'Google Street View driver: You're all alone for 8+ hours a day': 25+ Jobs that seem extra fun, but don't live up to the hype

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 30, 2023 5:00 PM EST

Who knew that being a park ranger or a background actor in a film wouldn't be fun jobs? There are so many jobs in the world, but some are certainly way more entertaining than others. 

I've always thought a great job would be to test ice cream, which is a real career! However, I imagine you'd get sick of eating ice cream pretty fast. That's the thing with these jobs — even if it's something you might do for fun on your day off, having to do something every single day can get monotonous really quickly. 

On this r/AskReddit thread, the question posed was "Which job is a LOT less fun than most people expect?" The answers were so eye-opening! From Build a Bear employees to archaeologists, people from all walks of life chimed in to share their experiences in jobs that sound appealing, but aren't always so fun IRL. 

Next, read this classic internet tale of one dude who got back at his food-stealing roommate, but the way he did it had some commenters freaking out. 

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  • 01
    Hand - "Testing video games is thought to be just 'oh you just play games all day? LOLOLOLOL' but it's actually very specific and arduous."
    via JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash.com
  • 02
    Vertebrate - r/AskReddit Posted by u/bwee21 #1 Top Post - 6/29/2020 Award S2 4 Which job is a LOT less fun than most people expect?
    via r/AskReddit
  • 03
    Font - BabyMalks Oh my gosh, BUILD A BEAR. Weirdest and most frustrating thing. Granted I didnt make it a super long time in the job and seeing kids so happy is great. But they are really strict and the bad times get pretty bad.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 04
    Font - Altephor1 I'm a Forensic Scientist and it's literally the only thing people ask me about on dating apps. It's very technical work and it's extremely routine.
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  • 05
    Font - [deleted] I'm an archaeologist and I imagine we have very similar conversations. Usually when I meet people I avoid the topic at this point because the pressure is on me to drive the energy of the conversation with the exciting 3 percent of what I do while avoiding too many technical terms. It's kind of deflating to see how quickly people go from 100 to 0 interest because of my explanation.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 06
    Font - [deleted] Professional photographer. Not like, hobbyist, but business- owning photographer. Sucks the love right out of your work. Because you started the business to take pictures. Then Karen doesn't like the way she looks in one of them so she wants the whole set for free plus a reshoot for free plus those images for free. Then the two high school kids getting into a very ill-advised marriage at EXACTLY 18 years old wants to book you for their wedding but their budget is only $50. Then
    via r/AskReddit
  • 07
    Font - Then you get a call from your last bride. It's been two weeks since their wedding. WHERE THE F ARE HER PICTURES? Then you get no leads from a bridal expo. Then a client finds out you don't support their candidate and tries to take you to court to get her money back. Then some insta t who thinks she's influencing people offers a "collab" where you take pro photos of her and she adds s insta filters to it and claims her friend took them. And she's not gonna pay. And then you get some entitl
    via r/AskReddit
  • 08
    Font - tenbladejen barnes and noble, your job has literally NOTHING to do with books & it obviously attracts a lot of that type, myself included
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  • 09
    Font - satsugene My younger sister worked in the Cafe for a long time. She said it was really frustrating -especially since they sold Starbucks coffee but weren't an actual Starbucks store so people would complain about not taking their gift/loyalty cards or minor variations in the drink or pastry menu. That and making espresso drinks for people's five year olds just felt really slimy.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 10
    Font - RangerRudbeckia Park Ranger. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but a lot of days it was less "talk about cool animals while wearing your ranger hat" and more "the toilets are overflowing again, go clean the septic tank filter and stir the tank with a shovel." With a little bit of "hey there's a methed out guy down by the bridge, can you convince him to leave without killing anyone." All for the low price of $26k/year with a college degree!
    via r/AskReddit
  • 11
    Font - jessjess87 I do closed captioning. While I joke that yes, I get paid to watch TV, it's actually very tedious. And if you don't actually enjoy the programming you're being forced to watch something you don't care for. Or worse, if it's something I do enjoy like a long form drama, we usually chop those up into 15 minute increments and split between everyone so I only see chunks and not always even in order it actually ruins the show for me.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 12
    Rectangle - mahagarty I can imagine it's tedious - my partner corrects YouTube videos sometimes and that takes so long. As a deaf person, I really appreciate captions, so thank you for doing what you do
    via r/AskReddit
  • 13
    Font - ZakkiraJuneAiko94 Working in a flower shop. It's just like any other retail job, but people constantly tell you how fun your job must be. Also helping grieving families chose funeral flowers is not fun.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 14
    Font - smileedude I'm a marine biologist. I spent the last week measuring defrosted fish heads.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 15
    Font - JeremyTheRhino Well I'm a scientist. I don't know if people usually think of that career as fun, but I think people think it's a lot more "Eureka!" and a lot less "this data's has to be manually processed for 600 hours before I can analyze it.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 16
    Font - bazerkas_bodyguard Not a specific job but traveling for work. I'm in tech and a lot of people starting out talk about wanting to go to customer sites and get "out in the field"... I love to travel for fun but it's hard to fit in the fun stuff when you have presentations and stuff to worry about and a lot of times your customers aren't in the fun cities anyway. I also think I prefer the stability in day-to-day schedule of traveling less frequently.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 17
    Font - 91 KazaamFan TV/Film production. I think most people dream of being the actor, the director, the people making the creative decisions, or the big shot producer calling the shots, but most of the people working in tv and film production are part of a machine, the grind, working in a system, trying to climb up to wherever they want to be. Many don't get to actualize their creative vision. Also the industry can be project based (job security concerns) and location limited (NY/LA, maybe other
    via r/AskReddit
  • 18
    Human body - MeMuzzta Video editor. The more I do it the more I can't be al
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  • 19
    Font - MadelineShelby What I hate so much is that when you send a draft or edit to the client/boss they mostly seem so ungrateful. Or yeah "just make this easy change" and we'll be good to go... no a that's not an easy change. I do video editing on top of graphic design, and people just seem so unappreciative of how much time and effort goes into a "quick little video"
    via r/AskReddit
  • 20
    Font - nightowlscrolling 32 I always say the more fun it is to go somewhere the worse it is to work there like amusement parks and arcades 29.5k Share __Hello_my_name_is___ Honestly, every job that lots and lots of people really want to do sucks, mostly due to supply and demand. You're gonna be treated like st, and if you complain you're gonna be fired because you're inherently replaceable, because there's thousands of people that would love to do your job for even less money than you are making
    via r/AskReddit
  • 21
    Font - 1playerpiano I tried to explain this to my father when I was going to accept a bar tending job at minimum wage. He said I should demand at least 15/hr and I told him they would laugh me out of the bar and find some college student willing to work for less than minimum wage. The fact I would be getting minimum wage was because I knew the bartenders and the owner so i would have started out at a higher position than just entry level. I didn't want to bartend. It was a guaranteed job with pe
    via r/AskReddit
  • 22
    Font - haireypotter Baker. Coming into work at 3/4 am so you can have a six am baked goods is miserable.
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  • 23
    Font - Vdd993 "000000h you MUST LOVE the WAY U SmëlL WhEn ù GO h0Me!" nope...I go home smelling like burnt oven
    via r/AskReddit
  • 24
    Font - Bill_S_Preson_Esq Demolition Everyone wants to break s with a sledgehammer. Everyone is tired of lifting that sledgehammer by 5 swings. Nobody wants to load the broken stuff into bags or a wheelbarrow and take it to the dumpster.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 25
    Font - shanster925 Video game testing. I've been working in the game industry for 6 years now, and teaching for 2. Testing video games is thought to be just "oh you just play games all day? LOLOLOLOL" but it's actually very specific and arduous. First of all, there a bunch of testing metholodogies such as load/soak testing, white room testing, version testing to name a few, but the most common one is functionality testing. Functionality testing is "so if I walk into that corner with the shotgun
    via r/AskReddit
  • 26
    Font - Midwestern Monkey Paleontologist. You don't get to work with full dinosaur skeletons and do all kinds of awesome expeditions. You're mostly sitting at a desk looking at some pictures and logging stuff on your computer, maybe examining a fossil occasionally. If you're lucky you can go on a real dig, and OMG SPEND HOURS IN THE HOT SUN DUSTING OFF ROCKS!!!
    via r/AskReddit
  • 27
    Font - Wazula42 Acting. All the ones we see on TV and movies are the 0.0001% of incredibly lucky and talented people who managed to thrive in a hostile and overcrowded industry. And even when you are working, the actual job itself is 99% sitting on apple crate in hot makeup waiting for some grips to move a lighting fixture. Then you say three lines over and over again for an hour, and then you wrap.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 28
    Font - clcliff Being an extra in a movie. Now, it can be super fun (I especially love historical and post-apocalyptic/sci- fi/fantasy type stuff), but a typical day on set wasn't what I thought it'd be when I started doing it. Often we have to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get to holding, and if you're a minute late to check in sometimes they'll kick you out. Then we sit around in holding with sometimes hundreds of other extras, and we're usually sitting there for a good three or four hours
    via r/AskReddit
  • 29
    Font - When we finally get to film, it's often the same mundane motions over and over (exceptions of course, and those are always fun) Then we either get shuffled around or go back to holding. Several more hours pass, we go film again. Hungry? You get lunch six hours after your call time, and a usually meager supply of snacks. In between takes it's more standing around, often in heat or rain or we all get shuffled into cramped spaces to wait.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 30
    Font - Days on set are often more than 12 hours, and I know someone who had to be on set for 26 hours straight. They can legally hold you there until they declared filming is done, so don't make plans for the next day. Not to mention that you rarely see yourself in the final cut. I'm not trying to bash other background actors or the film industry because I've met lots of awesome people and gotten to do some pretty cool things. For example, interacting with main actors in scenes, running around i
    via r/AskReddit
  • 31
    Font - yOrobin FLIGHT ATTENDANT. 1) You are on call (on reserve) forever, have a terrible schedule, have no life, and make no money for 5-10 years. 2) While you work for peanuts, you can't afford to use your flight "benefits" in any substantial way. 3) Then, when you finally get a chance to use your benefits for a trip, you have to fly standby which means you aren't guaranteed to get on the flight you want. 4) Then, if you do make it out of town you better have like a week off so you can make d
    via r/AskReddit
  • 32
    Font - The Unknown Double-O Google Street View driver. You're all alone for 8+ hours a day, can almost never take a break, need to constantly be "on" and focused (lest you crash the $25,000 Subaru with $60,000+ worth of camera equipment on it), you end up becoming an amateur meteorologist to keep track of weather patterns and cloud cover, and in my experience there are a lot of people who just get insanely upset at you, at Google, and the job in general for a wide variety of reasons. I enjoyed m
    via r/AskReddit

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