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“What do you do?” is that one little question we all hear on a daily basis. But sometimes it doesn’t end just there. It’s not just about “what?” but also about “but really, what is it like to do your job?” And that’s the point we step over the small talk and get into explaining the complexities of our professions.

What’s interesting is that even the most no-brainer things about our jobs are often far from obvious to the general audience. This thread from Ask Reddit is a great example of it: “What's something that seems obvious within your profession, but the general public doesn't fully understand?” someone asked, and the illuminating responses started rolling in.

Below we selected some of the most interesting ones, so scroll down below and be sure to check out our similar post on more things that people don’t have a clue about when it comes to these common jobs.

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Doctors/healthcare workers use dark humour as a form of resilience not to be callous or flippant.
A lot of traumatic events occur in a hospital on a daily basis. Sometimes a dark joke is the difference between breaking down emotionally or being able to compartmentalise and treat you with all our wits about us.

anon , JC Gellidon Report

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#2

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Nuclear engineer here, and if you think radiation is the devil incarnate then buckle in for a quick second as I tell you that:

1) No one from Fukushima died from radiation exposure. You saw pictures of the horrific devastation from the earthquake and tsunami. Flooding a nuclear plant doesn't topple buildings.

2) Nuclear is one of the safest, renewable, and cleanest energy sources that exist. Second cleanest only to water (and air if you count that).

3) Unless we start growing energy and picking it off the vine, oil and coal will run out in the very foreseeable future and nuclear is the way to go.

4) You get more radiation from eating a banana than anyone ever did from 3 Mile Island. The most radiation I get everyday is from my morning fruit and I play with radioactive sources and crystals all day.

5) Nuclear is actually really cool and by making it to the bottom of the list you're pretty cool too.

Edit: Woah, my first gold! Thank you kind stranger, you the best!

Edit 2: Double gold! Y'all are spoiling me too much, thanks Reddit!

MurkedPeasant , Lukáš Lehotský Report

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saragregory0508 avatar
NsG
NsG
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Curious that he only mentioned Fukushima and Three Mile Island and not, I don't know, one of the biggest nuclear disasters in history. No, flooding a nuclear power plant won't topple buildings, but exploding one certainly might. Nuclear is definitely a comparatively clean fuel, if you are only considering the period being used for energy production. There are still waste products involved that are definitely dirtier than wind, solar, wave, etc. And when it does go wrong (and anyone who thinks that's an unlikely possibly has been living under a rock or on an atoll somewhere) it *really* goes wrong. With a lot of regulations, it's safe - goddess help us if we get some idiot in charge who doesn't believe in regulations...

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#3

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Libraries are not [vanishing]. The main reason we're suffering is because idiots decide, without doing any research, that libraries are [vanishing], so they cut funding because...why fund something that's dying? It's so circular that it makes my head hurt.

shineevee , Trnava University Report

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#4

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About As a plumber replying to my customer who just hovered over me during the whole repair:

Yes, you could have done this yourself.

Yes, you would have saved 100s of dollars.

No, I can't come down on the price because of how simple it looked to you. We are a business and I gave you the quote before I started.

koatiz , osseous Report

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Aran Lindvail
Aran Lindvail
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They also could have just flooded their apartment by trying it themselves like my upstairs neighbors did.

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#5

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Graphic Designer here (but this applies to a lot of creative professions). Doing a job faster actually means I need to be paid *more*, not less.

captainhiltz , Per Lööv Report

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NsG
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, this comes from the concept of an hourly rate instead of a per project rate.

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#6

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About When you're in a hospital, not every man is a doctor and not every woman is a nurse.

upvoter222 , Luis Melendez Report

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#7

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Wind farms require environmental impact studies that take birds in account. Yes, they do have an impact, but so does the playground in front of your house.

And trust me, if we don't put wind farms up and keep burning coal, it's gonna be worse, even for the birds.

MarsNirgal , Abby Anaday Report

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May
May
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

According to studies wind power kills 0.3 birds per GWh, while fossil fuels kills 5,2 birds per GWh

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#8

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Organically grown produce is still grown using pesticides. I stopped arguing with people when I realized the fact that I worked for the EPA and it was literally my job didn't dissuade them from arguing with me.

sortasomeonesmom , Alexandr Podvalny Report

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NsG
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"the fact that [...] it was literally my job didn't disuade them from arguing with me" is a sentence that explains so much about what is wrong with the world today.

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#9

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Unless it's an actual emergency you'll have to wait in the ER. It sucks, we know, but a suspected heart attack will be treated before a busted knee.

pumpkinrum , Pixabay Report

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NsG
NsG
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The other thing is your definition of emergency is different to mine. While clearly a suspected heart attack is more important than a broken ankle, the drunk guy with blood pouring down his face getting seen ahead of "maybe appendicitis, maybe gallstones, may even just be gas", because blood, is a level of triage that just won't make sense to many people.

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#10

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About As someone in the movie/tv business, most people don't realize that doctoring and altering footage is really really really easy for someone with the right software. I see my old relatives falling for obviously fake footage all the time because they trust all video to be real.

This problem is only going to get worse as the software gets better.

Sadamatographer , Pixabay Report

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Naesil 🇫🇮
Naesil 🇫🇮
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And its getting easier and easier all the time, like products for general public is getting closer to very convincing deep fakes, I think I even read/saw somewhere about rendering face swap deep fake on live video, so throw in bit voice modulating and I could example fake live statement impersonating our president.

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#11

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About As your child's teacher, I see them for 53 minutes a day for 180 days of the year. I cannot undo all of the poor habits you've taught/enabled/encourage and "make" your kid successful. I see people post on the book of faces about their child's [lousy] teacher because they won't do "x" or "y" when those things are the responsibility of the parent. Also, my contract says I work until 3. I will not call, text, or meet with you after hours because I need to have my own life separate from my work life which is really hard for parents to understand for some reason.

lashleighxo , Taylor Wilcox Report

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Asher Tye
Asher Tye
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They whine about demanding ultimate say over how their children are raised then abdicate that responsibility to someone else.

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#12

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About If I cared what teenagers thought of me, I wouldn’t be a high school teacher. No, I don’t go home and drink away their lame insults. They don’t bother me, they’re just hormonal kids, and I love my job.

anon , Sam Balye Report

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Banana Peehole
Banana Peehole
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And some folks, who were the dix from previous years, grow up to be ignorant adults who can't understand that many teachers actually have this ability, so they end up thinking themselves a "King" and make angry posts in the internet.

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#13

If you cut off an 18-wheeler, you might die and it will be your fault. The dashcam will show it was your fault, and your family will recieve nothing. Not only will you be dead, but you will probably not leave a corpse that is in fewer than a dozen pieces.

40 tons moving at highway speed does not slow down quickly, and physics doesn't give a s**t that you want to get home two minutes faster.

Yes, *literally* 40 tons. That's about 8 elephants. It depends on what kind of elephant.

The_First_Viking Report

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#14

**Hotels:**
1) If you can't prove you are allowed to have access to a room, I can't give you keys to the room. That means if you're staying in your brother's room and you get locked out, you're SOL until your brother shows up with his ID. This is to protect you, your family, and your stuff. If you don't like it, you can go suck a lemon.
 
2) If you call and ask for a person, but don't have their name *and* room number, I can't just say "YUP HERE YA GO" because some people in the hotel might specifically hiding out from someone. I don't know you're not some stalker or jealous ex-lover trying to track a person down by calling every hotel in town and saying "Hey can you transfer me to Jane Smith's room, please?" I have no way of knowing you aren't some phone scammer calling every hotel in town and asking to be connected to random room numbers.
 
2.5) Even if the name you give me is not a guest at my hotel, I'll still tell you "I'm sorry, I can't acknowledge whether or not someone is here unless you give me name *and* room number." Sorry, Sherlock Holmes, the fact I'm stonewalling you right now doesn't mean that person is staying here. Nice detective work, though.
 
3) Obviously you can't leave your dog in the room and go out for the day. You're thinking of a kennel. Dogs left alone in strange places howl and bark and p**s and chew up the furniture and dig at the carpet. "But my dog doesn't bark when I'm gone." How the f**k would you know? I've been told that by so many people who are then shocked to learn their dog barked while they were gone.
 
4) Yes, you need a card for incidentals. No, I don't care if you tell me there aren't going to be any incidentals, I still need the card.
 
5) Emotional support animals are not service animals and we will charge you full price for them. You can't sue us for it, so if you threaten to we'll just write notes about you and laugh behind your back.
 
6) Vaping in your hotel room can set off the smoke alarm.
 
Most importantly:
7) Being a bully to the staff might get you some special perks and privileges, but we will remember you. We will do the absolute bare minimum and not go above and beyond anywhere we don't specifically *have to.* We may even go r/maliciouscompliance on your a*s. For example, when a cranky older man tried to bully me into giving him a discount for some petty problem last month (which I'd have been happy to help him with if he hadn't been a d**k), I jacked the rate up on him and took a small percentage off of that. He walked away thinking he had gotten a discount when in actuality, he was paying higher than full price. I think of it as an a*****e tax.

thegovernment0usa Report

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#15

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About One teacher, plus 32 kids doesn't yield optimum results.

MaryMillion , Kenny Eliason Report

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Shelli Aderman
Shelli Aderman
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Our son’s second grate year was a wash. Children on the “Bookends” of learning suffer the most, unfortunately. It’s not the teachers’ faults, either. Imagine being just ONE person, in a room of 30, that equates to 20 average learners, 6 exceptional learners, and 4 with challenges. How do you divide your attention? 😥

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#16

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Different artists excel at doing different styles. I work primarily in watercolor, my website and my portfolio are almost entirely watercolor pieces, and yet I regularly field requests from clients asking if I can do oil painting, mural painting, or God Forbid, tattoo them. Just yesterday I had someone ask if I'd give them a tattoo, which I have never done before, have not trained in...

I try to refer people to other artists I know who work in the styles and mediums they're looking for.

"But you make lots of cool things!"
YES. IN WATERCOLOR.

AncientCatGod , Ekrulila Report

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Naesil 🇫🇮
Naesil 🇫🇮
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I think this happens in other fields too, because I use computer to do my work I obviously also am IT expert and people ask me how to fix stuff.. depends how well I know the person I might google the answer because apparently that is also too hard for majority of the people. (I have zero training and zero professional experience about computer science)

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#17

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Clip your dogs toe nails. The longer you wait, the less we can clip them because the quick grows out with the nail!
Also: hold the microphone where it’s meant to be held, the handle. When you cup the head it starts to feedback.

anon , Karsten Winegeart Report

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#18

From an ex-nurse. People don't understand there isn't a pill to fix everything and if you don't exercise and eat sensibly you will die younger than you should. Simple.

tikitart Report

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Aileen Grist
Aileen Grist
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was told that live in a 'plus' society. We always expect a doctor to give us something and feel cheated if he actually takes something away - like give up your daily donuts and chocolate or you'll keep on having heart attacks. Whereas here's a pill does - which is part of why the placebo affect happens

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#19

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Electricity is dangerous. Yeah getting shocked by an outlet is nothing more then a quick scare when you're dry. But when you're wet it's almost certain death (a painful one at that). And when you get into some larger stuff it will literally vaporize you. If you're untrained, you should leave electrical work to the professionals.

NordicCell , Kelly Sikkema Report

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RP
RP
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I know someone who works with high-voltage stuff. He says that it is household electricity that scares him because high voltage barks before it bites... household electricity just kills you with no warning

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#20

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About Writing code is not really that exciting to watch. It is very unlikely that you will have a lot of cool graphics or special effects on the screen.

Its going to be some slightly color-coded words, and very little else.

relmicro , https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-programming-of-codes-546819/ Report

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#21

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About The pastures you drive by don't just exist on their own. Grass is an actively managed crop.

hibbidy_hobbidy , Kseniia Rastvorova Report

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Eric Mac Fadden
Eric Mac Fadden
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Here in Brazil we are developing a kind of grass crop to make the soil better and keep the humidity on the ground even on dry seasons. Once a plague, now a blessing.

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#22

Deathcare industry worker here. Embalming a body is a creepy practice and an unnecessary expense.

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#23

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About I work as deskside IT support for an office.

Anyone could do my job if they knew how to google and read tech forums. Besides, 75% of my job is customer service, 20% knowledge, and 5% politics.

UlfarrOT , Negative Space Report

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King Kashue
King Kashue
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Knowing how to Google" and "knowing how to read tech forums" are both very much skills - and there are many people who *really* don't have either. "Anyone could do my job if they learn the skills" is both true and kinda meaningless :D Don't sell yourself short just because skills you already know and use seem easy to you.

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#24

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About The more you know how the Internet really works, the more you're amazed that it still works at all.

All_Your_Base , Solen Feyissa Report

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broken_guy
broken_guy
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

especially if your making an app. most of the time you wonder how its functioning

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#25

That I don't set or control the prices and I can't give random people discounts.

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Kira Okah
Kira Okah
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As an ex retail monkey - this. We can't do sh*t about pricing, and discounts needed a proper reason and manager approval.

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#26

Just because someone was doing a bad thing doesn't mean its bad when they are trying to make themselves better. Getting healthy shouldn't be looked down upon.

I work in compliance for an addiction recovery company and it's part of my job to tell people to go away when they want to use our patients recovery against them.

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PandaRave
PandaRave
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What does that even mean? Do people just come in the facility to point and laugh at an addict for needing to get help in the first place?

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#27

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About I need details to troubleshoot your website problems.

"The website isn't working, can you fix it?"

What isn't working?? What page, what section of the page, what is it doing that it's not supposed to be doing, what is it supposed to be doing instead? What device, browser are you using? What were you doing before it happened? Give me *something* to work with here. Even if words aren't your forte and it's just a cell phone picture you took of your monitor, I need details. The more you give, the faster your issue will get fixed.

athaliah , Christina @ wocintechchat.com Report

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Rod Egret
Rod Egret
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oh come on! Just click on the "Fix It!" button and stop pretending!!

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#28

Public Spending on construction projects. What do you MEAN building this new road will cost $100 Million Dollars ?!? Why does the Govt. take so much money for themselves ?!


Not understanding that it’s $50 Million Dollars in materials and another $50 million in labor instantly injected into the *local* economy (obviously its not 50/50 but for the sake of this post)

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Chich
Chich
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Do not understand why so many b***h and moan about paying taxes. Sure no body likes them but you want roads? Fire departments? Parks? bridges? rec centres? etc? Or would you rather just have bake sales everytime something is needed?

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#29

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About You cannot check-in to a hotel without giving us a deposit or a working credit card to protect us from possible damages.
"There aren't gonna be any damages."
OH OK, I GUESS WE DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT IT THEN

LobbyJockey , Marten Bjork Report

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Cadena Norton
Cadena Norton
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes u can. I work at a quality inn. We don't take deposits. If u pay cash that's all u pay.

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#30

People From Different Professions Are Sharing 30 Things That The General Public Has No Clue About A significant portion of active duty military personnel (in the U.S., at least) spend a majority of their time sitting at a desk doing basic administration work.

I'm technically trained in my job speciality, but since I'm not exactly in a combat zone when not deployed, I spend most days at a computer answering e-mails and s**t.

anon , Pixabay Report

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J. F.
J. F.
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The majority of the personal in armed forces isn't there for fighting - logistics, maintenance and administration are the biggest sections in any army

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