There are tons of misunderstandings about what professionals actually do at their jobs. For one, a lot of people have a lot of these wildly incorrect assumptions due to the media they consume. But when you take a peek behind the curtain, you realize that the reality of any position can be incredibly different from what you think you know.
Some seasoned job veterans shared the (not so) obvious truth about their work in an interesting discussion on AskReddit. In it, they opened up about the most common things that the general public gets wrong about their professions. We’ve collected their most intriguing insights to share with you. Keep scrolling to check them out.
#1
When you’re food shopping and you change your mind about a chilled/frozen product, but you put it back into an *ambient* product shelf, it will go straight into the waste when a member of staff finds it. Please don’t do that.
We can’t leave chilled foods out of the chillers for longer than 20 minutes due to food safety laws(in the UK, ymmv), and we have no idea how long that steak or chicken has been sitting with those cans of soup, so it gets binned.
F**k food waste. Ask a member of staff to put it back for you.
#2
You may not remember me, but I hold your hand while you are being intubated before surgery. You are not alone. OR RN.
#3
Librarian aka information professional here.
The scholarly publishing industry is a massively profitable industry (check out Elsevier’s profit margins).
They are holding academic research hostage with paywalls.
We are trying to push for a sustainable model of open access publishing where everyone can access the information they need.
Information is important and shouldn’t be hid behind paywalls especially when these companies are not the ones securing the grant money, doing the research and writing the d**n paper.
The truth is that the media and entertainment you consume can have a major impact on how you perceive the world.
Pop culture—movies, shows, books, music, etc.—shapes how you see certain things. For instance, if you watch a lot of medical or crime investigation TV shows, you might make assumptions about the jobs of doctors, police officers, and other experts without even realizing it.
Even the shows that get most of the technical details right have to take some liberties to make the narrative more dramatic and engaging.
#4
IT professional here. As dumb as it sounds and as much as everyone hates hearing it, “turn it off and turn it back on again” works roughly 65% of the time. MOST computer problems (including phones!) are caused by a temporary glitch or memory error. Restarting eliminates most common problems. Seriously, before you panic that something is broken, always try this first. 😁.
#5
Diamonds are a complete, idiotic f*****g waste of money. They’re not rare, valuable, or traditional. Diamonds being associated with marriage comes from a 30’s ad campaign
That 2000 dollar rock you bought could have started your kids college fund, could have done literally any good in this world.
#6
UTIs in seniors cause dementia like symptoms.
According to US News, vet technicians, construction workers, dental hygienists, carpenters, and medical assistants have the top five most stressful jobs.
Other majorly stressful professions include being diagnostic medical sonographers, solar photovoltaic installers, bakers, electricians, and pilots, followed by flight attendants, nurse practitioners, delivery truck drivers, registered nurses, and medical records technicians.
#7
The Oxford Comma is literally never optional.
#8
CPR and resuscitation is a lot less effective and a lot more violent than medical movies and TV shows depict. You usually break ribs.
And if you do get a person to “come back” they don’t sit up in the bed coughing, gasping and thanking you…they’re usually still unconscious. You just see through machines that they have a stable heart rhythm.
You then intubate them, move them to an ICU and hope that you didn’t give them brain damage.
#9
L&D nurse here. While I could go with the obvious “labor is nothing like the movies” I’m gonna switch it up. Pregnant women need to drink an ungodly amount of water. Think 16 16 oz glasses. Crampy? Drink some f*****g water. Baby not moving? Go drink that water. Contractions? Before you rush to the hospital chug a bunch of water and see if they stop. Literally half of my triage patients are just dehydrated.
Meanwhile, Business News Daily argues that the most stressful professions involve working as military personnel, police officers, firefighters, social workers, broadcasters, newspaper reporters, emergency dispatchers, mental health counselors, anesthesiologists, and emergency room nurses.
On the flip side, some of the most zen and least stressful jobs include people working as massage therapists, hairstylists, librarians, landscapers, orthodontists, art directors, occupational therapists, medical records technicians, web developers, and data entry specialists.
#10
Many/most teachers get to a point in their careers where they no longer like kids.
#11
The cloud is really just someone else’s computer.
#12
I work for local government. yes, taxpayers pay my salary (which also means i’m contributing to my own salary), but that doesn’t justify why i should give a person extra attention or service. people who come to my office and say “i pay your salary” right after asking for something completely ridiculous have no respect for me and assume i do nothing all day.
What are some of the wrongest assumptions you’ve ever had about someone else’s jobs, dear Pandas? On the other hand, what do people tend to usually get wrong about your own profession? How stressful is your work? What do you see as the ideal job for you personally? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
#13
Don’t yell or be rude at the person who anwsers the phone for the company you are calling. It will not make us help you better or faster. It will do exactly the opposite.
#14
I’m an accountant and people think I’m some type of math wizard. Excel, literally, does all the math for me.
#15
I’m a security guard and we have standard operating procedures for bombs and mysterious packages.
A few weeks ago, someone tried to plant a bomb at the high school near my apartment. The school janitor found it and he brought it INTO THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE to show him.
#16
I am a chemist and it’s not all fun experiments with colourful solutions and explosions&flames with rainbow sparkles and m**h cooking and instant results from all our shiny fancy machines. It’s more like preparing 50 solutions a day (all of which look alike, usually like water) and waiting for instruments to complete the analyses (for hours!) and then trying to make sense from the results while cursing and having a mental breakdown.
#17
“Hackers” are seldom the actual problem with computer security. Insider threats and the battle against the end user’s stupidity make up the vast majority of security breaches.
#18
No one is maliciously hiding a cure for cancer. It’s just really f*****g hard to figure out.
#19
Nobody gives a flying f**k about your website beyond whether it gives them the information they came to find.
99% of people just want to know where you’re located, what your phone number is, and what your hours of operation are. The thousands of dollars people spend adjusting colours and logos are all done in the service of business owners’ egos.
#20
I’m a computer programmer and programming is no where near as glamorous as the movies make it. Code does not make digital noises when it runs.
#21
Fats don’t make you fat they just contain more calories than carbs or proteins. Eating too much of any of them is the problem.
So don’t feel bad eating cake on your cake day!
#22
Just because someone works in a hospital and has a hospital ID badge clipped to their shirt does not mean they’re a doctor or a nurse. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had to explain to patients and visitors that I’m not qualified to answer their medical concerns.
#23
I work at an airport, don’t drink the coffee on commercial flights, they don’t give us anything to clean the coffee pots, and the water truck is used fill the plane with potable water, isn’t cleaned as much as it should be.
#24
No, we don’t bake the cakes the same day we sell them. Chances are you’ve never had a “fresh” baked cake. If you want it to be iced we have to let it cool off.
Oh and you can’t order a custom cake day of, I don’t care what its for. It isn’t our fault you can’t plan things.
#25
Cement makes concrete, not the other way around. And it’s more complicated than you think it is.
#26
That industries spend huge amounts of money to keep people addicted to things like gambling, smoking, drinking, and sugar and work to create new addicts once their customers die. I’m looking at you Big Tobacco and Big Sugar….
Example: Coca-Cola engaged in a major campaign to spread the myth that obesity had more to do with how much you excercise than your diet, to shift the focus away from their products. It worked shockingly well. Many people still believe this.
#27
Tech support needs descriptions and preferably an exact error message. We are not psychics.
#28
The left lane isnt “the cruise lane”
Another one is if an 18 wheeler is creeping past you that doesn’t mean “go faster/match their speed” you didnt have an issue when you were going 55 infront of me dont be a d**k because i want to go 60 in front of you.
#29
Therapy doesn’t work if you don’t go consistently and don’t want to go. Many people complain about their psychologists, but usually you’re not opening up to us. Also please don’t lie down on couches, that’s a freud thing and most of us dislike him.
Edit: I never meant to say it’s a person with mental illness’s fault if they don’t want to see a psychologist. I was meaning that until we find a way to make you understand how important treatment is, you won’t get the full benefit of it. It is a part of job to make you want to get better.
#30
Don’t go ahead with DIY electrical repairs or installations at home, if you’re not qualified. You’re going k**l your family one day! ESPECIALLY DONT GO MAKING NEW PLUG POINTS AND CONNECTING HIGH AMPAGE S**T TO SMALL CABLES. WTF GUYS!?
#31
Oil well drilling is an industry full of snakes and liars. There are people, known as promoters, who put together drilling programs of one or multiple wells then go and try to get investors to buy into their project. Many of these people are straight, good businessmen. Many of them are crooked and unethical AF. All of them will make money by drilling the well whether the well makes money or not. Promoters put their fees, usually to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, into the cost of drilling the well, then, more fees for completing it. There are many ways to trick investors by using well logs and and seismic data that have been manipulated.
Participating in a drilling program where there is no promotion (Everybody who stands to make money from the well is putting money into the drilling/completion) is the best way, although very difficult to get into.
All promoters should be looked at with a very, very skeptical eye.
#32
Many cargo ships turn off their signal in the ocean for weeks and do a lot of shady stuff…
#33
How unethical speculation artwork is and how it’s really only regulated to the artistic profession.
One of the bigger issues is that many young designers are lured into these contests.
Speculative artwork is when a company holds a contest to design or create artwork in exchange for a prize. Only the winner gets the prize, the rest of the entries who did the same work get nothing.
I cannot solicit the local pizza places to make their finest pizzas for me and then choose only one to pay.
#34
I am a web designer. People need to lay off the center alignment. 8/10 times, stuff looks way better left aligned (if you’re from a country that reads text left to right) than center aligned. This applies across websites, powerpoints, business cards, posters, everything.
You can tell right away that something has been designed by an amateur if everything is center aligned.
#35
That when referring to the race of a black person as a physical descriptor you do in fact default to the word “black”. African American is only used when you are certain that that person is American and their ancestry does in fact go back to Africa, rather than say Jamaica, Haiti, etc.
#36
The cigarette smoke and smell will stick to all the textiles in your car, its as if either people dont know or just dont care, its nasty.
#37
That antibiotics don’t do anything against viruses. Every time I hear someone say they’re going to take antibiotics for their cold it seems so stupid to me.
Oh also, I heard someone say “when you have down syndrome, it’s probably because your parents were relatives” which is so w r o n g.
(The only factor that affects the chances of a child suffering from down syndrome is the mother’s age.)
I also heard someone say that for humans most genetic disorders are due to the lack of chromosomes. That, again, is wrong, there is only one case of people who lack a chromosome and still survive.
#38
911 is not some magic cloud in the sky that automatically knows where you are or where the emergency is.
I need you to tell me where you are. That means YOU need to know where you are. Yes, cell phone technology is great but it doesn’t always get it right or it takes a minute or more to get it.
If you call 911 because someone who is not near or with you told you to call (like your dad is having chest pain in Alabama and you are in Oklahoma) calling 911 will get you 911 where you are. I cannot transfer you out of state. You will need the 10 digit non-emergency number to the agency local to the emergency. It is always best if the person having the emergency calls 911.
Answer the questions the 911 dispatcher asks. It is not delaying help. The help is on the way as soon as we have an address. Do not hang up until you are told to do so.
#39
People tend to think that lawyers are expensive, so they don’t involve one in drafting contracts. When s**t inevitably hits the fan, they suddenly NEED a lawyer and have to pay 10.000s€ to fix the problem, where a measly 500€ would have gotten them an airtight deal if they hired us in the first place to draft that f*****g thing.
Plus, if we f**k up, we have insurance for that, that covers up to 100.000.000€ in damages, and we aren’t even a big firm.
#40
Lawyers write a lot (like a LOT) of stuff down that *probably* wouldn’t actually work in court. It’s just written down to discourage people from going to court (or hiring a lawyer to start a dispute) in the first place.
Looking at you “opening this envelope binds you to all terms and conditions” and other such shenanigans.
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