'I regret taking this job': Employees Share the Least Enjoyable Jobs to Work At This Year

Author image for Eleonora Bader
Eleonora Bader
May 17, 2024 1:00 PM EDT

Every job becomes tedious over time, especially if you're working 72 hours a week. But which jobs in particular are the worst to work at, and why? Employees get candid in a Reddit thread when asked this exact question. If you were to ask me, I'd say that working in the customer service industry is the worst. Long hours, meh pay, power tripping bosses are all a recipe for disaster. Oh, and don't forget the rowdy and entitled customers who honestly, need to check themself before they go out in public. It just makes you hate humanity. I always thought that people working as veterinarians might like their jobs, but when one person below described why it's absolutely soul-sucking, I changed my mind. I can see now how caring for animals is a double-edged sword. Scroll down to read what employees all around the world had to say about which jobs are the worst to work at, and when you're done reading, check out this grandma who used her spare key to enter her kid's apartment, only to receive a not so warm welcome from her entire family.

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  • 01
    {; 38x 9;\W2T K7! WnOZY Jz1 DIDLOT "I regret taking this job."
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    Which profession is far less enjoyable than most people realize?
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    Gullible_Ad5191 · 10 hr. ago I was a QA games tester. People got pretty excited when I used to say that. I never worked on a game that I would have willingly played outside of work. Pretty much everyone who worked there in all development departments thought the game designs were all terrible and begrudgingly did their jobs because they need to keep them. And then eventually all of the games failed to make a profit and the whole thing shut down. 3.6k Reply Share
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    NotNamedBort · 13 hr. ago Veterinarian. It's not all cuddling kittens and puppies. You get bit and scratched a lot, and you have to eu nize animals pretty much every day. It's hard. 14.7k Reply Share gilded blackbird · 9 hr. ago A friend of mine is a veterinarian. She said one of the harder things for her is when an animal is 100% save-able, but the owner can't afford it. She has footed the bill a handful of times in these instances, but has soul-crushing debt for vet school and can't do it as o
    via u/NotNamedBort, u/gildedblackbird
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    Gladyskravitz99 · 10 hr. ago Any hobby you've turned into a profession. After a few years of being forced to do it to someone else's specifications, on someone else's deadline - only to have it critiqued into oblivion or expected for free - you'll despise everything about it. 7.2k Reply Share Reptilian_Brain_420 - 8 hr. ago Nothing kills a hobby like turning it into a job. 2.4k Reply Share
    via u/Gladyskravitz99, u/Reptilian_Brain_420
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    Free-Geologist-8588 · 11 hr. ago Of all the jobs I've worked I'd have to say trucking. People imagine you out on the open road listening to audiobooks, friends give winks about the supposed lovely ladies knocking on windows, but the reality is 70% of time is spent in congested city traffic, unpaid in docks, constant sleep deprivation, and the only ladies that knock on the windows are h covered in bruises from their p part of it. 4.2k Reply Share ... n addicts s, you want no
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    xOghostOx. 9 hr. ago Trucking is the backbone of western civilization and people don't realize it. Imagine how fast society would collapse if truckers just up and vanished. 2.4k Reply Share
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    Mazon_Del 11 hr. ago I'd say being an actual full time QA tester on videogames. A lot of people just think all you do is get paid to play the game all day and then basically review it mentioning the occasional bug. But no, if you're actually wanting to be kept around and paid decently, you might spend all day turning the game on, loading into it, then VERY precisely repeating the same set of actions trying to reproduce some very specific bug/crash that the game absolutely cannot ship with for co
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    that the other QA testers and us engineers are posting, because if you spend half a day doing what I just described, only to find out that's been a known bug for five weeks, well, that's not really a good use of your time. Good QA people are worth their weight in gold, but the task you have is generally not something anyone really considers "fun". 5.2k Reply Share ...
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    1+1 125monty 10 hr. ago Comments summary.. all jobs are less enjoyable than people realise. 1.4k Reply Share Outrageous_Emu8503 · 8 hr. ago Don't grow up, kids! It's a trap. 348 Reply Share
    via u/125monty , u/Outrageous_Emu8503
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    Con_Shaunery 8 hr. ago Librarian. A lot of people think it to be a nice chill quiet place but I've never been more exhausted and down right outraged at our patrons. Be in mind my prior job was working at a sports bar so I thought I'd seen the worst of humanity.
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    ohdarngoshgollyme 10 hr. ago · edited 7 hr. ago I've heard that acting can be pretty bad. It looks fun on film but imagine having to re-record scenes for days on end, working at all hours of the night, having the director tell you that what you're doing isn't quite what he/she is looking for, and dealing with coworkers that come in high, d nk, etc. which delays recording scenes. On top of that, the job security is close to none so you're always chasing new opportunities and can't ever feel settl
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    sadbirdfox 11 hr. ago Therapist. People think with a clipboard and taking notes. We deal with some terrible stuff that gives us nightmares all the time 2.4k Reply Share tiankai 9 hr. ago My wife is one and she said the hardest part is hearing about negativity the whole day 1.1k Reply Share
    via u/sadbirdfox, u/tiankai
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    AnybodySeeMyKeys. 10 hr. ago When advertising is good, it's fun and exciting. When it's bad, it's really, really soul-sucking awful. 381 Reply Share
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    LoopyWaffleman 9 hr. ago · edited 5 hr. ago Healthcare. You're seeing people at their worst. They tend to lose their filter and can become quite unhinged and take their anger out on you regardless if you did anything wrong or not. You just have to keep reminding yourself that you're not seeing these people when they're in their best state of minds. After a few years I left and got into plumbing. It's laborious work, but it beats getting screamed at every day for things that weren't my fault. 586
    via u/LoopyWaffleman
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    Throw-away17465. 12 hr. ago Baking. It's not just frosting Instagram-worthy cakes, it's waking up at 2 AM for a 12 hour shift six days a week on your feet in a very hot room and endless repetition. 350 pumpkin pies. 84 cinnamon rolls every morning. 330 cookies each day. All expected to be Uniform. It's very boring and very challenging at the same time, the kind of job where you really gotta love it to do it. 3.5k Reply Share
    via u/Throw-away17465
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    EmberDione 10 hr. ago Game Development. We aren't usually making our own ideas, we're making some VC's idea. We are often asked to do 500% of the work in 20% of the time, while also having our expertise and experience ignored. We then somehow manage to ship the game without dying, only to have gamers attack US for Iwe did not have control over, and then we get laid off and have to move AGAIN. It f ing sucks, but apparently we can't say that to people because they do not grok that the job isn't j
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    flygirl1107. 10 hr. ago flight attendant! it's the best job but hard on your body, mental health and sustaining relationships. also the general public is so rude to us ③ 435 Reply Share Attorney ⚫ 7 hr. ago You all also exist in this weird grey area where you're both enforcers of sometimes unpopular policies but also the ones expected to provide good customer service. They are tasks that are inherently at odds with each other and I always try to keep that in mind when I'm flying. 210 Reply Share
    via u/flygirl1107, u/Attorney
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    PLACE Brilhasti1 9 hr. ago Probably anything related to art First of all it's hard as to carve out a living doing it but then it becomes a job you lose the joy in it. 425 Reply Share incride 5 hr. ago My favorite quote from someone was something like "doctors, even the worst ones make good money. There is a fine line for artists from making no money to lots of money and no one knows what that line is" ⇧ 45 ↓ Reply Share ...
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    Gardener15577. 11 hr. ago Being a teacher. It's basically babysitting bratty kids and working 10 hours a day for c. p pay 2.7k Reply Share antieverything 11 hr. ago Everybody is probably thinking "yeah, but I already know it sucks". ...however bad you think it is, the reality is worse (and it gets worse every single year). 1.1k Reply Share
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    Committee OfOne 10 hr. ago edited 7 hr. ago Lawyer. Everyone imagines something like they'd be in the courtroom on Law & Order or other shows. First of all, relatively few lawyers actually go to court on a regular basis. Second, court is far more boring than it looks on tv. All the lawyers portrayed in entertainment are very well off, financially, but the truth is that most lawyers work in firms of ten or fewer lawyers, and most solo practitioners sometimes go months where there's not enough inc
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    Dark-Dementor · 10 hr. ago Academia 385 Reply Share rem14 10 hr. ago Agreed, while it's significantly better than teaching high school or elementary most people know those jobs are frustrating and low paying. In contrast, people believe academics make good money and have tons of free time to sit and think about grand ideas, but neither of these are true. 165 Reply Share
    via u/Dark-Dementor, u/rem14
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    Tuckboi69 10 hr. ago I'd imagine content creator has to be in there 486 Reply Share Ortsarecool 10 hr. ago I'm surprised this isn't higher up honestly. I follow a couple streamers (mostly to watch while I eat lunch, etc) and one of the guys I watch plays a game that currently has a ton of background drama going on. His streams are just people constantly asking him the same questions over and over, and stalking him for playing the game. I would lose my everloving mind trying to not tell people to
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    r3ditr3d3r 10 hr. ago Army Helicopter pilot. At least when you're starting out. Exhilarating flying. Miserable additional duties, rotations, and non-flying related work 143 Reply Share RebelliousRoomba . 9 hr. ago I'm glad I turned down the opportunity then. I was an enlisted aircraft maintainer and had an Air Force pilot slot but failed the flight physical for a silly medical reason that wasn't really an impact on my health, the next day a local Army recruiter called me and asked if I'd like to
    via u/r3ditr3d3r, u/RebelliousRoomba
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    ClownfishSoup 11 hr. ago I can imagine being the oil-boy for the Swedish Bikini Team would at first seem great, but then it would just be an endless cycle of frustration. 678 Reply Share benchmarkstatus · 11 hr. ago There's a town about 3 miles that way. 364 Reply Share
    via u/ClownfishSoup, u/benchmarkstatus
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    craigerstar ⚫ 9 hr. ago Architect. It's 5% creative, 95% tedium. Long salary based hours (no overtime) doing tedious work. You essentially build the whole building one line at a time and make sure the electrical doesn't run into the plumbing doesn't run into the HVAC. And that every aspect of the building code is met. It's grunt work. It's draining. And you spend hours and weeks sitting at a computer drawing and checking and drawing and checking, to have the client say "how about we flip all thi
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    blacknwhiteice . 5 hr. ago Pilot. You imagine walking through an airport earning the respect of everyone who sees you. Get in the airplane and have the best view of the world. Travel to all kinds of destinations and make big money. Reality: You're tired from all the travel/time zones you cross, sit down a lot, eat a lot of takeout, take a long time to make decent money, live places you probably don't want to, more likely to get skin c er from being in the less filtered sunlight more often. Airpo
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    The_Swoley_Ghost . 11 hr. ago Personal trainer/strength coach. Usually you take the job because you care a lot about training. It's a hobby that turns into a job. Most of the people who would hire you (unless you're working with a fairly high level sports team or pro athlete) are actually not very motivated at all beyond being willing to pay the fee and show up (and sometimes they don't even show up...). Most of your advice will also be ignored and you will get blamed for their lack of willpower
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    this one hour so that I can eat whatever I want for the other hours of the week." They think you're going to ur k the other 167 hours in the week with that 1 hour of [usually half-a ed] training. Once I was fired by a client for telling her that her daily starbucks "reward" coffee was almost 1000 calories and therefore needed to be cut. She found another coach who told her that she could keep the extra 1000 calories per day and still lose weight. People come to you with crazy expectations and th
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    etc) but then refuse to change their diet. The event is usually a month or two away... impossible. It's like I'm your "gym dad" but I only get one hour of visitation rights per week and I can't possibly undo all the damage that living with your mother has done to you. When you get a client that really wants to push hard and follow directions it feels amazing to watch their progress but that's actually pretty rare. 315 Reply Share
    via u/The_Swoley_Ghost
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    legendof_chris. 8 hr. ago Park Ranger. Everyone thinks we just hike all day. I love living in the parks, but you get paid nothing, spend most of the day drowning in paperwork navigating unbelievably dense processes you don't have the resources to complete, and the remainder of the day trying not to lose it when the public yells at you for the worst takes you can imagine. Everyone is doing quite literally 3 jobs and I don't get on trail unless there's a medical emergency. 79⇓ Reply Share
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    zappetyzap 10 hr. ago Researcher at a university. You are under pressure constantly and the older and more experience you become, the more work and responsibility you will get. The stress does not get less, only more. The people that remain in that career are usually the types of people that make others around them miserable. The nice ones jump ship and go into the private sector, so you are left with a bunch of miserable, overworked nts. 90⇓ Reply Share ...
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    eleventy5th Rejection . 9 hr. ago I work in the animation industry.....if I don't a get a "rolls eyes, so you're a child" look, then I definitely get a "oh my god, you don't even have to be serious it must be so nice not having a real job !" attitude. Sorry normie...the product may be colorful and fun....the road to get there is low wages, massive hours, no benefits and a cutthroat competition pit of artists trying to make rent. 119 Reply Share
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    fuxvill 9 hr. ago edited 9 hr. ago Project Manager. S' only flows down. So forever sorting the below. Scopes changing. Scopes not detailed. Not enough budget. Not enough resource. Moving deadlines. "only ever get shorter". Last minute changes. Being dependant on other 3rd party contractors and suppliers.
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    Insane levels of buracracy, box ticking. People who have no clue, thinking everything just happens and can be done in 5 minutes. Some staff and contractors that are incompetent,. "oh that will do" Insane level of realising not many people have common sense or can think logically. Delivering a project is far far more than the practical work from Inception to handover, most others don't see that. You are never working on just 1 project, you are working on several to dozens all at different stages.
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    engineers etc etc. Funding being held for most of financial year, then being spent Q4, so a 6 to 9 month project has to be being done in 3, due to Gov dept commitments/budget constraints. Suppliers letting you down. Constant churn of same Team working days, night and weekends, so your always on the hook and can never really shut off.
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    Constantly thinking next steps ahead, what and where could it go wrong. Finding resource. In short don't get in to project management, it's mega stressful. 121 Reply Share
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