Current Events > Childhood dream jobs that are actually terrible.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Game tester:

What we think as a child: "OMG! We get to just play games all day and get paid for it! Sign me up!"

Reality: You're not paid very much, treated very well and you have to work long hours. You don't really play freely, you're looking for bugs and other stuff that needs to be ironed out. Kind of crappy job IMO.

Working at a game store (EB Games/GS specifically):

What a child might think: "OMG! I love games! I can sell them all day!"

Reality: GS/EB Games are pretty crappy to work for. It's a retail job with a lot of weird policies.
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I didn't have a dream job, but I loved basketball and wanted to play for UNC :<

GameStop, however was a great job. Minimum wage, sure, but discount on nearly everything that weren't consoles/systems, we could take used games home to try, could talk to customers about games since that was technically working, no uniform, no horrible suggestive selling spam, and one of my friends was a manager, while another one and the head boss were hot Asian chicks. Even though it was seasonal, it was my favorite job...Why'd they have to close down the GS closest to my house :((
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I always wanted to be a septic tank cleaner.

Now that I grew up and have the job.

It's a load of shit
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Definitely police officer.
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Working at a high end fashion place.

Fake: I get to wear nice clothes and look pretty all day

Reality: You fold clothes all day. You're harassed by your boss on why you aren't getting more people to apply for credit cards and you're pushed to sell to customers like crazy.

President of the United States. No matter what you do half the country will hate you.
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Pro-Athlete; You get paid to train all the time, only to wear out your body by 30 and, unless you are the absolute top athlete, you end up unemployed and worn out by 35.

Astronaut; You have to experience some of the most intense training, risk dying every few years, and unless you are the first guy on the moon, probably never get any credit for your achievements, all so you can document how yogurt grows in space or some random experiment like that.

Paleontologist; Dinosaurs are awesome! Have fun searching for a quarter inch bone in a few miles of desert just to prove that some weird ass, unknown, dinosaur was left-handed and not right-handed.

President or World Leader; You make all the hard decisions, spend your entire career being criticized by everyone, have zero private life, get blamed for everything, and have to basically spend your day hiding out from assassins and death threats.

Master Criminal; You have to hide all the money you make and spend your entire life looking over your shoulders.

Actor; If you are one of the lucky 1 out of 1,000,000 that make it, you might get one hit and probably have to spend the rest of your days voicing over car commercials. Oh yeah, and you aren't allowed to do anything private, anywhere, ever.

Soldier: Any job where getting shot at is the norm, is probably not a dream job. Another career where you spend a ton of time training, then risk your neck, only to get no recognition and spend 90% of your time driving a jeep through the desert hoping that you don't get hit by a random rocket or landmine.

Police Officer; Like the above, getting shot at is not fun. Oh, and you are under a ton of pressure, and pretty much everyone hates you.

There is probably a ton of other ones, but these are the first ones that come to mind.

Astronaut.

Anything military, but especially fighter jet pilot or special forces.

"Game Tester" (QA staff)
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I always wanted to work at McDonald's when I was younger.

Quit after the first day.
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Anything video games in general, I would assume.
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Darthfluffy2 posted...

I always wanted to be a septic tank cleaner.

How did you get that idea as a youngn?
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Veternarian - one of the most popular choices by kids because they naturally love animals. Little do they know that it's mostly business related and extremely stressful, let alone the fact that majority of the veterinarian tasks is euthanising sick pets, thus resulting in one of the highest suicide rates in the US by profession. They realize they end up killing more animals than helping them. It's quite depressing.
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aekDropSoup posted...

Veternarian - one of the most popular choices by kids because they naturally love animals. Little do they know that it's mostly business related and extremely stressful, let alone the fact that majority of the veterinarian tasks is euthanising sick pets, thus resulting in one of the highest suicide rates in the US by profession. They realize they end up killing more animals than helping them. It's quite depressing.

Also, you know, frequently having to stick your arm up animal's assholes.

I think "being a vet" is an innocent dream job. Similar to being a doctor or nurse. Kids don't really know what it means to "take care" of people or animals.

We don't exactly euthanize humans but it's still a pretty grim job with a lot of gross perks to care for them in any medical way.
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I always wanted to be a knight, scuba diver, cowboy or astronaut. I'd imagine being a knight probably isn't all too cool nowadays.
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