50 People Take The Chance To Say “It Doesn’t Work Like That” About Their Jobs In This Thread
As you enter the workforce, it becomes pretty clear that most jobs actually involve a lot of busy work that might not be visible to the naked eye. A chef might spend all day prepping ingredients without “cooking” a single dish, while a teacher may spend more time grading papers than standing in front of a classroom.
Nevertheless, between mass media and just plain ol’ stereotypes, there are all sorts of misconceptions many of us believe about different careers. So what better way to educate yourself than through the magic of the internet?
A curious Reddit user asked “What's a myth about your profession that you want to debunk?” and professionals from across the internet gave their best examples. So get comfortable as you scroll through, and be sure to upvote the replies that taught you something new!
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Nurse: oftentimes we can't control death, only how we greet it, so for the love of God, do not refuse the comfort medication for your loved one. It's not going to [end] them, their disease is!! The comfort medication just help to ensure they have no pain or anxiety when they die. Let us help them so they don't die crying or trashing in bed, confused and scared out of their minds.
The hospice nurses loaded my dad the f**k up when he was dying and I'll forever be grateful for that.
Former dog walker. Cesar Milán is full of s**t. Dominance training does NOT work for most dogs. It creates more aggression and fear. Positive reinforcement with gentle corrections is *so much better*.
Those alpha wolf studies? Total BS as well. Most wolf packs are family units. Your derp wolf/dog needs a dad, not an alpha douche.
School Custodian here and we are NOT overpaid cleaners. What would you pay someone that can paint, Sheetrock, tape/mud, patch concrete/asphalt, operate/repair commercial landscaping/snow removal equipment, operate/repair commercial custodial equipment, restore various types of floors including vct/hardwood/carpet/tile, replace toilets/faucets, air filters, belts, trim/fell trees, shovel roofs, etc? Not all of us are cleaners/janitors, which are vital and underpaid as well. Some of us are Jack/Jill of all trades and you want to pay us peanuts? All employees of a school are important and administrators shouldn't try to balance their budgets on the backs of workers when I've seen an exponential amount of administrative salary and stupid purchasing decisions, not to mention unfunded mandates from the state.
I remember our custodian in elementary. Super chill old black guy with serious granddad/wise old man vibes. He was a very nice man.
IT. Rebooting is NOT a waste of time and solves a remarkable number of problems.
Also, if I say to stop because it'll cause a fire... please unplug it, I'm not kidding.
People in minimum wage retail and restaurant jobs are not all high school dropouts or losers who wish they had gotten better educations.
Veterinary medicine is not a happy-go-lucky career choice where you get to deal with cute animals rather than people. Most of your patients are sick and/or scared, and every case involves a fraught negotiation with their stressed-out human.
Ambulance Drivers, no such a thing.
There’s highly trained Paramedics that just happen to also drive ambulances. As well as dispense over 47 medications, IVs, cardioversion, defibrillation, cardiac pacing, 12-lead EKG monitoring, advanced airways, are able to perform dozens of medical procedures, etc.
Anesthesiologist: you're not asleep you are anesthetized. When you're asleep and someone stabs you, you wake up.
Teachers are NOT indoctrinating your children to be gay.
Nor do books about gay people or books that feature gay people. ............. If a "gay" book can turn your straight child gay, then shouldn't a "straight" book turn your gay child straight? ........ There's millions of books featuring straight characters; and yet I've never heard of a gay child being turned straight by one.
Nor are Drag Queens who just read kids the same books the kids are already reading in school.
Load More Replies...Omg, I could barely get students to read “Of Mice and Men.” Or do homework. How the hell would I convince them to be gay with everything else in the world telling them not to??
Why was that the book to read every year throughout Junior High and High School? Our teachers would get us to read the book, then show us the movie.
Load More Replies...If I could indoctrinate your kids with anything, wouldn't it be that I deserve a higher wage?
You don't need to indoctrinate anyone for that, it's just true. Teachers are NOT paid enough omg.
Load More Replies...I didn't know aro/ace people existed until I was 14, I thought I was straight for most of my life and that something was wrong because I had to convince myself about having a crush on someone and I was pretty sure that's not how it worked for everyone else. We NEED more LGBTQ+ education, so that kids like me in elementary school know that they're not weird or wrong, and they have the words to describe themselves. (Also if it was the teachers, wouldn't I be anything other than aro/ace?)
Exactly. Growing up in the 80s and 90s the first time I heard that I wasn't a lonely aberration was a document on trans people on tv and even then it was so shameful that none of trans people showed their faces. Not a happy time, but it didn't make me straight or cis, even though I did wish to be.
Load More Replies...Any more than they're indoctrinating your children to have brown eyes, or any other trait one might be born with.
They're not giving gender reassignment surgery either. That would be free healthcare and you know that isn't happening in the US.
But they are teaching your children, WE HOPE, to be tolerant of differences and accepting of people who look, talk, walk, speak differently from you.
Not only that! The orange idiot, who wnts to become president again claimed repeatedly during his mass preaches to his gullible idiots that kids in schools are undergoing sex changes. Durign the course of the day. I am not making that up
while they're at it I hear they're getting free healthcare for the gunshot wounds
Load More Replies...Came here for the comments claiming teachers are doing this lol. Tell me you've never worked in a school without telling me you've never worked in a school. Honestly for 90% of us our goal is to try to make our students better people than when they walked into our classroom and to be prepared for what life might throw at them, the other 10% are just tired.
I think it's crazy that people think that teachers have time for that lol
Teachers are bound by law to not discuss gender "choice" or such matters. Or religion usually etc Closest it gets is sex education. Its a curriculum approved by govt and no more. Very basic stuff because many parents are idiots. Most grls learn about a period at school and ate helped by teachers because parents didnt talk with them
Paul Gerrard. Teachers may be bound by law to not discuss gender "choice". But the right wing conservative christians are now pushing teaching religion in schools.
Load More Replies...And they aren't performing gender change surgeries on your children! Good lord, have none of these people EVER had surgery? Sure you can go home right after some surgeries but, ffs, use some basic logic people. If you sent your son to school and picked up a daughter, take her back! You picked up the wrong kid.
True, but 4 - 5 year olds don't need to be taught about transgender, LBGT, etc. It's irrelevant to that age group.
Some Americans are afraid their kids will be taught to think critically.
Teachers are not indoctrinating your children to be ANYTHING except, hopefully, EDUCATED. (Unless it's a religious school in which case your children are definitely being indoctrinated to be close minded, bigoted, and ignorant.)
If you'll excuse the deliberately provocative language, teachers ARE indoctrinating children. The good ones are teaching them critical thinking skills so that they can find information and evaluate its worth. As a side-effect, children can come to the conclusions that many 'traditional ways' (including religion) are absurd and don't stand up to any kind of logic. Those in authority have a problem with people who challenge the bases of authority.
Is critical thinking indoctrination? I agree with all the rest of what you said.
Load More Replies...Our 8th grade teacher and I have a running gag. She was quite offended when I called her a groomer. "How can you say that?" .."Well, you DO have a poster of all pronouns on your wall"..."a*****e (smile)"
Yes, we do, seeing as we're not idiots up here. I stand firmly with Lady Day Pie's comment. If you honestly think your kid's teacher has time for anything other than, you know, teaching, you've fallen down the PP rabbit hole (Pierre Poilievre, our version of the orange/brown dude).
Load More Replies...How can you train children to be "in the wrong gender"?
Load More Replies...Speaking as an unemployed disabled, most of us *want* to work, but society won't give us a chance.
I have an invisible disability, (Chronic Pain)and I can't work regularly due to the unpredictably of it. I don't know when I will have good days or days where the only thing I can do is sleep.
Politics here. Presidents do NOT control the economy!!!
They might be able to have some minor influence, but you are NOT experiencing inflation, a recession, or an economic boom because of a president.
Congress has more influence, but honestly economies are just complicated.
Teachers have very little say in anything. We advocate the best we can but most of the time it’s out of our hands including holding children back who desperately need help.
There is sooooo much more to the speech-language pathologist scope of practice than working with kids who stutter or can't say their "r"s. An entire half of the field is in the adult medical setting working with people who have dementia, swallowing disorders, oral cancer, strokes, Parkinson's disease, and voice disorders, plus some other niche areas like transgender voice or accent modification. The pediatric half of the field also works with AAC devices, social skills, literacy development, syntax, executive functioning, writing, feeding, and more.
I learned that when my daughter had a stroke. Y'all need a serious rebranding marketing strategy. 😉
Bartender here. No I am not hitting on you, I just want a good tip and maybe a nice review with my name so boss knows I'm working hard
Maintenance is worth doing and definitely worth paying for.
"I don't know why we pay those maintenance guys, nothing ever breaks around here."!!
The reason Germany and Japan (and South Korea) became and remain such manufacturing powerhouses is because they know the value of maintenence. If you keep everything in clean good working order, you end up with minimum down time. Working maintenance into manufacturing schedules keeps output level, because you have no unexpected downtime.
It's the same for your car or your home. Setting aside time and resources for maintenance means you won't lose unexpected time and resources when things break. Good maintenance will spot things before they break and switch them out. That's worth paying for.
Yeah, well, germany has stopped doing that and guess what, our bridges are breaking down, railroads and interstates are constantly out of order...
Nursing is a profession, not a devotion, calling, whatever other b******t they tell you.
Yes, it’s an honor to care for people at their most vulnerable, but stop telling people they’ll be a terrible nurse if they say they became a nurse because of the job security or semi-decent wage.
I am a public librarian. While curating books is still a portion of the job, much of it these days is taken up by database assistance and training, program development and teaching, and public education. It’s much closer to school teaching, but for adults and without grading homework, than it was in the past.
I live in a small town, and our local library is absolutely wonderful. Checking out books is a small portion of what our librarian does. She applies for grants, stays current on different interests, and sets up programs for the community, anywhere from toddlers on up to senior citizens.Thank you to all the librarians.
Forester.
I am not the one who actually cuts and hauls the trees, that's a LOGGER. If you have a problem tree you need removed from your yard or trimmed, you need an ARBORIST.
My job is to create and implement management plans, cruise timber for volume and defect, and mark trees for the logger, among other preparatory and managerial tasks.
Furthermore, my presence does not mean that a forest is being clear-cut (hardly ever). "Clear-cut" does not necessarily mean the complete removal of every tree in an area. Most importantly, the cutting and removal of trees is not automatically a bad thing; more often than not a forested area needs to be thinned to encourage growth/production, increase carbon sequestration efficiency, and reduce fire risk.
I'm an accountant. Whenever people jokingly talk about the good looking people in the office, it's always "Lisa from accounts".
As an accountant, I wish to point out that most of us look like a bulldog chewing a wasp.
I am a stay at home dad and former NICU nurse.
No, I do not sleep all day as a stay at home dad. No, I did not get to play with cute babies all day as a NICU nurse.
I would imagine being a NICU nurse is very stressful. Like another panda said above, all medical professions have some degree of stress to them
Therapist here- specifically couples therapist
Therapy is not just about venting or having someone agree with you all the time to make you feel better. Yes we validate and listen and venting happens at times. But we also challenge you, encourage you to set goals and make change, and sometimes give “homework.” Therapy is an active process and if you want to see change you have to be willing to make change. I think media has really warped peoples ideas and they expect miracles to happen by showing up without any effort. I wish I could do that for you! But I need you to partner with me to make things happen.
Also- very few therapists actually have you lay on a couch
A therapist who only listens to you and tells you what you want to hear is not doing you any favors. it's just a paid friend at that point.
If you go to the ER via ambulance, it does NOT mean you will be seen quicker.
ERs take the sickest people first, definitely not the ones who come in by ambulance first.
And then there is the opposite situation of people who really need an ambulance but are too stubborn/proud to call one. I worked as a nurse in a hospital emergency department and saw this a few times. One time a man called us and said he was on his way to the hospital and that he was having a heart attack. We knew he arrived when we heard the loud crash as his car hit the concrete wall by the parking lot. But he did survive.
OBGYN.
Childbirth *absolutely* can and does changes the caliber of the vagina. The entire field of urogynecology wouldn't exist if that weren't the case.
TwoXChromosomes and other women's empowerment places on the Internet love to say everything goes back to normal after delivery. It's not true and it doesn't make you an anti-feminist to acknowledge the realities of pushing a 10cm diameter, 9lb sack of potatoes out of the pelvis.
This messaging detrimental and causes patients with incontinence and prolapse not to seek help.
This is NOT to say that the "husband stitch" is a good thing...or even that it exists. I've literally never heard of it being performed outside of the Internet, and a partner has only asked me about it once in my entire career. (my response was: "Do you need it?")
I've heard my own doctor/midwife/whatever her official title was, say "I threw in the "extra stitch" for you!" And winked at me. I had torn a bit, needed about two stitches, and to this day I still can't tell of she was being serious or sarcastic. It was almost 25 years ago and I was in post-childbirth haze, anxiety, raw nerves and scared as fûck.
Logistics is a vital component of our society.
Everything we touch, everything from the doorknob of your home to the oil in your car to the coffee shop to your desk to your commute to your bed has employed around 10 people.
More if it’s food related.
Logistics wins wars and ends them.
Take a banana -
From the planting, fertilizer, cultivation and harvesting involves about 8 different types of transportation, warehousing, storage, distribution and delivery.
On average 17 people will physically touch a banana before it’s eaten (and very few people wash the outside of a banana)
I’ve been in logistics for years, previously a break bulk specialist with my area of expertise being Russia.
It’s a very interesting career
That all lawyers make absurd amounts of money. The ones that won't sell their entire life for big bucks tend to make pretty average money.
Ejection seat mechanic. Goose would not have died in Top Gun. The canopy explosives can malfunction but moving at the speed that a Tomcat moves at would’ve ripped that canopy off and Goose would’ve escaped without perishing. Obviously done for dramatic effect.
Daylight savings time isn't for the farmers, please quit blaming us.
Biomedical/bioinorganic chemist: no, there's not harmful levels of metals in your vaccine. HOWEVER, you absolutely should get your drinking water tested for lead, arsenic, mercury, and all the other nasty metals. Harmful levels of lead, for example, are common in cities and with well water...
Teacher here..Specifically Preschool/toddler..I DO NOT PLAY ALL DAY!!! I am engaging children, making moment by moment decisions and keeping children safe.
I've worked with small children myself and if you think one or two are a handful try managing twenty of the little devils at once with just one other person to help! And that's when you're not even trying to teach them but just make sure they're all fed and safe and not (to give a random example) attempting to hang themselves with a piece of string tied to a drainpipe. I've never run so fast in my LIFE. (EDIT: These were kids aged about five or six and I was just an assistant who did not have any say as to whether they were allowed to have access to string, or anything else. They were just doing it as a "game" and were quite indignant when I freaked out and put a stop to it).
I can write code. I cannot debug most of your windows problems without googling them.
Performing in a touring band is hard a*s work and a myriad of things can lead to depression and burnout. Also, crew on tour (sound engineers/TM’s/merch people) are what keep your favorite musicians from imploding and having fights on stage. If you see one at a show, thank them too.
Being a roadie is truly hard work, particularly on the really large productions. Include theater, dance, ice shows.
Hospital lab workers DO exist! No really! The lab isn't just a black hole where tubes go in and results come out, but there's people inside making that happen!
I was a Domino's manager for most of a decade. Nobody seems to know that we actually stretch and top the pizzas by hand. I used to make hundreds of pizzas a day, every day, just to have people think we reheat frozen pizzas. On top of that, we were required to be able to make a large pepperoni (from stretching the dough to sliding it into the oven) in under a minute. I was making pizzas at breakneck speed for people who thought I did nothing all day but reheat frozen food.
The bread sticks, cheesy bread, etc. were also made by hand. The pan pizzas were made by hand. Anyone who came in to the store could have watched me make their food and known how much work I actually put into it, but most people ordered for delivery or stepped outside after they ordered or just didn't pay attention.
For my 30th birthday party, I decided that I would make homemade pizza for everyone. I was really into making homemade bread and beer at the time. It was kinda fun, and the pizza was delicious, but it was so much work that I didn't really get to enjoy my birthday. Everyone else had a good time, but I never had a chance to make the pizza I wanted because I ran out of dough. However I did get a slice from every other pizza. But I still don't recommend any one doing that. Between the cost for ingredients, and the time I spent cooking, It cost more than if I had just bought pizza from my favorite pizza joint instead.
Archaeologist. The myth that most of the stuff we find is financially valuable. I’ve had literally hundreds of people ask me to look at the tiny stone tool fragment or the s****y piece of pottery they found because they think they’re gonna pay off their mortgage. Buddy I have bags of 100,000 of those things sitting in the lab.
And location context is -everything-. If you have an arrowhead and know where it came from, you know something about who was there, and when, and why. If you have an arrowhead and don’t know where it came from, you have an arrowhead. “There were arrowheads” is already common knowledge.
Social worker here. We do FAR more than just take kids away from their parents. Child protective services social workers make up such a small percentage of us social workers. We work in so many different fields. (i.e. geriatrics, medical/ hospitals, criminal justice, government, foster care, domestic violence, schools, hospice, prisons, the list goes on!)
Massage is not sexy, professionally. If you want a sexy massage...idk, do it with a partner or a sex worker, not your physio.
I got a neck and shoulder massage on a whim and thought it'd be relaxing! What I actually got was a muscular young man going at my own muscles for 15 solid minutes in a way that was actually quite painful. I didn't start feeling relaxed until *afterwards*, and the soreness lingered for at least an hour. Definitely nothing sexy about it, but boy did it work out those knots.
Commercial aircraft are built almost entirely by hand. Like 96%. There's very little automation in the process.
If you mean built as in assembled, then yes. If you mean fabricated, then no.
I'm a security guard. The myth that we don't actually have any power is false. We have the power to call the real police if there's real trouble. 😁
Everyone has the power to call the real police if there's real trouble.
Professors sit in cushy chairs all day thinking important thoughts, publishing stuff nobody will read, spending zero effort on teaching, and lighting cigars with wads of grant money.
The reality is we're all frantically trying to keep dozens of plates spinning at once, desperately begging for the money needed to pay for basic supplies from granting agencies with a
Nail tech here. We are not uneducated or lacking intelligence. In order to do the job safely, we need a deep understanding of product chemistry, anatomy, and must able to recognize a ton of diseases and disorders that impact the hands and feet. In the US, we are also required to have continued education on these topics.
We also aren’t being greedy by charging higher prices. We not only have to purchase way more products for our services than other professions in the industry, but we also have some of the highest product costs. So no, we can’t afford to provide a LUXURY service with quality products, keep up with our educational requirements and also charge $20 for a full set or a pedicure. If you find a salon charging that low, run. They are absolutely cutting corners somewhere, and it’s anyone’s guess as to whether that cut comes from low quality products, safety, sanitation and disinfection, or labor law violations. For transparency sake, I am on the low end of pricing in my area and a full set starts at $60 and a pedicure starts at $45. At those prices, I’m barely making more than minimum wage after overhead.
Scientist (more specifically, molecular biologist in biotech).
I am not hiding the cure for cancer, and idk s**t about actual medicine.
Pharma companies aim to make money, like any other company. Its lack of regulation of insurance that's the tragedy. If anyone could cure cancer or heart disease nothing would stop them selling it. Its plain expensive and unpredictable to even try to find new treatment. The body didn't evolve to be logical, understandable or fixable. The complexity is hard to fathom, even for someone who spent their life in the field. Trillions of moving parts per cell, trillions of cells, in a spatial and temporal organism. Per individual...
Bartender.
We're not short pouring you. The glasses are different sizes.
Light ice = more mixer, not more alcohol.
No, I'm not giving you anything for free. If you were someone I liked enough to do that, you wouldn't have to ask. Also, if I do indeed give you something for free, it's not free, it's just gonna be me paying for it.
No, I can't take a picture of your ID. I need to see and touch the ID. Would you try this at the DMV? No.
The number of times people have tried to show me a picture on their phone of their ID (or credit/debit card!!) for tobacco purchase age verification is mind-blowing. No. Just no.
I doubt this will be popular, but here goes… Not my profession anymore, but I sold diamonds (for engagement rings primarily) for a number of years, and have three separate certifications of expertise.
TLDR: diamond rarity is a more complex topic than people realize, and they are incredibly expensive to produce. Diamond companies have done s****y things in the past no doubt, but the stone itself gets a bad rap for no reason. Besides a sapphire or a ruby, if you put anything else in an engagement ring it will inevitably break regardless of how “pretty” you think it is.
The idea that diamonds are worthless, or should be much cheaper than they are, is incredibly misinformed. People talk about them being “common.” As in, there’s a lot of them mined out of the ground. That is true in a technical sense, but reflects a lack of understanding. 90% of diamonds that are mined are industrial grade and not suitable for jewelry. Of the remaining 10%, about 2/3 to 3/4 are of such low quality that you won’t ever see them being sold (color grade below K-M, clarity below I1). For people who don’t know what those grades mean, color has to do with the presence of nitrogen in the carbon chains that makes it look yellow and clarity is about imperfections in the crystal formation. The price of poor color and clarity jewelry quality stones will be accounted for later in this comment. Of the remainder, they get much rarer as they approach being “perfect” (D colorless, FL flawless color/clarity respectively). Size itself plays a huge factor, because while it’s true that numerically a lot of diamonds are mined, only about 1% are a carat or above in weight. I did the math on this once, and a flawless, colorless, 1 carat Diamond is a 1 in 10 billion stone. Really changes the understanding of what makes a diamond “rare.” Most diamonds also have some degree of fluorescence, which is as undesirable trait, so add in no fluorescence and it gets closer to 1 in a trillion.
However, all that aside, there’s elements of pricing strictly related to diamonds as a commodity. The cut quality of a diamond is absolutely crucial to how it looks and how it sparkles (no one wants a dull diamond). Cut quality is graded to microscopic specificity when it comes to angles and proportions (literally hundredths of a millimeter can effect the symmetry grading). As you probably already know if you read this far, diamonds are also the hardest substance on earth. Long story short, it takes an extremely skilled individual with extremely specific and expensive equipment to cut and polish a diamond and there are not that many of these people left, either. As you can imagine, they are paid very well, and that cost is incorporated into the stones.
There’s also the matter of sourcing the stones (before I get anything about bLoOd dIaMoNdS do some research, it’s not the 90s anymore. If you wanna talk about child labor in Africa, you better never consume chocolate, African coffee, or basically anything made over there at all). Anyway, back to the sourcing. Diamonds are mined out of kimberlite shafts, which go deep underground in the sides of volcanoes. They take about 10 years and a billion dollars to build. So there’s that. 90% of the stones mined are sold for industrial use in bulk for not a lot of money, so for it to even be economically sustainable, the money needs to come from somewhere just to cover costs of mining. Then cutting, not to mention the cost of transportation around the world in armored shipments.
I don't care, they're stupid expensive and boring. Yes, they sparkle like crazy when cut right. So does glitter in resin.
Marine biologists do NOT get to play in the ocean for 90 percent of their careers. Tons and tons of desk work, data analysis, report writing, etc.
Engineer here. We can’t fix everything. I’m mechanical, I know enough to stay away from electricity, not enough to fix most electrical problems.
Engineer here as well. "Electrical engineering degree" does not mean "qualified electrician."
I was a tandem skydiving instructor for a bunch of years. For some reason, people thought that I was an adrenaline junky and risk-taking, pass-on-a-blind-curve guy.
I just worked my way up to a pretty easy job that became mundane and boring 99% of the time. The only time it was adrenaline inducing was when something went wrong. It’s not the type of adrenaline high anyone would seek out.
Fashion design is not glamorous. It has glamorous moments, but is mostly a catty corporate mindf**k and the 2nd biggest industrial polluter, I think. you might have a nice colleague here and there but in general people and management tend to be f*****g AWFUL. 4/10 stars, do not recommend.
Board game inventors aren't usually multi-millionaires, nor are they all broke with a dream. Many of us just make some extra yearly cash that helps with the daily expenses.
The infrastructure, services, applications, and database platforms of even the largest global companies are all held together by hopes and dreams.
Nurses do not simply follow doctors' orders. Nurses make dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of independent decisions during their shift (within their scope of practice of course). They also need to determine how to best apply doctors' orders. Also, a nurse knows best what is happening with a patient because the nurse is right there working with the patient. The nurse often needs to be an advocate for the patient and contact the on-call doctor and convince the doctor that some order is no longer needed or that a certain new order is needed.
I often trust the nurse more than I trust the doctor. Nurses tend to listen more and relate to your experience. I truly believe that a nurse saved my life once when she offered to "help me to my car" and then told me privately that I should get a second opinion.
Load More Replies...Government employee. The people working at the public service level are not a bunch of lazy bureaucrats just out to screw you. We are dedicated to running our part of the system to the best of our ability. We have processes and procedures that were developed to make things run as expediently as possible (just like any private business) so if you have to fill out forms, go through an intake interview or provide us with personal information, there is a reason. And no, we can't break the rules just because you know someone higher up the chain of command. Those higher-ups are judging us on how well we follow the rules. They will often appease you to your face, but then tell us to do things just the way we are intended. Just know that we are trying our best to get you what you need as fast as we can.
Also, just because we work for the government doesn't mean we agree with that government. Also also, we're not throwing money at "every immigrant who gets off a boat". They need to qualify just like those of you born in the country. Also also also, I can't let you speak to "Jennifer". Do you know how many Jennifers work in the goverment? Because I don't, and I'm right there with them.
Load More Replies...I work production at a thrift shop. No, I can't change the price on the item. No, I'm not trained in grading/pricing, so if I tell you to see the cashiers about an item with a lost price tag I'm not trying to pass you off because I don't want to deal with you. If anything I want to help you, but I am not of authority to decide a price or change a price for you. The only thing I can do is guide you to the people who can help you with that. If you need to know where something is, I may or may not know. If I do, I'll definitely show you. If I don't, that means it's outside of my department and may be too new to know where everything is. I will have to get someone who does know. Yes, we are watching out for shoplifting. No, we cannot stop shoplifters, nor accuse anyone of shoplifting. What I will do is offer customer service, ask you if you need help, offer to get you a shopping cart/basket, ask if you're okay. We're also looking out for anyone who needs medical assistance.
High school Teacher: grading stuff is exhausting and that's why it takes so long. We can usually tell if a kid should be evaluated for ADHD, autism, depression, anxiety, dyslexia, or any number of other issues they might have. We can also tell when a kid comes to school high/drunk/whatever. The best students are those whose parents have raised them to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, not necessarily the smartest ones.
Dental professional.. very few people have actual enamel disorders. I couldn't even begin to count how many times people claim they're teeth are rotting, their bone loss, or their gingivitis is because of genetics. Yes, genetics will play a role, but it's typically not as big of a role as hygiene and eating habits. We can tell that you don't brush and floss daily, or, if you do attempt to brush daily, it's not done adequately. You can prevent that vast majority of tooth problems but you choose not to.
Nurses do not simply follow doctors' orders. Nurses make dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of independent decisions during their shift (within their scope of practice of course). They also need to determine how to best apply doctors' orders. Also, a nurse knows best what is happening with a patient because the nurse is right there working with the patient. The nurse often needs to be an advocate for the patient and contact the on-call doctor and convince the doctor that some order is no longer needed or that a certain new order is needed.
I often trust the nurse more than I trust the doctor. Nurses tend to listen more and relate to your experience. I truly believe that a nurse saved my life once when she offered to "help me to my car" and then told me privately that I should get a second opinion.
Load More Replies...Government employee. The people working at the public service level are not a bunch of lazy bureaucrats just out to screw you. We are dedicated to running our part of the system to the best of our ability. We have processes and procedures that were developed to make things run as expediently as possible (just like any private business) so if you have to fill out forms, go through an intake interview or provide us with personal information, there is a reason. And no, we can't break the rules just because you know someone higher up the chain of command. Those higher-ups are judging us on how well we follow the rules. They will often appease you to your face, but then tell us to do things just the way we are intended. Just know that we are trying our best to get you what you need as fast as we can.
Also, just because we work for the government doesn't mean we agree with that government. Also also, we're not throwing money at "every immigrant who gets off a boat". They need to qualify just like those of you born in the country. Also also also, I can't let you speak to "Jennifer". Do you know how many Jennifers work in the goverment? Because I don't, and I'm right there with them.
Load More Replies...I work production at a thrift shop. No, I can't change the price on the item. No, I'm not trained in grading/pricing, so if I tell you to see the cashiers about an item with a lost price tag I'm not trying to pass you off because I don't want to deal with you. If anything I want to help you, but I am not of authority to decide a price or change a price for you. The only thing I can do is guide you to the people who can help you with that. If you need to know where something is, I may or may not know. If I do, I'll definitely show you. If I don't, that means it's outside of my department and may be too new to know where everything is. I will have to get someone who does know. Yes, we are watching out for shoplifting. No, we cannot stop shoplifters, nor accuse anyone of shoplifting. What I will do is offer customer service, ask you if you need help, offer to get you a shopping cart/basket, ask if you're okay. We're also looking out for anyone who needs medical assistance.
High school Teacher: grading stuff is exhausting and that's why it takes so long. We can usually tell if a kid should be evaluated for ADHD, autism, depression, anxiety, dyslexia, or any number of other issues they might have. We can also tell when a kid comes to school high/drunk/whatever. The best students are those whose parents have raised them to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, not necessarily the smartest ones.
Dental professional.. very few people have actual enamel disorders. I couldn't even begin to count how many times people claim they're teeth are rotting, their bone loss, or their gingivitis is because of genetics. Yes, genetics will play a role, but it's typically not as big of a role as hygiene and eating habits. We can tell that you don't brush and floss daily, or, if you do attempt to brush daily, it's not done adequately. You can prevent that vast majority of tooth problems but you choose not to.