Someone Asked Women “Do You Have Any Career Regrets?” And Here Are The 30 Best Answers

No surprise

"One degree in art history may be regarded as a misfortune; two looks like carelessness." - Oscar Wilde's possible reaction

When I was in highschool my aptitude test said I was more suited for humanities and I love history, so I considered it. But my counsellor told me that these tests sometimes show our likes and not really what we're good for. At the end I made a career in Marketing (after 22 years I can say a successful one) and it turns out I have a knack for numbers and insights. Sometimes your likes are not the same as your career and you need to recognise that a career is also a source of income.

❤️ - i feel you... I never got out of "the wheel" because i was the breadwinner... I got sick and had to get early retirement... and i'm in Europe

My brother has worked at a Salvos store (thrift store) since he finished his criminology degree. He actually started as a mandatory volunteer when he was on unemployment benefit. His original plan was to be a cop, but when he got to the interview portion of the application he realised he didn't know why he wanted it, and decided to try something else. While doing his masters in politics and policy-making he worked his way up to store manager. After finishing his masters he applied for a lot of graduate programs and didn't get any of them so now he has been applying for training or policy-making roles within the Salvos. He is really lucky he could live on the low wage starting position (our government will pay a top-up amount if you are under a certain level of income) before getting in to management and it turned out he loves the work.

Amen, OP!

I started out as premed and shadowed a dozen doctors, every one of them said to do something else. They were all dissatisfied with their profession. They wanted to spend time with patients, get to know them, provide holistic care, but had to get them all in and out as fast as possible. I became a clinical psychologist instead and spend significant quality time with patients, discussing the most meaningful, important aspects of their lives. I'm grateful for those doctors' honesty!

Soft work life? Sis what you are describing isn't hard work life, its worker mistreatment and overwork. Working 12 hours days to be paid like s**t is an issue when its fast food workers, a doctor doing thr same, with lives in their hands, is downright criminal

Thissssss!!!!

Yup. UK here. Work with GPs and, everyone not “in the know” complaining they don’t earn their wage…! Docs, are seriously underpaid for the responsibility. “They “only” do 3 days a week.” No. They have clinics 3 days a week. But workload totals 6 days a week at 12-14 hours a day. I wanted to be a doc. Glad I got a boyfriend at 17 and didn’t want to leave him to go to uni!!!

It's so sad that teachers in the US are not paid or supported like they are in Canada 🍁, average salary is 60k and goes way up with the best pension plan and benefits. The strongest union and the wealthiest

Also a bad idea in the UK (Resigned in 2009. Best thing I ever did for my mental health).

Being caught between parents, students and administration. Yikes.

Unfortunately, it's not just the pay it's the unruly kids they have to deal with on a daily basis Some parents shouldn't be parents and aren't since they obviously can't raise their kids right

24 year old son graduated w high honors and can not wrote his name in cursive. He can not balance a checkbook or address and envelope. He went to nationals in FBLA. F'n school counselor encouraged him to get a BA in Psychology which is worthless unless he goes on for a MA.

Oh how I feel this. I teach online and many parents are just there listening out of sight. If I someday quit teaching, it will be because of parents. I don't know if I can change my job that easily though. I don't even know what else I can do with my set of skills.

This is such a issue even in my job as a Disability Support Worker. The parents and families were the biggest disability our clients had. I worked with adults who had all varying disabilities, all of them with learning impairments and fine / gross motor skills difficulties and some with none at all, completely non-verbal and required to be spoon fed and full toilet care etc..... the families truly were the hardest part. We had one young man who was born with Cerebral Palsy among other things and he loved doing things for himself and he loved getting out of his chair to go on this spongey rug thing we used to have in our sensory room. His mother found out and she flipped her lid big time. He was able to move around himself with pain and he would indicate what he wanted, but she 100% refused to allow him to have any independence. He wasn't even allowed to feed himself, even though he loved to use the spoon on his own. We used to let him while the evil cow was away....comments for more

I retired from teaching 11 years ago. I taught 34 years. Parents and their attitudes played a major role in my decision to retire. Second factor: all the damn paperwork. For every special ed kid in my classroom, there was half of a ream of paperwork to complete. The lesson plans had to be aligned with the state requirements but teachers had to manufacture their own lessons. Anyone who thinks teaching is an easy job because "you're off all summer" needs to spend some time in the teacher's chair.

Become a sub like me - it's wonderful! I sub PE and it's such an easy gig!

I remember being a teenager with rose coloured glasses and thinking of like to be a teacher one day... Then reality set in and I realised I couldn't deal with the parents!

SAME! I returned to work after my kids started school, and the change on my mental health was AMAZING!

I can totally understand. Everything changed for me when I decided to teach them at home. I started reading, learning, preparing myself and this brought me joy. Everyone is different though, staying home with little kids is not easy and it can make you dumber if you don't engage your brain in something else.

I mean this one is rather obvious. Work gets one out of the house, challenges them requires and raises skills makes one feel useful etc, this is true fir all jobs even the menial simple ones while staying at home is damaging and isolating. There's a reason stay at home moms have on average worse mental health

As your child, I'm really glad you were there for me and I wasn't raised in daycare.

My mum tricked my Dad into being a stay at home mum. She sad she liked it, later in life long after wed all left the nest she did a law degree and practised until she retired, She hated it.

I'm a sub teacher and I love its flexibility and the novelty of learning new things

Joshua Moore

Joshua Moore

Community Member • points

posts

comments

upvotes

FollowUnfollow

Premium

Premium user. Get details.

I feel OP's pain through and through. I have flexibility with my job and WFH, and I do so because of my kids. I absolutely loathe my job and I've been in the field for 12 years.

Think of what you really love in your life and if it’s remotely sensible or achievable, start to move towards it in small steps. Make it manageable.

Me too!

Same here. I foster cars and dogs, but I'd love to work with animals to, and be able to earn a living surrounded by animals.

All of you wishing you worked with animals: I do, I am a small animal (dog/cat) veterinarian*. I feel like I was born to do this and couldn't imagine doing anything else for decent money (could imagine tons if I had family money though), the people still manage to ruin it. All paying careers that involve animals sadly still involve humans too. *My caveat: I am not currently a practicing vet because I managed to completely destroy my entire life 2 years ago. Despite the drawbacks, I feel lucky that I will get a second chance with my career soon though. If I'd had any sort of safety net things would have gone a whole lot differently in a good way, makes me so aware of the generational wealth disparity in the US. But also could've gone a lot worse. Anyway, almost 2 years clean now, so yay. Edit to add that the student loans are going to haunt me literally the rest of my life. No joke.

I work with dogs and it can be amazing, but it can also be one of the most stressful things I've ever done. They're just like toddlers, but they can't understand what you're saying and you can't ask them what they want or need. To me, it's very similar to teaching. Dealing with the "kids" can be very rewarding, but you still have to deal with the parents and some of them love to make messes everywhere.

My daughter is a vet tech, and she happened to fall into a company that pays really well. You have all this animal hospitals, that fall under this one umbrella, she never thought she would be making the money she is making now as a vet tech. But now she just had her first baby, and she just wants to work from home now, can't do that when the surgery your are monitoring is 10 minutes down he road. I feel bad for her, but she is looking while on maternity leave