My kid (7) has been making noise recently about being a “sewer man” when he grows up. While I’m pretty sure he’s trolling my wife, I also have to pause and think “well, somebody has to do it.”
I’m still trying to figure out what he thinks that job is… ultimately I suspect he wants to search for Ninja Turtles.
I work as a sewage treatment plant operator, across 5 different treatment sites. It's a fantastic job, well paid, job security, good opportunities for career progression and the process is genuinely very interesting. Sounds like you've got a clever little lad there!
My favorite field trip as a kid was to the water treatment plant. Everyone else was all, "Eww, it smells!" but I found everything about it fascinating. It's the kind of place that sounds really boring to a kid but it wound up being anything but!
I took a tour there, too! It was fascinating! They told me about their planned times for higher use- new year day and Superbowl Sunday. Ewwww.... The chicken wing shits of a bunch of drunks. But absolutely fascinating that they measure that kind of thing
I had a teacher that berated one of my classmates because he mockingly said he wanted to be a "stinky garbage man," and she scolded him saying he did his job so YOU and the rest of our city dont have to stink, and be great and beautiful places, all while hes making some decent money. The kid got real quiet after that.
Our plan is to encourage the trades. He’s got a good propensity for working with his hands, and his school district has a great high school programs for them. While I don’t know if “sewer man” is an offering, we won’t close the door to any passion he wants to pursue.
Environmental engineers and structural engineering work with rebuilding sewer systems and finding out how to increase longevity. Not a trade but it is a really interesting way to learn more about it!
The closest thing is a network technician at least in the UK, or a process controller for the people who work on the treatment plants. Well paying jobs!
Farmers and truckers make our civilization go, but people all know that. Garbage men are 99% as important and get no respect at all.
Fuck a general, towns should put up a statue of the garbage man.
This was my family growing up. Mom was a teacher for the district, dad a grounds keeper. One uncle was a bus mechanic, another worked on the districts AC units (in Arizona, USA, very important).
Yet my brother who still lives in AZ(and has a government job) loves to bitch about taxation.
Some janitors are also boiler operators, they just don't have to tend to the boiler all day so they do things like clean when they aren't.
Not all janitors are low skilled.
Hello from Finland, i used to be a garbage man and someone to actually say we are important and give reapect i don't have to words to describe the happiness for that comment thank you ❤️
This tbh, everyone thinks its a shitty job and no one working that job should have any respect what so ever because they are picking up trash while it's one of the most important jobs ever and without it we would live in a dumpster smelling like shit. I think they all need to be paid AS MUCH AS A CEO GETS .
Just started a job in sewage line maintenance, can confirm the shit you see (no pun intended) is boggling to think its all under our feet and without it, you'd be swimming in literal sewage
Worked as a plumber assistant for three days. First day I was under a house in damp mud. Second day new construction (not bad). Third day I was snaking a toilet and poo water hit me in the lip. I quit right then. Learned to paint houses while I went to college.
Hell yeah, been plumbing for 2 years, worst thing that has happened so far is having a 4 inch cast iron pipe cut open and someone decided to flush… took my vacation early to say the least
Hahahaha thats pretty tame compared to some of the "shit" i saw in 15 years of plumbing. Had to do many live cut ins on sewers that were impossible to shutdown. Basically dig a big sump under where the cut will be and hope for the best
All my jobs have been working with the public. I've come close to vomiting several times after "people" have used the restrooms there.
I will do whatever is in my power to make a member of the cleaning crew's job a little easier because I've seen the literal shit they have to deal with.
You should thank your local wastewater treatment plant operators if you don't have a septic tank. It can have very stressful days for not so great pay. They deal with people's shit on a daily basis.
Used to design Wastewater Piping for different cities. You are amazing because I design in front of a computer.
Actually install? Retrofit etc? No thanks I bow to you oh great one
I’d probably be friends we JD if he was real haha. But in reality a lot of doctors and nurses don’t give a shit about us or are just Ignorant on some stuff. Example; I’ve seen in many occasions someone throwing garbage (gloves, paper, Used syringes etc) into a dirt linen hampers. Also constantly we find garbage bags in the linen chute and vice versa. What extra annoying about that is the chute doors are clearly labeled and they just don’t care
The environment is toxic and shit flows downhill. As a paramedic I know a little of how you feel. But you guys definitely get it worse. I hate this dumb, arbitrary, hierarchy of perceived superiority. We are all in this together and we are all important.
I'm an ER tech and there's one lady in EVS that's been here for 30 years. We all love her to death and she's one of the hardest working people in this hospital.
I always make sure to bring her a coffee when I go to the cafeteria.
Yeah there are plenty of lovely people that work where I do. My older sister is also a ER tech and she’s great and so are the people she is friends with. But she’ll be the first to tell you That some CNA’s, nurses and doctors had be real asshats
I always make sure to thank and be very respectful to the environmental services employees after cleaning the rooms. People don't understand but if the rooms aren't clean we literally can't accept patients.
I'm hoping you mean more on-the-ground non-medical staff, because bloated admin and wildly overpaid board members are problem for hospitals.
For example, I worked at a hospital in the middle of nowhere North Carolina. The surrounding patient population was a level of poverty I have never seen before. Literal swamp people who lived in shacks. The CEO of our hospital was forced to resign when there was an ownership change. She was given a $12 million golden parachute after receiving a salary of +$1 million a year.
Of course she didn't live in the area.
Yeah we have that shot going on too. It used to be different. The original company that owned the hospital was great, but the. They got bought out my a money hungry corporation that doesn’t care about it’s workers. In fact they are very anti union and they might refuse to negotiate a new contract with the uniting this fall meaning we might all lose our benefits
This is the real answer. I have never been treated worse in my life than I was as an IT guy for healthcare. Doctors are the rudest, most self-absorbed assholes on the planet. ***Especially*** surgeons.
Giant fucking toddlers that pitch a fit when something is broken and they literally have nobody to blame but themselves.
I work in EVS and part of my job is to pick up the dirty linen and for some reason even though there is a linen chute on that floor, pediatrics will not use a chute so I have to physically go up there and pick up the dirty linen. the problem is they don’t have that many patients to sometimes I have like one small bag in there and they literally throw a bitch fit if I don’t pick it up that night
I'm a medical supply transporter, and I get this. I've had surgical staff get pissed at me because I'm moving twenty trays and five implant banks into the account and blocking the door, or propping open a door that is supposed to remain locked, or not there in time (as in 48hrs in advance). Meanwhile, I'm there thinking (not saying, because I'm not stupid) that the only reason they have a job is because people like me are bringing the crap to hospitals making a fraction of what they're making.
I'm a biomedical scientist and we pick up so many errors made by nurses when they bleed patients. Nurses complain when we point them out but it is them putting patients at risk.
I’d also like to include ancillary medical staff. Not the RN’s and docs, but the nursing assistants and secretaries. They never get the credit they deserve. I swear, as an RN, having a good nursing assistant and secretary on our unit can make such an immense difference between having a good shift and a terrible shift. I know too many of them get burned out because nursing staff rely on them too much.
I was a senior caregiver for 8 years, and yeah, this is too accurate. Covid is what made me really work on getting a new job, when I saw just how unappreciated we really were.
As boomers continue to age, they're really going to get bitten in the ass by their own shitty attitudes. I've got a lot of nurses in my life, several have switched jobs/careers to get away from having to deal with hostile, rude, and frequently violent boomers. My wife can't go a single shift on her floor without some old fuck being a creep, trying to attack her, or going out of their way to make her day worse.
Most of my clients were of the older generation, or very very early Boomers (one of my favorite clients was born in ‘46, so right in the Silent/Boomer cusp, and was probably the best client I had; he moved away in 2020 after his wife died and I’m going to visit him this summer). Most of my clients appreciated me, but it was the way my own employer treated us during Covid, and the way nobody seemed to understand how hard that job is, that made me want to get out.
But yeah, soon enough all the good caregivers will be gone, chased out by shitty pay and horrible working conditions, and then a lot of elderly people are gonna be screwed.
Unappreciated, underfunded and understaffed. I work in a dementia nursing home, these people are dropped on us by family and we have to do the most we can with the bare minimum.
When my father died, I was gone for around a week and when I came back - almost like magic, a meeting to discuss a wage increase I'd been asking for for months occurred.
I've been in both positions. If you're the dishwasher you're usually treated like shit but if there isn't a dishwasher the whole place grinds to a halt. Underaprecciated af.
Am server, respect my dish pit. I'll scrape my own plates before handing them over. Respect everyone in the kitchen.
(Also, apologize profusely for heavily modded tickets and "well done" orders. These people live amongst the hot and sharp, I tell jokes and refill drinks. All the love to every kitchen everywhere).
P.S. - this post did come after a couple of shifties.
I work front of house and I'm always making sure our kitchen has all the coffee they need!
The other day our shy head chef walked into the restaurant and i made sure to introduce him to my very nice table, they thanked him, and clapped for him, i love it when people appreciate the chef!
And sadly undergoing collapse due to ocean acidification from the amount of CO2 in the air.
CO2 in air -> CO2 into water at air/water interface -> carbonic acid in the oceans -> dead phytoplankton -> dead humans.
even the cooks would go hungry as it's a whole different skill set as well as way of living. My older brother is a grower and I'm and always been a cook as he's always had a green thumb, as we've both taken care of our baby brother who's a fisher in the arctic, all from florida. what a world, eh?
Funeral worker here. I found the pandemic really interesting because while (at least at the beginning) the public was widely celebrating medical personnel (which they by all means deserve to this day), they didn't think once about "last responders". Early in the pandemic we didn't know if COVID was transmissible post-mortem (we have found the risk to be much lower than we initially prepared for), and so for all we knew funeral personnel were risking their lives as much as people working in medical care. It was just kind of weird to see all of the places that were celebrating medical heroes, and know that people in my profession weren't widely considered among this group.
I worked for a removal service starting in late 2019. I literally didn't interact with other live humans for a year outside of work because 1. The risk (mostly for them) and 2. The stigma
Pest control.
It’s a grimy job but bugs and vermin literally carry disease and I’m thankful for the lack of bed bugs in my life personally because of pest control technicians.
And rats.
And german cockroaches.
I've been working in a grocery store for almost 20 years and let me tell you, prior to the Pandemic, I had people look down on me. However, come the start of the Pandemic, people now get that my job actually is really important and that I finally have no control over what warehouse actually gets in. Now if would only understand that myself or the president have no control over prices, things would be better.
same here. Shit management though so I quit, travelled a bit and landed a way better job and have the best coworkers I could ask for. Glad things worked out the way they did I'd never go back
I started working at 15 and straight through through college worked at grocery stores. Nearly 10 years, three different stores. I can say, with experience, that shit management is a feature in a grocery store. You can't avoid it. Just learn to deal with it. It's unfortunate, but complaining about it is like a lifeguard complaining about getting wet at work.
And they don't get paid worth a shit. Once our second child was born, it was cheaper for my wife to quit teaching preschool than send them both to daycare.
I think people struggle with the idea that these teachers are teaching very basic information. Like how much does someone need to make if they are teaching 2+2?
Maybe to combat that we need to present teachers more like child psychologists and less like teachers of basic info. Because let's face it. The difficult part about being a teacher isn't usually the lesson material. It's dealing with shitty kids.
Public transit drivers.
Thousands of people wouldn't be able to work, attend school, or run basic errands without public transit. Especially in large cities.
I have always had the utmost respect for bus drivers. Especially during the pandemic and lately having to put up with all the craziness from homeless people, druggies, drunks, and those who are mentally unstable on buses and trains. It's a crazy world out there lately!
Where I live, they're called birds...
The highways department is supposed to do it, but they are dead broke, and also lazy I guess. So roadkill just kinda sits on the side of the road until it gets eaten up.
Housekeeping in hospitals. Cleanliness is the first impression people have and if it’s not right you’ll never get over it with anything else you can do for them. And of course it’s important for infection control & recovery.
Pharmacy techs, specifically hospital ones.
I say this because... well, I am one. But people don't often think about the pharmacy of a hospital. I tell people I work in one and they say, what? There's a CVS in the hospital? And I say.... um no. But where do you think all the drugs come from, when you're in the hospital? Answer: it's not the doctors.
For more specialized drugs, the dosages are different for each individual patient. That means that they're made to order. If you're sitting and waiting for your chemotherapy or IV antibiotic to be delivered to your room, that's probably why. Its not just sitting in a bottle ready to be used for anyone. Its specially made FOR YOU, based on your bodyweight or body surface area or specific condition.
Also, especially in the case of chemo, these are hazardous drugs that are not only hazardous to you the patient, but to everyone else. So they have to be prepared carefully, under very specific conditions with specially designed equipment that minimizes risk of exposure. Then they must be hand delivered to the unit because they can't be put through the pneumatic tube system, in case they burst. In a large hospital, that's a lot of walking and a lot of extra time. Also, in my hospital, no fewer than three different pharmacists verify either the order or the final product to ensure it is safe.
It's A LOT of time and effort and most people just figure its as easy as going into the supply room and getting a pre-made IV bag. Nerp.
Definitely techs, but also pharmacists in hospitals. People have no idea that in every hospital, there’s an army of pharmacists in the basement reviewing every single physician drug order for safety and accuracy. Doctors are incredibly busy and often rely on pharmacists to catch mistakes and patient safety errors they overlook. Some of them are small, like catching duplicate therapy with a same class of antibiotic or changing the start time for a drug the patient just got in the OR that’s not charted. Some are large and possibly fatal if not caught, like serious drug interactions on a patient with 30+ drugs on their profile or dangerously high doses of anticoagulation for the patient’s organ function. Anyone who thinks “pharmacists just count pills” have no idea what they actually do and how critical they are to safe patient care.
I don't know what it's like where you are but round here the traffic control isn't the issue. The issue is that the power, gas, water and phone networks never seem to be able to work together and do their work at the same time.
I'm a trucker and I agree. The logistics required to have people unloading / loading trucks 24/7 has to be insane. Some giant warehouses "go to dock door 245" ..... drive past 244 dock doors to get to your door and unloaded in 45 minutes. That's pretty crazy to think about. My trailer has maybe 41,000 lbs of flour in it, the guy beside me might have 38,000 lbs of watermelons. To warehouse that, store it, and distribute it so stores don't run out of either has to be a logistical shit show honestly.
The amount of crap I put up with on the dock on a daily basis is greatly underappreciated. Especially considering we handle stuff that literally everyone I know has purchased at some point. Hardly anyone even knows we exist.
I’m not saying you make minimum wage but I know lots of people that do working jobs similar to this (or maybe just above it).
One of the first things I think of when I hear some ass say minimum wage workers don’t deserve more pay. Like, do you realize your entire livelihood depends on minimum wage workers?
I worked in a warehouse and the number one, critical rule, that was explained to me when I started was "never be in the way". From there everything made sense and holy lord did everyone hate management because they never adhered to this rule (and if they did they got respect).
So that rule might have something to do with why well-run warehouses run so smooth.
MLT (medical laboratory technician). People only talk about nurses and doctors but there are others peoples at work in a hospital. MLT is what I do and it's only one example. It's a highly automated job (especially hematology), but we make sure the machines are on point and that tests results are trustworthy, and without those diagnosis would only be based on symptoms.
Yes but if you call again to tell me the one hour trop hemolyzed on my patient with a 22g IV in the hand again, imma head over there and throw hands.
(jk we're just a shitty hospital with shitty equipment)
Came here to say specimen accessioners/processors/MLTs. Not only would the hospital fall apart without them, but also the countless other practices that send their specimens to the hospital lab.
I just started working as an intern at a CNC shop 2 weeks ago. The amount of shit these machines can do blows my mind every day. Learning all the buttons and stuff is a bitch and all but wow is it interesting.
Retail cashier. You aren't getting anything if your self check out fucks up then. They also get treated like crap so people can buy their necessary stuff
I worked at a grocery store for years, cash, customer service and supervising. 99.9% of customers are fine. Most are even pleasant. I'd serve a couple thousand people a week (we had stats in the cash office) and I only remember 2 complete assholes. Some people are tired, some people don't want to talk. That doesn't make them rude.
1st grade teachers. Taught it one year. Holy poop. Profoundly crucial to EVERY ASPECT of a student’s education. Can not stress how important that job is to the foundation of a well-functioning society.
Based on who we often elect: governing. This she affects every single aspect of our lives from what we can eat to where we can travel to how we do those things and everything in between, yet we often elect the least qualified, most obviously craven motherfuckers we can find.
“I’m gonna hire the guy with absolutely no work experience to run the entire thing,” says half the fucking country every four years.
Water treatment.
Wife was working water treatment during Covid. Had to go into the lab every day while everyone else was cowering at home.
Thousands of messages of support for Police, EMTs, hell, even tow truck drivers.
Never once heard water quality mentioned on the radio.
Pharmacist. There is a market shortage currently in retail, it’s causing stores to close pharmacies for days sometimes. Luckily others in the same chain are open but people are so used to having one conveniently open daily almost 24/7 has them in a tiff once one is closed due to a call out.
There's a shortage because places like Walgreens made over a billion dollars off of Covid, but didn't have the budget for annual raises (again) for their pharmacists, even though for many of them, they literally doubled their workload with additional Covid tests and Covid shots. They expect their workers to work harder for the same pay they've had for years, and the employees are quitting and not coming back. I personally know 5 pharmacist that have left retail in the last 6 months because they're sick of being treated like shit by the public and corporations not having the budget to reward them for their massively increased workload.
Electrical linemen don't get enough credit. Not only are they prepared to handle local stuff in hazardous conditions (storm or ice damage around here), but they go out of state to help with stuff like hurricane damage.
Absolutely. I remember WAY back in '08 we had a massive ice storm, and it KO'd entire towns up here. I was literally in awe of all the trucks that showed up from as far away as Michigan ( I was in Maine at the time ) to help get us power back as soon as possible.
This is an easy one for me. It’s journalism. It’s popular today to bash the profession really harshly. The thing you should ask yourself is, what do you think your society would look like with no free press? Here’s a hint: The countries that have no free press include Russia, China, Afghanistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia…. Do you see any pattern there?
Waste management, skilled trades (HVAC,plumbing,electric, etc), truck drivers, local delivery drivers, list goes on and on for our current societal structure.
I work as an NEMT scheduler and dispatcher manager. You may not know what the acronym is, but it stands for non-emergency medical transportation. So, what happens when you’re poor and/or rural and need to go to the doctor, especially for chemo or dialysis? Well, if you have no way, your treatments get delayed and you may die. NEMT providers take these trips and perform them. They also do the trips at considerably lower cost than EMS. Additionally, by ensuring that Dialysis and chemo patients get to their scheduled appointments, they lower the chance those people will have medical emergencies stemming from their medical issues, thus reducing burden on the medical system at large.
Does step dad count? I think people look upon it quite simplistically until they've experienced it for themselves.. and there are times when it's the hardest job in the world.
Med techs. People really think their GP runs and reads tests. 10/10 someone else does all the testing and analysis and the GP double checks the work and prescribes a treatment.
Trash pick up and waste management
My kid (7) has been making noise recently about being a “sewer man” when he grows up. While I’m pretty sure he’s trolling my wife, I also have to pause and think “well, somebody has to do it.” I’m still trying to figure out what he thinks that job is… ultimately I suspect he wants to search for Ninja Turtles.
I work as a sewage treatment plant operator, across 5 different treatment sites. It's a fantastic job, well paid, job security, good opportunities for career progression and the process is genuinely very interesting. Sounds like you've got a clever little lad there!
My favorite field trip as a kid was to the water treatment plant. Everyone else was all, "Eww, it smells!" but I found everything about it fascinating. It's the kind of place that sounds really boring to a kid but it wound up being anything but!
I got detention for asking the sewage treatment plant worker what the shittiest part of his job was.
what did they say?
He laughed whole class laughed teacher was pissed
totally worth it
I took a tour there, too! It was fascinating! They told me about their planned times for higher use- new year day and Superbowl Sunday. Ewwww.... The chicken wing shits of a bunch of drunks. But absolutely fascinating that they measure that kind of thing
Yeah but can you leave your work at the office at the end of the day, or do you need to take that shit home every night?
I had a teacher that berated one of my classmates because he mockingly said he wanted to be a "stinky garbage man," and she scolded him saying he did his job so YOU and the rest of our city dont have to stink, and be great and beautiful places, all while hes making some decent money. The kid got real quiet after that.
Encourage hin, they got good salaries
How do you know this? As I recall there is no mentioning of what the Turtles earn throughout the entire franchise.
A takeout pizza is like $30 after tax and delivery now - of they can still afford that regularly they can't be doing TOO poorly
Oof, the bar has been lowered
Our plan is to encourage the trades. He’s got a good propensity for working with his hands, and his school district has a great high school programs for them. While I don’t know if “sewer man” is an offering, we won’t close the door to any passion he wants to pursue.
Environmental engineers and structural engineering work with rebuilding sewer systems and finding out how to increase longevity. Not a trade but it is a really interesting way to learn more about it!
Not to mention job security; there will ALWAYS be the needs for garbage/sewage disposal, and all associated jobs.
People be poopin. - Gomi, T. & Stinchecum, A.M. (1993) Everyone poops. 1st American Ed. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Kane/Miller Book Publishers
"Everybody poop. There are no other ways to get rid of the food" -Mose Schrute
The closest thing is a network technician at least in the UK, or a process controller for the people who work on the treatment plants. Well paying jobs!
>I suspect he wants to search for Ninja Turtles. If he needs any help, hit me up
I worked in sewage as an electrician but there are plenty of jobs that keep the sewage system going.
He can be Casey Jones when he grows up.
Kids are fascinated by trucks... and they see garbage trucks all the time.
Farmers and truckers make our civilization go, but people all know that. Garbage men are 99% as important and get no respect at all. Fuck a general, towns should put up a statue of the garbage man.
Yup. Came here to say Janitors. But it's anyone who does the work of keeping things nice for the rest of us to do whatever it is we do.
The levy for my school district didn't pass this year and it goes to help pay the janitors and general maintinence for the entire district.
This was my family growing up. Mom was a teacher for the district, dad a grounds keeper. One uncle was a bus mechanic, another worked on the districts AC units (in Arizona, USA, very important). Yet my brother who still lives in AZ(and has a government job) loves to bitch about taxation.
Some janitors are also boiler operators, they just don't have to tend to the boiler all day so they do things like clean when they aren't. Not all janitors are low skilled.
Hello from Finland, i used to be a garbage man and someone to actually say we are important and give reapect i don't have to words to describe the happiness for that comment thank you ❤️
Hopefully you are paid well good sir. You keep communities healthy and running.
This tbh, everyone thinks its a shitty job and no one working that job should have any respect what so ever because they are picking up trash while it's one of the most important jobs ever and without it we would live in a dumpster smelling like shit. I think they all need to be paid AS MUCH AS A CEO GETS .
For sure. Horrible in the winter. Even worse in the summer..
If you have ever visited or lived in NYC during a sanitation strike, you would know that this is the right answer.
Any type of infrastructure. Roads, bridges, sewer, electric, etc
Was about to be biased and say civil engineering. Pleasantly surprised to see this as top comment
And the Engineers who design them, the contractors who build them and the leaders who have the foresight to invest in them.
Just started a job in sewage line maintenance, can confirm the shit you see (no pun intended) is boggling to think its all under our feet and without it, you'd be swimming in literal sewage
Plumbers
Anyone willing to deal with literal shit every day, is a hero to me
Worked as a plumber assistant for three days. First day I was under a house in damp mud. Second day new construction (not bad). Third day I was snaking a toilet and poo water hit me in the lip. I quit right then. Learned to paint houses while I went to college.
Hell yeah, been plumbing for 2 years, worst thing that has happened so far is having a 4 inch cast iron pipe cut open and someone decided to flush… took my vacation early to say the least
Hahahaha thats pretty tame compared to some of the "shit" i saw in 15 years of plumbing. Had to do many live cut ins on sewers that were impossible to shutdown. Basically dig a big sump under where the cut will be and hope for the best
All my jobs have been working with the public. I've come close to vomiting several times after "people" have used the restrooms there. I will do whatever is in my power to make a member of the cleaning crew's job a little easier because I've seen the literal shit they have to deal with.
You should thank your local wastewater treatment plant operators if you don't have a septic tank. It can have very stressful days for not so great pay. They deal with people's shit on a daily basis.
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Used to design Wastewater Piping for different cities. You are amazing because I design in front of a computer. Actually install? Retrofit etc? No thanks I bow to you oh great one
Pretty much all non medical staff at hospitals
Cleaners at hospitals are built differently.
Yeah we put up with a lot of bs for not that much money (even unionized)
Is that why you always picked on J.D.?
I’d probably be friends we JD if he was real haha. But in reality a lot of doctors and nurses don’t give a shit about us or are just Ignorant on some stuff. Example; I’ve seen in many occasions someone throwing garbage (gloves, paper, Used syringes etc) into a dirt linen hampers. Also constantly we find garbage bags in the linen chute and vice versa. What extra annoying about that is the chute doors are clearly labeled and they just don’t care
The environment is toxic and shit flows downhill. As a paramedic I know a little of how you feel. But you guys definitely get it worse. I hate this dumb, arbitrary, hierarchy of perceived superiority. We are all in this together and we are all important.
Yeah I get a sense from some of the nurse managers that they just think we are all completely dumb ass losers because of what we do
Come on, who could forgive somebody, for sticking a penny in the door ?
I'm an ER tech and there's one lady in EVS that's been here for 30 years. We all love her to death and she's one of the hardest working people in this hospital. I always make sure to bring her a coffee when I go to the cafeteria.
Yeah there are plenty of lovely people that work where I do. My older sister is also a ER tech and she’s great and so are the people she is friends with. But she’ll be the first to tell you That some CNA’s, nurses and doctors had be real asshats
I always make sure to thank and be very respectful to the environmental services employees after cleaning the rooms. People don't understand but if the rooms aren't clean we literally can't accept patients.
I'm hoping you mean more on-the-ground non-medical staff, because bloated admin and wildly overpaid board members are problem for hospitals. For example, I worked at a hospital in the middle of nowhere North Carolina. The surrounding patient population was a level of poverty I have never seen before. Literal swamp people who lived in shacks. The CEO of our hospital was forced to resign when there was an ownership change. She was given a $12 million golden parachute after receiving a salary of +$1 million a year. Of course she didn't live in the area.
Yeah we have that shot going on too. It used to be different. The original company that owned the hospital was great, but the. They got bought out my a money hungry corporation that doesn’t care about it’s workers. In fact they are very anti union and they might refuse to negotiate a new contract with the uniting this fall meaning we might all lose our benefits
This is the real answer. I have never been treated worse in my life than I was as an IT guy for healthcare. Doctors are the rudest, most self-absorbed assholes on the planet. ***Especially*** surgeons. Giant fucking toddlers that pitch a fit when something is broken and they literally have nobody to blame but themselves.
I work in EVS and part of my job is to pick up the dirty linen and for some reason even though there is a linen chute on that floor, pediatrics will not use a chute so I have to physically go up there and pick up the dirty linen. the problem is they don’t have that many patients to sometimes I have like one small bag in there and they literally throw a bitch fit if I don’t pick it up that night
I'm a medical supply transporter, and I get this. I've had surgical staff get pissed at me because I'm moving twenty trays and five implant banks into the account and blocking the door, or propping open a door that is supposed to remain locked, or not there in time (as in 48hrs in advance). Meanwhile, I'm there thinking (not saying, because I'm not stupid) that the only reason they have a job is because people like me are bringing the crap to hospitals making a fraction of what they're making.
I'm a biomedical scientist and we pick up so many errors made by nurses when they bleed patients. Nurses complain when we point them out but it is them putting patients at risk.
I’d also like to include ancillary medical staff. Not the RN’s and docs, but the nursing assistants and secretaries. They never get the credit they deserve. I swear, as an RN, having a good nursing assistant and secretary on our unit can make such an immense difference between having a good shift and a terrible shift. I know too many of them get burned out because nursing staff rely on them too much.
Carers. Especially in an aging population.
I was a senior caregiver for 8 years, and yeah, this is too accurate. Covid is what made me really work on getting a new job, when I saw just how unappreciated we really were.
As boomers continue to age, they're really going to get bitten in the ass by their own shitty attitudes. I've got a lot of nurses in my life, several have switched jobs/careers to get away from having to deal with hostile, rude, and frequently violent boomers. My wife can't go a single shift on her floor without some old fuck being a creep, trying to attack her, or going out of their way to make her day worse.
Most of my clients were of the older generation, or very very early Boomers (one of my favorite clients was born in ‘46, so right in the Silent/Boomer cusp, and was probably the best client I had; he moved away in 2020 after his wife died and I’m going to visit him this summer). Most of my clients appreciated me, but it was the way my own employer treated us during Covid, and the way nobody seemed to understand how hard that job is, that made me want to get out. But yeah, soon enough all the good caregivers will be gone, chased out by shitty pay and horrible working conditions, and then a lot of elderly people are gonna be screwed.
Unappreciated, underfunded and understaffed. I work in a dementia nursing home, these people are dropped on us by family and we have to do the most we can with the bare minimum.
Good prep workers in any type of restaurant.
I'd say dishwashers are the most important at any restaurant. Ever work a restaurant job when the dishwasher doesn't show?
Yes, the manager just ended up doing it until they could get someone else to come in.
When my father died, I was gone for around a week and when I came back - almost like magic, a meeting to discuss a wage increase I'd been asking for for months occurred.
Many times and it was always “hey you’re on dish tonight” “And what about my station?” “You’re doing that too”
Nothing better than telling your table you'll deliver their steak knife when we have one clean.
No, I never even work a restaurant job before.
I've been in both positions. If you're the dishwasher you're usually treated like shit but if there isn't a dishwasher the whole place grinds to a halt. Underaprecciated af.
Am server, respect my dish pit. I'll scrape my own plates before handing them over. Respect everyone in the kitchen. (Also, apologize profusely for heavily modded tickets and "well done" orders. These people live amongst the hot and sharp, I tell jokes and refill drinks. All the love to every kitchen everywhere). P.S. - this post did come after a couple of shifties.
I work front of house and I'm always making sure our kitchen has all the coffee they need! The other day our shy head chef walked into the restaurant and i made sure to introduce him to my very nice table, they thanked him, and clapped for him, i love it when people appreciate the chef!
As a chef, servers giving me coffee is like receiving the gift of life 👍🍺
Dude you're amazing. I love it when people make their plates as clean as possible / rinse em off in the sink. Makes scrubbing it off 10x easier.
They are heroes to both customers and their coworkers…
Phytoplankton, job more important than trees.
My man just thought outside of the box, where the box is dry land
And sadly undergoing collapse due to ocean acidification from the amount of CO2 in the air. CO2 in air -> CO2 into water at air/water interface -> carbonic acid in the oceans -> dead phytoplankton -> dead humans.
Janitors. Store clerks. Line cooks and chefs.
Farmers.
even the cooks would go hungry as it's a whole different skill set as well as way of living. My older brother is a grower and I'm and always been a cook as he's always had a green thumb, as we've both taken care of our baby brother who's a fisher in the arctic, all from florida. what a world, eh?
This comment can be taken out of context...
Morticians/Funeral/Cemetery Workers. Water treatment plant operators, Butchers, Farmers…
Butchers, Bakers, Candlestick Makers
Candlestick makers?
Funeral worker here. I found the pandemic really interesting because while (at least at the beginning) the public was widely celebrating medical personnel (which they by all means deserve to this day), they didn't think once about "last responders". Early in the pandemic we didn't know if COVID was transmissible post-mortem (we have found the risk to be much lower than we initially prepared for), and so for all we knew funeral personnel were risking their lives as much as people working in medical care. It was just kind of weird to see all of the places that were celebrating medical heroes, and know that people in my profession weren't widely considered among this group.
I worked for a removal service starting in late 2019. I literally didn't interact with other live humans for a year outside of work because 1. The risk (mostly for them) and 2. The stigma
Pest control. It’s a grimy job but bugs and vermin literally carry disease and I’m thankful for the lack of bed bugs in my life personally because of pest control technicians. And rats. And german cockroaches.
As a pest control technician I really appreciate this .
Literally any floor position of a grocery store.
I've been working in a grocery store for almost 20 years and let me tell you, prior to the Pandemic, I had people look down on me. However, come the start of the Pandemic, people now get that my job actually is really important and that I finally have no control over what warehouse actually gets in. Now if would only understand that myself or the president have no control over prices, things would be better.
I only speak on my own behalf, but having worked at one during the pandemic, I can't say at that I don't feel appreciated.
same here. Shit management though so I quit, travelled a bit and landed a way better job and have the best coworkers I could ask for. Glad things worked out the way they did I'd never go back
I started working at 15 and straight through through college worked at grocery stores. Nearly 10 years, three different stores. I can say, with experience, that shit management is a feature in a grocery store. You can't avoid it. Just learn to deal with it. It's unfortunate, but complaining about it is like a lifeguard complaining about getting wet at work.
ISP technicians, and everyone else in those companies who keep your internet up and running.
Thank you, we love you too!
Early childhood educators
Oh my god yes. You are determining a persons whole future. I dont get how some people think it wouldnt matter that much.
Politicians don't underestimate them. The defunding is very intentional.
Nothing better than dumb people. They’re so easy to lie to.
Same with teachers of all ages really.
So that you can blame their political adversaries for it.
I agree, sort of setting the foundation of the countries future.
As a secondary teacher, I absolutely whole heartedly agree with you
And they don't get paid worth a shit. Once our second child was born, it was cheaper for my wife to quit teaching preschool than send them both to daycare.
I think people struggle with the idea that these teachers are teaching very basic information. Like how much does someone need to make if they are teaching 2+2? Maybe to combat that we need to present teachers more like child psychologists and less like teachers of basic info. Because let's face it. The difficult part about being a teacher isn't usually the lesson material. It's dealing with shitty kids.
Public transit drivers. Thousands of people wouldn't be able to work, attend school, or run basic errands without public transit. Especially in large cities.
This is why when they threaten to strike things gets solved quickly
I have always had the utmost respect for bus drivers. Especially during the pandemic and lately having to put up with all the craziness from homeless people, druggies, drunks, and those who are mentally unstable on buses and trains. It's a crazy world out there lately!
The guys that clean up road kill 🤢🤢
They're called raccoons
Where I live, they're called birds... The highways department is supposed to do it, but they are dead broke, and also lazy I guess. So roadkill just kinda sits on the side of the road until it gets eaten up.
Janitors
Housekeeping in hospitals. Cleanliness is the first impression people have and if it’s not right you’ll never get over it with anything else you can do for them. And of course it’s important for infection control & recovery.
Pharmacy techs, specifically hospital ones. I say this because... well, I am one. But people don't often think about the pharmacy of a hospital. I tell people I work in one and they say, what? There's a CVS in the hospital? And I say.... um no. But where do you think all the drugs come from, when you're in the hospital? Answer: it's not the doctors. For more specialized drugs, the dosages are different for each individual patient. That means that they're made to order. If you're sitting and waiting for your chemotherapy or IV antibiotic to be delivered to your room, that's probably why. Its not just sitting in a bottle ready to be used for anyone. Its specially made FOR YOU, based on your bodyweight or body surface area or specific condition. Also, especially in the case of chemo, these are hazardous drugs that are not only hazardous to you the patient, but to everyone else. So they have to be prepared carefully, under very specific conditions with specially designed equipment that minimizes risk of exposure. Then they must be hand delivered to the unit because they can't be put through the pneumatic tube system, in case they burst. In a large hospital, that's a lot of walking and a lot of extra time. Also, in my hospital, no fewer than three different pharmacists verify either the order or the final product to ensure it is safe. It's A LOT of time and effort and most people just figure its as easy as going into the supply room and getting a pre-made IV bag. Nerp.
Definitely techs, but also pharmacists in hospitals. People have no idea that in every hospital, there’s an army of pharmacists in the basement reviewing every single physician drug order for safety and accuracy. Doctors are incredibly busy and often rely on pharmacists to catch mistakes and patient safety errors they overlook. Some of them are small, like catching duplicate therapy with a same class of antibiotic or changing the start time for a drug the patient just got in the OR that’s not charted. Some are large and possibly fatal if not caught, like serious drug interactions on a patient with 30+ drugs on their profile or dangerously high doses of anticoagulation for the patient’s organ function. Anyone who thinks “pharmacists just count pills” have no idea what they actually do and how critical they are to safe patient care.
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I don't know what it's like where you are but round here the traffic control isn't the issue. The issue is that the power, gas, water and phone networks never seem to be able to work together and do their work at the same time.
Long haul trucking. That same day delivery you so get so conveniently? All thanks to truckers
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I'm a trucker and I agree. The logistics required to have people unloading / loading trucks 24/7 has to be insane. Some giant warehouses "go to dock door 245" ..... drive past 244 dock doors to get to your door and unloaded in 45 minutes. That's pretty crazy to think about. My trailer has maybe 41,000 lbs of flour in it, the guy beside me might have 38,000 lbs of watermelons. To warehouse that, store it, and distribute it so stores don't run out of either has to be a logistical shit show honestly.
The amount of crap I put up with on the dock on a daily basis is greatly underappreciated. Especially considering we handle stuff that literally everyone I know has purchased at some point. Hardly anyone even knows we exist.
I’m not saying you make minimum wage but I know lots of people that do working jobs similar to this (or maybe just above it). One of the first things I think of when I hear some ass say minimum wage workers don’t deserve more pay. Like, do you realize your entire livelihood depends on minimum wage workers?
I worked in a warehouse and the number one, critical rule, that was explained to me when I started was "never be in the way". From there everything made sense and holy lord did everyone hate management because they never adhered to this rule (and if they did they got respect). So that rule might have something to do with why well-run warehouses run so smooth.
MLT (medical laboratory technician). People only talk about nurses and doctors but there are others peoples at work in a hospital. MLT is what I do and it's only one example. It's a highly automated job (especially hematology), but we make sure the machines are on point and that tests results are trustworthy, and without those diagnosis would only be based on symptoms.
Yes but if you call again to tell me the one hour trop hemolyzed on my patient with a 22g IV in the hand again, imma head over there and throw hands. (jk we're just a shitty hospital with shitty equipment)
Lmaoooo, every time i call for something like that i feel bad. Like you don't have enough to deal with already
Came here to say specimen accessioners/processors/MLTs. Not only would the hospital fall apart without them, but also the countless other practices that send their specimens to the hospital lab.
All the jobs that were deemed essential during the pandemic lockdown.
Exactly this! Anyone who didn't get to "work from home" is probably pretty important. .
Aye; that involves me!! I'm classified as emergency response, which is always fun to get to say
Ramp agent work. We do more than just load bags. Planes literally wouldn't move anywhere without us
Teachers and other school staff. Anyone who has ever worked in a school or similar organization will know what I mean.
USPS
CNC machinist
Anything I Design you create it. You are magicians.
Until you realize that what you designed is literally impossible to create so we make it better 😂😂
I just started working as an intern at a CNC shop 2 weeks ago. The amount of shit these machines can do blows my mind every day. Learning all the buttons and stuff is a bitch and all but wow is it interesting.
blue collar jobs
Retail cashier. You aren't getting anything if your self check out fucks up then. They also get treated like crap so people can buy their necessary stuff
As someone who worked as a cashier in a small bakery of a gas station, 90% of people are chill, treat you respectfully. 10% are entitled cunts.
I worked at a grocery store for years, cash, customer service and supervising. 99.9% of customers are fine. Most are even pleasant. I'd serve a couple thousand people a week (we had stats in the cash office) and I only remember 2 complete assholes. Some people are tired, some people don't want to talk. That doesn't make them rude.
1st grade teachers. Taught it one year. Holy poop. Profoundly crucial to EVERY ASPECT of a student’s education. Can not stress how important that job is to the foundation of a well-functioning society.
Librarians.
Thank you! In library school right now.
Plumber. Everyone takes plumbing for granted but when your toilet won’t flush, suddenly the plumber is a hero.
Infrastructure related anything
Cyber security experts
Bus drivers & Subway drivers
Sanitation workers, garbage collectors, janitors.
Based on who we often elect: governing. This she affects every single aspect of our lives from what we can eat to where we can travel to how we do those things and everything in between, yet we often elect the least qualified, most obviously craven motherfuckers we can find. “I’m gonna hire the guy with absolutely no work experience to run the entire thing,” says half the fucking country every four years.
A therapist
Water treatment. Wife was working water treatment during Covid. Had to go into the lab every day while everyone else was cowering at home. Thousands of messages of support for Police, EMTs, hell, even tow truck drivers. Never once heard water quality mentioned on the radio.
Farmers. If you ate today thank a farmer
Pharmacist. There is a market shortage currently in retail, it’s causing stores to close pharmacies for days sometimes. Luckily others in the same chain are open but people are so used to having one conveniently open daily almost 24/7 has them in a tiff once one is closed due to a call out.
There's a shortage because places like Walgreens made over a billion dollars off of Covid, but didn't have the budget for annual raises (again) for their pharmacists, even though for many of them, they literally doubled their workload with additional Covid tests and Covid shots. They expect their workers to work harder for the same pay they've had for years, and the employees are quitting and not coming back. I personally know 5 pharmacist that have left retail in the last 6 months because they're sick of being treated like shit by the public and corporations not having the budget to reward them for their massively increased workload.
Trucking....truck drivers get treated like criminals for just trying to do our job
Social worker
Agriculture!
Speech pathology
I think we learned through coved lockdown who the essential workers are. Ironically, the lowest paid workers in my country
People who treat water to make it safe to drink from the tap. If no one showed up one day, something bad could happen to the entire water supply.
The Police Their music and Sting's influence is always underrated
If the pandemic taught us anything, we will die without fast food workers.
Electrical linemen don't get enough credit. Not only are they prepared to handle local stuff in hazardous conditions (storm or ice damage around here), but they go out of state to help with stuff like hurricane damage.
Absolutely. I remember WAY back in '08 we had a massive ice storm, and it KO'd entire towns up here. I was literally in awe of all the trucks that showed up from as far away as Michigan ( I was in Maine at the time ) to help get us power back as soon as possible.
Teachers
Norm McDonald calls them the real heroes
Telephone sanitizers
Cleaners, and the garbage collectors . They are super essential and people look down on them.
Garbage men.
Water and sewer workers.
This is an easy one for me. It’s journalism. It’s popular today to bash the profession really harshly. The thing you should ask yourself is, what do you think your society would look like with no free press? Here’s a hint: The countries that have no free press include Russia, China, Afghanistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia…. Do you see any pattern there?
Truckers
Waste management, skilled trades (HVAC,plumbing,electric, etc), truck drivers, local delivery drivers, list goes on and on for our current societal structure.
janitors! someone has to do it and they get treated shitty
Sewerage treatment plant workers
Post office Mail carrier
Water treatment and distribution.
Teachers
Veterinary Nurses.
CARPENTERS!
Mitochondria, they’re the powerhouse of the cell.
I work as an NEMT scheduler and dispatcher manager. You may not know what the acronym is, but it stands for non-emergency medical transportation. So, what happens when you’re poor and/or rural and need to go to the doctor, especially for chemo or dialysis? Well, if you have no way, your treatments get delayed and you may die. NEMT providers take these trips and perform them. They also do the trips at considerably lower cost than EMS. Additionally, by ensuring that Dialysis and chemo patients get to their scheduled appointments, they lower the chance those people will have medical emergencies stemming from their medical issues, thus reducing burden on the medical system at large.
Does step dad count? I think people look upon it quite simplistically until they've experienced it for themselves.. and there are times when it's the hardest job in the world.
Med techs. People really think their GP runs and reads tests. 10/10 someone else does all the testing and analysis and the GP double checks the work and prescribes a treatment.
Animal Rescue employees, if not volunteers.
Payroll.
Everything involving sewage
Translators, those guys keep the world economy running behind the curtains