We all have our dream careers. When we were younger, we wanted to be a conglomeration of things. I, for one, went from wanting to be an actress, to a veterinarian and then eventually to a famed novelist. Now, I’m not quite sure what in the world I want to be, but at least I am close the my latest child dream of wanting to be a writer, perhaps. In any case, we have dream jobs. The lucky, or you may say extra-hardworking individuals, are currently working their dream jobs now. On the other hand, some people finally squeezed their way into their dream career only to find out that it was one big sham. This can be a really tough situation to weather, so before you consider plowing through the rubble to reach what you think your dream job is, first consider the five most overrated careers of today.
Teacher
To see this career on the list, and at number one mind you, is pretty devastating for me, personally. However, please bear in mind that this is a list drawn together by Yahoo! and should in no way change your mind if any of these careers are where your passion lies. So anyways, the average annual salary of a teacher is about $55,000. The reason a lot of people think they want to be a teacher is because they dream of once again having a summer vacation and ending their days at 3:15 p.m. Oh, and the joy of shaping the minds of our future leaders. However, a lot of people tend to forget that teaching kids and young adults doesn’t mean you just work with the kids. You have to deal with parents, school boards and increasingly restrictive lesson plans. Plus, the kids leave at 3:15 p.m., but if you have papers to grade or essays to read, your work day carries over to the night pretty often.
Chef
I have to be honest here, at one point I wanted to be a chef as well. Thinking of all the delicious food I could make and just feeding people awesome food sounds more than great. However, there is a lot more to being a chef than just making and serving gorgeous and delicious food. Yahoo! reminds us that chefs must also run the kitchen. You have to set schedules and make sure that your kitchen is fully stocked with what you need at all times. Failing to be organized can end in disaster for your kitchen and the restaurant you cook for. Imagine going to a restaurant and seeing something great on the menu, but the server tells you that you can’t order that because they currently don’t have any feta cheese. Even though feta cheese is one of the best cheeses ever, it’s not because everyone loves feta cheese that there’s none left. It’s that the chef forgot to stay on top of things and they ran out. The average annual salary of a chef is around $45,000.
CEO
Everyone thinks they want to be the CEO of a company or even of their own company. You picture sitting in your top-floor office with a dry bar in the corner and a secretary to answer your calls. Plus, you’re at the top so all the work is being done below you. Take a second here and wake up! Most CEO’s work very, very hard and keep extremely long hours. If the health of a company rests in your hands, you can’t really just sit back with your feet up and revel in your office view. You can, but when you finally do this it likely comes after a 10-hour work week or a successful merger you slaved over for months. CEO’s work very hard and their jobs are often very stressful. They may make on average an annual salary of $173,000, but that salary comes at a price.
Lawyer
Until I saw this on the list, I forgot that I wanted to be a lawyer too. “How fun it would be to argue all day”, I thought. “To prove my point and back it up with all of the evidence I amassed.” On TV, lawyers are rich and savvy and they are always in court pleading cases. However, in reality lawyers are not always in court and in fact spend most of their work slaving over documents and evidence in order to find holes in their case. They have to write a ton and must meet a plethora of deadlines. On top of that, being a lawyer can be very stressful. They make an average annual salary of about $129,440, but it’s definitely no easy task. Lawyers are dedicated and put hours upon hours of work into their cases.
Doctor
As the number five most overrated career, this one doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Of course, like lawyers, TV shows show the glamorous, dreamy side of being a doctor but also fail to mention the unappealing side of the profession. As a doctor, you likely work long, odd hours and most work more than 50 hours a week. Not to mention you are usually on-call, depending on what kind of doctor you are. Plus, the amount of time and money doctors put into school is just astounding. They may make an average annual salary of $180,870, but once again that money comes at a high price.
While some of these professions may be very overrated for the most part, if this is where your passion lies by all means go for it. Just because some may say that these careers are overrated doesn’t mean they aren’t really great careers. Most of these jobs are extremely rewarding careers, if it’s truly what you want to do. However, if you find that you were thinking about pursuing any of the above careers because it looks great on TV or paper, then perhaps you should consider a different career.
SOURCE: Yahoo!
IMAGE: Courtesy of Personal Branding Blog
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