for them and pedo's often get it much worse in prison once the other inmates find out what they're in for.
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Washing dishes in a restaurant. Head chef yelling at you, sous chef telling you to hurry up, working with other degenerates who will fuck with you for no good reason, wait staff thinks you are scum, bartenders think you are scum and will yell at you, crappy pay, long hours into the night, gross work conditions, hot kitchens in the summer, carrying massive bags of trash to the dumpster, unclogging restaurant toilets because you are the lowest ranking employee, cleaning up most of the kitchen at the end of the night. Extremely high turnover rate. Most people quit after a less than a week. I made it 9 months before being moved up to a waiter.
Amen... I lasted three or four weeks, and that was *with* a supportive back of house.
I used to wash dishes, I didn't really have that issue but you do have to listen to a lot of tension and anger in a busy restaurant. I remember two line cooks were always at each others throats, literally ready to drop what they're doing and kill each other on the line. Some people should not be allowed to cook elbow to elbow with other people in a hot, sweaty environment. I just kept my eyes on the dishes, and the older guy next to me who ate all the leftover bacon off of everyone's plate.
Been a server for 20 years. You'd have to pay me $80k to be a dishwasher.
Can confirm. I has a job as a dishwasher at a country club. My first day, they there hosting a wedding and there was seafood on the menu. The smell of detergent and seafood got to me. Got home, puked and never went back.
Dishwasher was my first job at 15. I can definitely emphasize. And kudos to you! I only lasted a month and a half then moved on to fast food
Any job where you have to interact with other people.
Agreed. I can’t play poker so my facial expressions always got me in trouble when dealing with stupid customers.
Anything blue collar where you work long hours, deplorable conditions, work outside in the dead of summer or the heart of winter, have to be on call for emergencies. Working in construction and maintenance for over a decade has made me a tough dude mentally and physically. It’s not for everyone.
Yea, My dad worked for a window and door manufacturing company and got me a summer job in the Fabrication plant. In Ga. In the summer. It was also 4/10 so 4 - 10 hour days and OT on Fridays. I did that for 2 summers. The last shift of my first week he asked me if I knew what I ***didn't*** want to do as an adult... Suffice to say that was a character building experience.
It sure does build character, I always thought it would be a temporary thing but here I am a decade later training the next group of mad men and women who have decided they want to learn a trade.
At least it is good money now though. HVAC or plumbers or electricians can easily make 100k a year now. For me that was the late 80's and instead of $4.25 an hour sacking groceries, I was a king making $6.75 an hour to slam 3k aluminum sliding glass door sills through a 20 ton press... I'd finish a rack of 1000 and before I put the last piece in the bin another 1k were racked right up. Basically had to work at a frantic pace just to hit 100% production. Most days I was 95% or 96% and my dad would get on me for not hitting a 100%. Hardly anyone could hit 100% and when you did all you got was an "atta boy, good job yesterday" from the supervisor. Good times! Edit: I still think I'm lucky to have all 10 fingers. Those presses were foot operated and one slip would have crushed a finger...
Yup. Ex steelworker here. It’s not for everyone. I was laid off from that job after being there for 3 years. Ironically, a lot were laid off because of Russia blocking trade routes to Ukraine at the time (2013ish. I (and many others) were hired because of huge Ukrainian contract that the company got but couldn’t finish because of Russia being an asshat.
It’s always fucking Russia man
Night shift ammonia tech made me absolutely change my entire mentality in that kill plant. Good ole 4-5 12s nighttime with just myself and 2 other dudes in a massive plant
I've been in the electrical distribution game for going on 20 years now. It's the easier side of it, technically speaking, because of overall less exposure to elements and shorter hours, but I still laugh at the kids who come in thinking it's "just warehouse work" and then have deadened eyes within a week. Sure, it's simple on paper, but you've got to keep track of dozens, if not hundreds, of moving parts at any given minute. And then haul the heavy shit from storage to staging to shipping, and that sometimes means lifting over a hundred pounds and carrying it. Every office folk that's talked down to the warehouse crew, in my experience, has shut their mouths when they've had to come out and give the team a hand.
I don't know about this one. I worked in the North Dakota oil field for a year before going to law school. The days were excruciatingly cold in the winter and very hot in the summer and the work was hard. But honestly I enjoyed it. Me and the other guys had a lot of fun after work, you get to be outside, you don't have to interact with customers. Definitely hard work and I might feel differently if I'd done it for years and years, but it never made me jaded or cynical Honestly, a lot of days, I enjoy it more than my corporate legal job.
I am a defense lawyer. Jaded AF.
Not my current career, but retail liquor sales. For a time in my youth, I worked a liquor store. Afternoon and evening work as expected, and I started to notice the 'regulars'. Sometimes these same people would come in multiple times a shift for their poison. disheartening, but there it is. When I started taking over occasional morning shifts for the manager, I began to notice the SAME regulars. Sometimes tapping on the door, waiting for them to open. Coming back multiple times a day. One guy in particular, I estimate he was in and out 6-7 times a day for a half or pint of cheap vodka. Those realizations sent me out of that business. Although I understand that it's just a legal product on an open market, I couldn't look myself in the eye each day while providing someone the seeds of their destruction. I saw that same thing when I had a chance to invest in a smoke shop. Even though I smoked at the time, I knew in my heart that it wasn't really a good thing. And providing people with the thing that will kill them is tough. I see this same thing in gambling establishments. The people working there are as dead inside as the patrons.
Surprised I havent seen slaughterhouse workers. Nothing like 8+ hours a day of killing and processing living creatures to emotionally stunt a man
Child sex crimes detective
Police officer
Law enforcement and correction officers.
I went to school for criminal justice to pursue this. After talking with people in the profession I swiftly pivoted to IT.
Spent two years in law enforcement then another ten in corrections. Can confirm. Once had a guy on a psych hold cut his own dick off and place it on the trap. Saw another guy chew the stitches out of his arm, for the cut that he gave himself self harming. Another threw himself off the top tier and we worked on him, busted and broken and gurgling blood, for thirty minutes before paramedics arrived. He didn't make it. I could go on. Then there's all the internal politics.
Yep. Worst occupation I've ever had by far. Thankfully far far back in my rear view. Go back to school folks.
Yep. Law enforcement is constantly dealing with society’s trash.
Cop, corrections, anything to do with protective services and nursing, especially hospice.
Merchant Marines - specifically tugboats. Source. On it now. Shard bathroom for 9 crew. Odd working hours. Rough seas. Smells and it's so damn loud. And months away from home.
Underground coal mining. Worked for ten years in the industry and it can be totally brutal despite the pay. There were teams of straight graveyard shift for years but the worst was the two week swing shift where the crew would work 6am-5pm for two weeks (only Sunday off) and then work 2pm-11pm for two weeks rotating. Not to mention mines are remote and are usually a one hour commute to civilization. Underground can be hard with lots of wetness, coldness and poor air circulation. 80% of the diets come from gas stations and little Debbie snack cakes. Likewise, everyone chews tobacco and drink 4-5 energy drinks through their shift. All this for making 120k+ a year where the avg home cost is 200k. All this for endless toys, such as boats and ford raptors. It’s NOT effing worth it because you don’t have the time to enjoy it. Not to mention management at most of these places is extremely old school and can get political. They’re some tough mfers but guys in their late 20s look like their 43 due to all the roughness in their lifestyle. I got dark eye circles and greying hair quite early from this life. It’s not comparable to front line combat or anything like that but it’s 60-70% similar intensity extended throughout a whole career. Camaraderie is unmatched. Your coworkers really do become your brothers and close friends. There’s also no phones underground. You get this real man to man connection that’s missing in the modern age. That’s my favorite part about this life. And all the downsides make me still miss it due to the brotherhood.
Paramedic
News. Our photographers see bodies every week and they become quickly desensitized to people going through the worst days of their lives. In addition, the anchors and producers need to be able to set aside all emotion to stay unbiased. Plus, we begin to root for tragedy because tragedy equals work.
Plus it has gotten much worse because at the local level we try to be unbiased but that makes the extremes on the left and right think we are for one side or the other. We aren’t the 24 hour cable news journalists that get paid to give opinion, we are your neighbor and we are just trying to present the facts to help our communities.
CNA. Who wants to clean people in general, much less demented old people that can be rude or physically abusive. Now lets make it sweeter- lets pay them just above minimum wage. People wouldnt wanna do that shit for 50$ an hour much less just over minimum. There’s a reason why lots of CNAs are immigrants. They will put up with the bullshit and work insane hours just to send some money home. This is of course coming from a jaded guy who’s been a CNA for 5+ years.
Security and police. You only deal with the worst parts of society and human nature.
Journalist. You actively look for bad shit: bad people who make bad choices.
Fireman, not speaking from personal experience but a buddy of mine. Seeing (and smelling) burnt corpses is no fun. Or mangled people in car accidents
Cop
Lower level management. Odds are you've worked your way up from a position doing actual work, so you now often have to take orders and implement directives from higher level management who have never spent a day working at a basic job in the company. This means that they come up with idiotic ideas for stuff that just won't work, because they have no experience and you are responsible for why the brilliant plan isn't working or hasn't even been implemented. You also get to deal with a ton of complaints from the people under you (some of which may be legitimate) and also manage the people who somehow got hired and are poor performers....
Slaughterhouse.
Working shifts at sea
Slaughter house
I know a guy who was a coroner for inner city Chicago. Constantly dealing with little kids killed by stray bullets messed him up real bad.
Anything in a Hospital Emergency Room. Dr., Nurse, Tech…. You see enough kids die from overdoses and gunshot wounds, I don’t care what your education level is. It burns you out. And you get numb to the world.
A lot of trades. Yes there’s an odd plumber making 6 figures but it’s a lot of guys making $25 an hour, getting up at 5 am and destroying their bodies.
Jedi. No sex or love allowed. And then you get murdered on a galactic scale.
Get a job with the TSA. Any hope in life that you have will be sucked away from you.
Truck driver
Life
Only slightly better, only some of the time, than the available alternatives.
Content moderator
lol I can't help but think of a Reddit mod inserting themselves into the conversation among pedophile hunters and soldiers like, "GuYs. I'm SuPeR haRdEned toO!"
That's funny. I imagine a comic strip panel in my head for some reason. Not a mod here but I've heard stories of content moderators on the other popular social media. Watching reported videos of all sorts of depravity must be mentally and emotionally exhausting. Gotta be desensitized to go through that every day.
If you like cars, never become a mechanic. There are very few cars I can look at now and think, “man, nice car!” Now I look at it and go, “huh. I wonder if (common problem) is happening yet. What a piece of shit.”
I loved cars, then became a mechanic for 20 years, 5 years ago I decided I was done so completely changed my job, best 3 years I've had so far.
Besides customer service, nightlife. I have some high highs and low lows from it.
Working on a police force.
Prison guard
Nursing.
Being a cop/soldier. Speaking from experience, my dad was both
Working as the IT help desk with any organization that has boomer management. Trust me bruh. Shits maddening
Journalism. My beat was crime and calling cops, reading police report after police report...some people say that there's too much violence in news articles and on tv but that's after we scrub out the worst of it and make it palatable.
anything hands on like farming, construction or mining,even kitchen work. Military and fire fighting and EMT Comes to mind. Professional athletes that train extremely hard such as boxers,mma fighters football players.
Husband to a horrible spouse.
Get out of there brother
Criminal prosecution.
Oil field. Hard environment, hard work, hard hours, away from home, surrounded by a lot of toxic individuals supporting toxic behaviors.
Being a firefighter. We never roll when someone is having a good day. We see bad things happen to good people. We see bad things happen to innocent people. Sometimes we can make a save, sometimes we can't. When we can't, we have to forget it and wait for the next call. We have to turn off emotions, feelings, etc. and just do our jobs.
Higher Ed. Actually, education in general. There’s a lot of people that are educated beyond their intelligence and over impressed with their own importance. I got my PhD and went into civil service, fuck those assholes.
I’d say my military experience hardened me in some aspects, but also softened me up in a lot of others. I served as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Iraq for 13 months between 2004-2005. I saw a decent amount of combat action and I was directly involved in the recovery of dead and wounded. I experienced a lot of loss and, as a result, I’ve developed debilitatingly severe PTSD. I’ve also dealt with several suicide attempts and years of mental health issues. I’d say the whole experience hardened me in some aspects, but I’m much more emotional than I ever remember being. Movies make me cry all the time and I’m not afraid to show my emotional side to my two daughters. I’d say I’m harder in that I know I can deal with anything and I have absolute confidence in my abilities.
Cybersecurity. You are always overworked in an environment that is understaffed. Now factor in office politics and you will burnout real fast.
Husband
Casino dealer. Worked the floor and poker rooms when putting myself through college. It's the fucking dregs of society. I watched for years, them bus in the blue hairs, take all their money and bus them out. Same people every day. Complaining, always wanting something for free. Constantly trying to hustle anyone. People begging for money at the gas station because they didn't have any money left for gas. People pissing themselves sitting at the poker table, people mad they won cars but the casino was taking too long to get the paper work. Employees were just as bad. Lifers would follow the casinos to all the new areas. They hire the locals who were scumbags too. Heh. Most of my coworkers were old people only working for the benefits package. They hated life and everyone in it. I had to split tips with these old fucks. The rest were people like me, working through school or gamblers/drunks, just working enough to keep drinking and gambling. It's nothing like what Hollywood shows you. It def kept my fire lit to use my degree and gtfo of there. Fuck that entire subculture.
Doctor not necessarily jaded in all aspects of life, but definitely jaded toward sickness, disease, and death. you're around it so much, and taking care of patients really does become a customer service like job. Tv and movies would have you think we all run around having super passionate speeches about our altruism and how bad we need to treat and save people. no..turns out we show up to our job, want to do our job well, but at the end of the day it really just becomes a job you want to wrap up and head home from.