15 “dream jobs” that aren’t actually all they’re cracked up to be

Work takes up such a large percentage of our lives, which often leaves a lot of people dreaming of doing a dream job they actually love. But the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

1. Lawyer

“In my experience, it’s a lawyer. People go in thinking it’s gonna be like Suits and then sit through reading documents 16 hours a day and getting yelled at by their boss. So many of my friends have quit law firms.” —u/uselessprofession

2. Farmer

“When you visit your farmer cousin for the weekend, it’s easy to think that farming is all about ATV rides, feeding calves, fast clean milkings, and fishing in the evening. But that’s only because of the backbreaking work that he put in the weeks and months prior. Fixing tractors in cold snowy conditions, dealing with soul-sucking mud, stressing over bills, and trying to keep cows from dying in the August humidity.” —u/jckipps

3. Flight Attendant

“Being a flight attendant. Everyone thinks it’s glamorous travel and layovers in Paris, but it’s mostly long hours, rude passengers, jet lag, and constantly being on your feet.” —u/Sea-Gazelle-9827

4. Restaurant Owner

“Owning/running your own restaurant or bar. Making it past a year is a huge accomplishment. Overhead and the state/federal standards that need to be met and maintained just to be able to legally serve patrons will keep you up at night. People would be shocked to find out how much a liquor license costs an establishment, especially in some states. Trying to compete with all the established restaurant chains is nearly impossible.” —u/ro_sham-bo

5. Archeologist

“Excavation can be fun, but the data processing afterwards takes much, much longer than the digging. Also applying for funding is soul-crushing.” —u/janovew

6. Veterinarian/Vet Tech

“Anything in the veterinary industry. I know colleagues who have struggled to find a therapist who can handle the trauma that we’ve seen. Trauma, low pay, clients accusing us of only being in it for the money (as if any of us get that money instead of the corporation). Many of us struggle to pay vet bills for our own pets, even with the often pathetic discount given to us. It’s not uncommon to throw up with anxiety before every shift. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. I don’t know almost anyone working as a technician who can afford to live alone. It also destroys your body in a quick amount of time.” —u/meowpal33

7. Artist

“Unless you have rich parents, you will spend the first 20 years working retail while people try to get you to do free work for ‘exposure.’” —u/AN0NY_MOU5E

8. Video Game Industry

“Almost anything in the video game industry, unless you pull off an indie hit. Development is a grueling slog of crunch. Testing is playing the same level of Barbie Horse Adventures for a week, trying to reproduce a bug.” —u/Scoth42

9. Pilot

“Away from home, hope you do not fly with someone with a power trip, and a lot of alone time. Also weird sleep schedules due to time zones.” —u/jetstrea87

10. Teacher

“People imagine inspiring young minds every day, in reality, it’s long hours, admin work, low pay, and constant stress outside the classroom.” —u/gruninuim

11. Architect

“People think I’m making bank and designing all day. I’m re-reading the confusing municipal zoning code, which is a bad scan of typed sheets and out-of-date rules set from the freaking 80s in some jurisdictions. (Thankfully, most have caught up in the last decade.) The rest is trying to find how to make everyone else happy and make a lot of money. You might work late hours, obsessing over the code book to make some wildly impractical client need to have work. And then the project stalls and dies because the client’s financing fell through, and now you’re out of a job.” —u/Too_Shy_To_Say_Hi

12. TV Production

“It’s not glamorous, people are awful and egocentric, pick favourites and try to ruin your reputation just to make themselves look good, also the talent can be awful too.” —u/Late_Upstairs_2189

13. Nurse

“The general public really has very little understanding of how badly the healthcare system is unraveling right now. The whole thing is held together by bubble gum and duct tape at this point–and by the blood, sweat and tears of nurses so overwhelmed that many of them literally puke from anxiety before their shifts start. Fifty percent of new nurses quit the profession within two years. They cannot handle the stress, the toxic work environments, the unreasonable expectations and demands, the time pressure and the abuse.” —u/mom_with_an_attitude

14. Journalist

“Management is often completely out of touch with the day-to-day expectations and expects you to give your soul to the company. Most journalists I know work much more than 40 hours per week, and because they’re salaried, they don’t get any overtime or extra pay… Layoffs have hit every major publication, and the leftover workloads are piled on for whoever is still there. Expect a lot of distrust and hatred from the general public, too. Incidents where journalists have been targeted aside, journalists’ stories get accused of churning out AI slop, which is damaging at best and fatal at worst for so many reasons. It’s a thankless job with long hours for usually shit pay.” —u/BobwasalsoX

15. Every Job, Actually

“All of them, really. Very few people are lucky to have genuine dream jobs.” —u/Academic-Fudge6246

Of course, take it all with a grain of salt. For almost every group of people complaining about one particular profession, there was at least one person chiming in to say how much they love that career choice.

One notable exception to the rule came with the accountants, one of whom quipped, “at least there was no pretense of it ever being anything more than a mind-numbing slog.”

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