From lawyers, architects to ballerinas, take a look at professions that look super shiny from the outside, but are actually full of adversities. 

1. “Archaeologist, specifically field archaeology. 99% of the time you find absolutely nothing, it’s often physically demanding (sometimes grueling), the pay is shit, there are no benefits, you have to constantly travel, there’s very little stability, I could go on. 

Source: have worked in CRM (Cultural Resource Management) archaeology for several years now.”

– eric3844

2. “Game tester. I worked as a game tester for EA for almost 3 years. Here’s what it’s like. Imagine a game type you don’t like. Maybe soccer games. Maybe an RTS. Whatever. You now play that game, 8 hours a day. But you don’t play it. You test it. So let’s imagine an RTS. You are told to test the resource acquisition systems. All you do is click around and make sure your guys can mine gold and harvest lumber. You click around the map and mine and forest. There is no combat, they’ve turned that off for your testing. There is no story, because you just flick from level to level to test the resource system. You test using one guy. You testing using 100 guys. You make sure no other units can gather resources. You try blocking your own guys. You try killing your own guys. 8 hours a day. Every day. For weeks.”

– shaidyn

3. “Anything in modern-day publishing. How many television shows and movies must I watch where the plucky young upstart graduates from college and gets a job at the magazine or newspaper of their choice and is respected and can make a living? 

The pay sucks, you’re in constant danger of being laid off (when your pub folds, usually), and it’s usually a pretty corporate environment where you’re tasked with multiple jobs with little hope of advancement. The names high up on the mastheads are usually those of rich people, and it’s because they started off rich and could afford to stay in the industry.”

– SarahRecords

4. “Working on a film. if you’re crew, it sucks. long long hours for what seem like very very slow progress on the picture, lots of standing around waiting, etc. You arrive well before everyone else and leave after everyone else. If this is an indie production you also may have to beg/chase people down for your pay at the end of each week. Oh and when the film wraps, you’re now unemployed.”

– MrPelham

5. “Everyone used to think it was awesome that I worked in live sports TV. 70% of the people I worked with were miserable pricks with over-inflated egos, and then there were the athletes…”

– Shitty_Fat-tits

6. “Lawyer. Number of historic, life-changing, precedent-setting cases participated in: 0 Number of angry, self entitled, abusive clients wanting to screw each other over: 842 Number of pages of paperwork that’s sucked up free time and social life: 84,836”

– epicurious_aussie

7. “Being a therapist. Too many people I’ve met get into the field thinking it’s how they saw it on TV: affluent white collar, own office, warm slow pace environment, where you get to sit on a nice comfy couch and be like “let’s talk about your feelings.” That’s only if you get to do private practice, which they don’t tell you is also like running your own small business, and good luck if you have no business acumen. The reality is you get out of grad school, get your first job working at a Community Mental Health facility because they are the only ones who will hire you with a limited license and no experience, and then get put in a walk in closet of an office, where they dump a 100 client case load on you the first day, followed by your first client who has 5 different diagnoses and is on 12 different psych meds who says to you “Fuck you, you’re my 7th different person I’ve had here, nobody cares about me”. Yeah people go into $100k of debt for that…”

– Puzzleheaded-Art-469

8. “Ballerina.”

– purpleowlie

9. “Anything that requires a lot of travel. Sounds glamorous but in reality all you see is usually an airport, conference room, boring hotel room and maybe a restaurant if you are lucky. It’s exhausting and it actually just sucks.”

– Electronic_Crab_8955

10. “Journalist. Expectation: I’m gonna be the next Hunter S Thompson and write compelling feature pieces with a unique voice and get paid to travel the world! Reality: Talking to my editor about how my contact from the cat fashion show won’t call me back or do an interview unless we pay them $80 or adopt two cats.”

– kit_kat_barcalounger

11. “I knew an environmental consultant. His job was practically helping companies avoid fines while still polluting the environment. He quit.”

– meta_paf

12. “That’s why I quit my job in the mining sector. It was more ‘how do we hide this so we don’t get fined’ rather than ‘let’s be proactive.'”

– Poopsie_oopsie

13. “Veterinary medicine Fantasy: I get to work with puppies and kittens Reality: a 3 month old kitten died in my care, I’ve seen so much gore and blood and neglect, I’ve sent animals home with invasive cancers because family can’t afford treatment, I’ve been the only comfort shelter animals knew before they left this world. It is a specific and exhausting kind of pain and it isn’t really talked about enough. People who say they couldn’t do it because of the euthanasia have no idea.”

– lilybear032

This is pretty much every job. Guess only the insiders know the actual details.