What Career Path Did You Choose That You Strongly Advise Against?

[Anonymous]

Law

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Educated cop

I have a master degree, went into “law enforcement “ to make a difference.

Did child abuse/homicide most my career.

Started with a training officer who taught how to legally beat people if you are in a bad mood.

Spent evenings with extreme racists, short men with Napoleon complex, people with little understanding of the law or constitution.

Best part was making friends with 7-11 workers, Dunkin’ Donuts workers, gas station workers, etc.

Spent most my life with people going through the worst days of their life and thankful I had a masters in psychology.

Frustrated that I had a better understanding of law than most prosecutors, judges are the most ego driven group I have ever dealt with ... most lawyers and judges I dealt with had seriously unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

Watched “tiger teams” be formed ever time a white woman was killed, while I alone worked on the rest of the cases. Journalists would demonize my POC victims and paint white victims as heroes and white perps as “mentality ill” when they were just down right evil or selfish.


You get the idea.

You sound like the youngest cop on Blue Bloods. You should watch it. He went to Harvard Law and became a beat cop for the NYPD. But he comes from a family of cops so...at least he has his brothers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Educated cop

I have a master degree, went into “law enforcement “ to make a difference.

Did child abuse/homicide most my career.

Started with a training officer who taught how to legally beat people if you are in a bad mood.

Spent evenings with extreme racists, short men with Napoleon complex, people with little understanding of the law or constitution.

Best part was making friends with 7-11 workers, Dunkin’ Donuts workers, gas station workers, etc.

Spent most my life with people going through the worst days of their life and thankful I had a masters in psychology.

Frustrated that I had a better understanding of law than most prosecutors, judges are the most ego driven group I have ever dealt with ... most lawyers and judges I dealt with had seriously unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

Watched “tiger teams” be formed ever time a white woman was killed, while I alone worked on the rest of the cases. Journalists would demonize my POC victims and paint white victims as heroes and white perps as “mentality ill” when they were just down right evil or selfish.


You get the idea.

You sound like the youngest cop on Blue Bloods. You should watch it. He went to Harvard Law and became a beat cop for the NYPD. But he comes from a family of cops so...at least he has his brothers?

I tend to avoid cop shows (except Homicide and the Wire and Training Day ) since they are so far from the truth. I will check it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems obvious, but I still think women don’t think about making the most money possible the way women do.

This. Women go to Columbia and graduate and aspire to get a low level admin job at a NYC nonprofit, while their male peers target jobs with money and develop skill sets.

Seven years later, the women are making $75k and married, hate their going no-where admin job that rarely has a meaningful difference on the world, and surprise.... when the discussion of babies comes along "it really just made sense for me to stay home because it just happened that DH made four times my salary".

Women: Aim higher. Jobs are jobs and, to the extent you derive pleasure from your job, that pleasure is almost surely rooted 99% in what you do day-to-day and not some larger feeling of doing good. Same thing for those who hate their jobs - they hate it because of the day to day. You can day-to-day at a shitty art collective nonprofit making peanuts, or you can do the same kind of day-to-day at McKinsey. Or a defense contractor. Even better: develop a skill set so you don't just do admin and organize office birthday parties.

This is so true. I’m a woman who went to Columbia and took a $36k/yr job (in NYC!!!) when most of the men went to Wall Street. Luckily came to my senses and went corporate two years later, but didn’t know how to negotiate a salary and found out I was offered/accepted 35% less than my colleagues with the exact same background and role.

I’ve corrected and make good money now. But I am totally teaching my daughters to value making money.

I didn't do this. I went to a liberal arts college, got a generic degree but as soon as I graduated (mid-Recession) - I immediately started job-hopping for more and more lucrative roles.

I watched my fellow class stick with the same companies for 10 to 15 years, get passed over time and again, get fired, get let go during 'downsizing', and many just checked out to SAHM life. All of them, except 2 who managed to marry a high 6-figure guy, are struggling financially.

I find it the stupidest thing because these aren't stupid women. Many of them actually pursued more competitive degrees than I did. They just didn't seem to know how to translate that to actual life and work their way up in the corporate field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Educated cop

I have a master degree, went into “law enforcement “ to make a difference.

Did child abuse/homicide most my career.

Started with a training officer who taught how to legally beat people if you are in a bad mood.

Spent evenings with extreme racists, short men with Napoleon complex, people with little understanding of the law or constitution.

Best part was making friends with 7-11 workers, Dunkin’ Donuts workers, gas station workers, etc.

Spent most my life with people going through the worst days of their life and thankful I had a masters in psychology.

Frustrated that I had a better understanding of law than most prosecutors, judges are the most ego driven group I have ever dealt with ... most lawyers and judges I dealt with had seriously unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

Watched “tiger teams” be formed ever time a white woman was killed, while I alone worked on the rest of the cases. Journalists would demonize my POC victims and paint white victims as heroes and white perps as “mentality ill” when they were just down right evil or selfish.


You get the idea.

You sound like the youngest cop on Blue Bloods. You should watch it. He went to Harvard Law and became a beat cop for the NYPD. But he comes from a family of cops so...at least he has his brothers?

I tend to avoid cop shows (except Homicide and the Wire and Training Day ) since they are so far from the truth. I will check it out.

Yeah you're not going to like this as far as 'truth'. Its not at all. The head of the family is the Commissioner of the NYPD. But as far your life circumstances I think you'd identify with Jamie Reagan (that's his name). He is still pretty privileged considering how he grew up in life + the people who hangs out with from college/law school but he recognizes the downsides of the force.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Diplomat. It sounds glamorous but isn’t.

Do you mean State Dept? I'd love to hear more.

I agree. The glamor is reserved for the highest levels only. If you do not just love foreign affairs deeply then you won't find the work interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Journalism!

It's so different now ... at most, I think a kid with a journalism degree could build a decent career as a content creator or marketing writer. But old-school journalism barely paid before and barely exists anymore.

This industry will no longer exist in the 5 year tops. You are not familiar with the emerging new AI. Full articles and website coding within a few sentences of data. Website developers, content development, all these jobs will be replaced with a one person department.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Diplomat. It sounds glamorous but isn’t.

Do you mean State Dept? I'd love to hear more.

I agree. The glamor is reserved for the highest levels only. If you do not just love foreign affairs deeply then you won't find the work interesting.

Most FSOs I know have no interest in glamor. They are in it for the adventure and super excited to live in austere countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Physician
The work is intellectually interesting and I feel like I am doing something worthwhile. Additionally, most of the patients are delightful (or at least interesting) and they teach me so much.

BUT as time has gone on the system has evolved so that the administrators have proliferated, and they have consolidated and expanded their power. So basically I work for idiot administrators who have a business degree with no understanding of medicine (if they compare us to “highly trained technicians - like a plumber or mechanic” one more time I am going to freak out), make slightly MORE money than us (one admin said she “would not get out of bed for what they pay doctors here”), work 9-5 (and g-d forbid they work a holiday! But they’d be delighted to report me if it takes me >15 minutes to reply to a page on a holiday), and just view us as numbers (RVU generators). They also won’t come in during covid (apparently every single admin is immunosupressed?), but are happy to send us 6000 useless emails a day, I guess to prove they are actually “working” from home. But then I have to yank off all my PPE and reply to their dumb emails “in a timely fashion” so they don’t report me. The higher level admins have also begun “encouraging” the older/middle aged docs to leave, and replacing them with MDs straight out of training and PA/NPs because the old guys cost too much money. Apparently competence and experience are of no value anymore. Because $$$. And if we make more money then we can hire more administrators!

Also I have 9 years of training after college and about 15 years experience, and I make less than my friends who are govt lawyers. So, stop with your complaining lawyers!

Well, that turned into a rant. But if things continue this way then being a physician won’t make sense anymore, which is sad, because medicine can be rewarding and fun - and on a great day you can even save someone’s life. Which is pretty cool.

Thank you for this. My family is 4 generations of doctors, but they practiced in our native country without (and long before) this bureaucracy. Grandmother was a gynecologist for 40 years. Patients called her at home with questions, stopped by our place with flowers to thank her. I thought would be sweet for my daughter to be the 5th generation in this line of work, so sad to hear the profession has changed so much forthe worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Law

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women should ask themselves what the traditional male equivalent is of whatever they’re traditionally considering, and consider that instead, because it’s usually more lucrative.

Example, teacher versus tenured college professor.
Nurse versus doctor
Cosmetologist versus dermatologist
Art teacher versus engineer
Admin assistant vs program manager

Obviously these are all very different jobs, but I hope you get what I mean.

Also, women should not shy away from things or jobs with numbers in them. Data science, business analysis, finance, corporate real estate, etc. I wish as many women were interested in business school as they are law school.

Lastly, I wish more women would run for office

I’m a doctor and wish I had been a nurse. Nursing was really what I wanted to do looking back on it. I spend a lot more time with charts than I do with patients. And really, the pay isn’t that much better considering the commitment I put in up front and the amount of responsibility I have when I am there.

The nurses I work with in the ED get paid ~ $90k for 36 hours/wk. I work 30 hours/wk, which means that I am 0.6 FTE, and make ~$120k/yr.

How can a physician only make $160K full time? I read that even in pediatrics and family medicine, in this area it’s a minimum of $200k?

[Anonymous]

Interesting that nobody dislikes being a entrepreneur and starting a business. I always avoided due to the high failure rate, uncertainty, and time commitment at least early on.

Also interesting that nobody hates sales, my guess is that you know quickly if sales is not for you and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that nobody dislikes being a entrepreneur and starting a business. I always avoided due to the high failure rate, uncertainty, and time commitment at least early on.

Also interesting that nobody hates sales, my guess is that you know quickly if sales is not for you and move on.

I can speak to the second point. I worked in sales for a number of years across industries. HATED it. I did very, very well but got bored by the whole thing extremely quickly. It was all so formulaic and mind-numbingly dull. Commission caps can be bullshit, depending on where you are, and territories are totally random and ever-changing. I wouldn’t strongly advise anyone out the career, per the topic of this thread, and a lot of people do enjoy it (or enjoy the money, at the very least). It just wasn’t for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that nobody dislikes being a entrepreneur and starting a business. I always avoided due to the high failure rate, uncertainty, and time commitment at least early on.

Both my spouse and I are the children of small business owners, and that put us right off doing it ourselves. It's often very hard work 24/7/365, and you're doing everything - business generation, operations, financials, hiring/HR, etc. (In both our cases, too, it was a family industry and we were child labor for our entire lives - at least I got paid sometimes, my spouse never did.) We're both perfectly happy to have someone else compensate us for our time/efforts and handle the details. Probably depends on what the business venture is, too. I'd imagine a white-collar consulting business is going to be a lot different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Law

+1.

Times a million. I have a bunch of law firms that I employ and every time I call any of them I am glad I am on my end of the phone.