10 People Share Jobs That Look Glamorous on TV but Are Nightmares in Real Life

On TV, some jobs look like a dream come true – exciting, glamorous, and effortlessly cool. No one shows the endless paperwork, awkward moments, or coffee-fueled breakdowns. These 10 people share the harsh truths about jobs that seemed amazing at first, but turned out to be not so great behind the scenes.

1.

New lawyer here. I was lucky enough to get a job, most of my law school friends didn't. There's so much competition for entry level attorney jobs that you have to be an award-winning moot court participant in the top of your class just to be considered for a $40K/yr public defender job.

I blame the situation first on the recession – all of these students graduating with their liberal arts degrees are realizing they won't be able to find jobs, and think that law school is the way out. Secondly, the internet is making the law much more accessible to the average person, rendering legal advice unnecessary in many formerly lucrative areas.

Unknown author / Reddit

2.

Architect. You think you’ll be designing big fancy iconic buildings. Warehouses, Walmarts, strip malls, and box apartments all need architects and that’s probably what you’ll end up doing.

firenamedgabe / Reddit

3.

I was a journalist. I was knee-deep in mud at 2 AM, covering a car crash while a driver screamed at me for taking photos. I was covering a house fire while the fire chief told me to "get lost."

Once, my editor made me rewrite a story 5 times, I snapped and walked out. Journalism seems glamorous, but in real life, it’s a soul-crushing, low-paying grind that will destroy you.

4.

Most (not all) jobs in the environmental sector. Pay is usually quite low, you tend to work in very ugly places (landfills, contaminated sites). You're expected to get jobs done in half the time you really need with as few resources as possible.

If you are consulting for other companies, nobody really wants to be working with you to “save the environment” – they generally are just trying to barely meet some regulations.

waldo_92 / Reddit

5.

Being a vet is one of the most heartbreaking jobs out there. I wasn’t prepared for how much this job breaks you. One day stands out vividly, I found my coworker crying, her head in her hands. She'd just finished an appointment and an owner blamed her for their dog’s condition, saying she didn’t care enough. The truth? She’d stayed hours late the night before researching treatments for that same dog.

This happens all the time. We pour our hearts into every case, but no one sees the toll it takes—the emotional weight of feeling responsible for every life, the frustration of trying to explain complex issues to owners who don’t want to listen, and the exhaustion of working endless hours for animals who can’t tell you where it hurts.

It’s not just a job; it’s a constant battle between love for the animals and the weight of everything else. Being a vet isn’t glamorous—it’s raw, emotional, and harder than anyone could imagine.

6.

Working on a film. If you're crew, it sucks. Long hours for what seems like 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 down for your pay at the end of each week. Oh, and when the film wraps, you're now unemployed.

MrPelham / Reddit

7.

Probably about any kind of artist, but in particular 3D (CG) artist. Tons of art schools popped up, selling degrees to be a video game artist or a chance to be an animator at Disney or something. Ended up oversaturating the market with low quality portfolios that had no chance of ever getting into a major studio.

DotheTroll / Reddit

8.

A lot of yoga teacher programs are by yoga teachers who can’t make money teaching yoga, so they start training programs. There are levels of yoga teachers based on their training. There are too many yoga teachers, so now the thing is to tell us we can make money with private clients. Plus, lots of gyms and yoga studios don’t pay their yoga teachers enough money.

Now, really good yoga teachers can do well. It isn’t a full on MLM, but it starts feeling a bit gross when your yoga instructor encourages you to join their teacher program. Then, in their training, they are continually referencing the next level training program and making it seem like that is where you get into the “good stuff” in yoga teacher training.

MoonLover10792 / Reddit

9.

Teaching in university/college. You have to do a PhD minimum, and consistently churn out new research materials. You'd have invested over a decade getting all the degrees, but jobs are scarce, so you end up being a temporary faculty for a few more years, doing the same or more amount of work for a fraction of the pay.

Unknown author / Reddit

10.

Don't get a Psychology degree. Barely anyone gets to be a psychologist after the first degree they get. Where I am, it's a bachelors, honors and then masters to become a psychologist. It's a traumatic job where the starting pay is bad, and the pay ceiling is low.

Most psychology grads end up working in HR. Most of the rest end up in mental health jobs where the median turnover is 18 months due to burn out. There are better ways to spend 6+ years and God knows how much money, and that's if you succeed.

Animuscreeps / Reddit

Suddenly, your bad day at work doesn’t seem so bad when you hear these outrageous office stories. Every workplace comes with its fair share of drama and surprises. After reading, you might just find yourself a little more grateful for the quieter days at your own job.