6 Silly Sounding Jobs That Are Way Harder Than You Think

6 Flight Attendant

What People Think:

Flight attendants read the safety instructions and hand out snacks, then they say goodbye to people as they leave the plane. Hell, airlines don't even need to hire people for this job -- couldn't passengers just take turns doing that shit?

Otherwise, it's all about traveling around the world, yet never having to sit still for hours at a time. Flight attendants get to meet all kinds of exciting people and get on the plane before all the other assholes. It's like being on vacation all year round, only they get paid.

The Reality:

You may not realize it, but flight attendants are basically the airplane equivalent of those rhesus monkeys NASA used to launch into space. As they take your crap with big, fake smiles on their faces, you might notice that those faces are flushed and sweaty because flight attendants are very likely to get sick. In fact, their health is so poor that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention actually has an entire program that examines and evaluates flight crews for things like infectious diseases, mold and the constant barrage of cosmic radiation that affects every flight (most of us don't fly enough to be affected by it).

Honestly, how many of you have a job so crappy that scientists study you to determine the experimental mystery diseases you might catch just by showing up for work? And to be clear, this isn't just a preventative measure in case something happens in the future -- most flight attendants rate their physical health from "fair" to "poor." Being packed into an airtight tube with 200 other people every day will make you sick.

As for how the job affected their mental health, on a scale of 1 to 12 (with 1 being "I'm cool" and 12 being "You probably had to slide this test under the door of my padded cell"), most ended up with a score of 6 or higher. In total, 17 percent of flight attendants showed signs of psychological distress. The biggest complaints were low job satisfaction and sexual harassment by passengers.

Then there's the being-away-from-home part. If flight attendants have families, they might as well leave them all in the woods and hope some kind wolves raise them, because they're going to be staying in hotels most of the time and spending about 80 to 90 hours a month in-flight. That's not counting the time they spend waiting in the airport and things like that.

And, of course, if we're going to talk about flying, we have to mention terrorism. (It's a law. Listen carefully next time you see Starscream on The Transformers.) Nowadays, flight attendants have to be trained to spot suspicious activity and, in case shit gets real, they have to know self defense as well. Plus, if someone gets sick or hurt, they have to be fully trained in first aid and CPR. How much is a free flight to Barbados once a year worth to you?

Then there's the everyday stuff. Like everyone else who works in customer service, flight attendants have to put up with dickheads, some of whom will apparently do things like kick them if they don't bring another drink. Only it's worse, because airline customers are probably going to be some of the shittiest to deal with, since no one likes all the bullshit that goes along with flying.

5 Professional Wrestler

What People Think:

Professional wrestling is a contact sport with no contact -- a sissy slap-fight with nonsensical story lines and amateur acting. It's more dancing than fighting, elaborate moves that are designed only to look cool while missing the opponent completely. And that ain't real blood; they just suck at opening those little ketchup packets from McDonald's.

The Reality:

They die early. And we mean there's a really good chance a professional wrestler will die before 50.

First, try willingly falling onto a stage made out of wood and steel dozens of times a week, then let us know how it feels. But, OK, you could have guessed that part -- we've covered how difficult it is to wrestle before, including what it's like to continue performing with broken bones. But to many a wrestler, going out there and performing is the easy part. Everything else about the job separates the overly muscled men from the overly muscled boys.

Take the daily grind, for one. As recently as the late '90s, it was not uncommon for wrestlers to be on the road 300+ days a year and to go months between days off. Today, things have softened, and full-time wrestlers are only on the road about 250 days a year. Babies.

This rushed and unrelenting travel schedule can bring even the toughest hard-asses to their knees. Tons of wrestlers, including legit tough guys like Brock Lesnar and Nathan Jones (the latter of whom had served seven years in maximum security prison), quit the business mainly because of the travel schedule.

If they survive the brutal travel schedule, there's a good chance professional wrestlers will end up crippled or dead. Drug use has always been rampant in wrestling, as it's the only way some of these guys can survive the grind and deal with the very real injuries they regularly work through due to having no insurance or benefits offered through work. Steroids, sleeping pills and hard-line painkillers are all readily available, and the results are not pretty. An extensive study focusing on wrestlers from the early '80s to today reveals that the death rate for wrestlers age 45 and younger is higher than for most any other job, unless there are a ton of up-and-coming volcano inspectors out there we haven't heard about yet.

Then there's the brain. Taking a steel chair to the cranium happens all the time in wrestling -- and yes, they are making contact -- and many moves involve wrestlers being dumped on their necks and heads. Concussions are commonplace and, unlike in the NFL, the show does not grind to a screeching halt if somebody gets hurt midmatch. Brock Lesnar reports not being able to remember the ending to his WrestleMania match with Kurt Angle, as he had knocked himself loopy during a failed finishing move near the end. He went on to win the match. While blacked out.

Chris Nowinski suffered over a half-dozen concussions in a two-year career. They studied Chris Benoit's brain after his death and concluded that he had traumatic brain damage and dementia equal to that of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient. He was 40.

4 Costumed Mascots

What People Think:

They're furry cheerleaders who don't look nearly as good in a skirt. Mascots are seen largely as silly entertainment for the kids, who just love to watch grown men dressed as various anthropomorphic creatures doing the Pee-wee Herman big-shoe dance because the home team just scored a run.

The Reality:

You probably wouldn't last one minute inside that suit. To be a mascot, you need to be able to withstand working conditions so bad that the local elephant masturbator might send you a sympathy card. For one thing, that cute little costume you'd be wearing? It can weigh anywhere from 20 to 30 pounds, far more if it rains, and that doesn't include the big-ass head. Lugging around the giant Mr. Mets head day in and day out could quickly snap your neck if you don't keep it in shape.

And even with a fan inside, temperatures in the suit can get to 113 degrees or more, resulting in quick dehydration or heat stroke if you don't excuse yourself repeatedly for water. This must be done strategically, of course, since nobody's allowed to see you with the head off, least of all a bunch of dumbasses who just have to have their picture taken with the dying man dressed as Tigger right now.

So now you have a heavy, wet, furry suit that makes you feel like you're being cooked alive. That suit now smells like a worm's asshole, and you can never wash it. The material won't allow a good scrub, so you can only dry-clean it. This does diddly squat for the smell, which is why mascots will almost never wear another mascot's head. As an NBA mascot put it, "If you put within a foot of you, you might gag."

Then there are the injuries: yes, the skinny kid in a giant gopher suit is just as likely to get hurt as any athlete. A study of pro sports mascots revealed that more than had suffered a heat-related injury, 44 percent complained of chronic lower back pain and about 20 percent sustained knee injuries at work. And not just sport mascots, either: more than a third of the 1,900 people working at Disney World in 2005 suffered some sort of injury.

For all this, mascots typically pull in $60 or so per night, even at the major league level. The surly kid at 7-Eleven who spits in your coffee and reads magazines all night pulls in more than that.

3 Golf Caddy

What People Think:

It's the dude who carries the golf clubs for the golfer, right? When most people think of a golf caddy, they think of a doofy kid getting treated like shit by rich people for extra cash over summer vacation. They get to haul around a bunch of clubs, begging for tips, and when a golfer hits a ball into a water hazard, it's up to the caddy to wade in there and get it.

But if their golfers do well and they keep their mouths shut, chances are the caddies can score a few bucks, at least. Also, they get to listen to people with real jobs talking, so maybe they can use that someday when they're not freaking caddies.

The Reality:

There are really two different jobs here -- professional caddying is much different from the stuff the high school dropouts and the insanely old dudes do at the local country club. They still have to carry all of the golfer's shit around, fetch the balls and keep everything clean, but at that level they're basically professional sports coaches.

You've probably seen caddies in movies recommend a club to a player for a certain swing. In those movies, it looks effortless, like it's just a hunch or something. In reality, though, it's all about knowing everything about the course and the player's abilities, style and equipment. Oh, and good old-fashioned math. It takes constant study, and it helps a lot if the caddies are former pro golfer themselves, which is totally a thing.

Think of it like playing a golf video game, except the caddies have to figure out all the shot arrows and wind meters in their heads, then tell it to someone else.

And nobody even knows who you are. Think about it -- when a basketball or football team does well, the coach becomes a celebrity. Even if you aren't a sports fan, you've heard the names Vince Lombardi and Mike Ditka. On the flip side, have you ever heard of Tony Navarro? How about Allistair Matheson, or Damon Green? Tiger Woods is one of the most famous athletes in world history -- do you know who his caddy is?

Speaking of which, if you actually do start to get a little famous as a caddy, you might find yourself fired. Tiger fired his first PGA Tour caddy, Mike Cowen, when Cowen started to get slightly too popular.

Oh, and did we mention that caddies have to pay for their own food, travel and accommodations to get to all those golf events throughout the year, which generally uses up about 1/4 of their annual salary? And that they're also the golfer's unofficial bodyguard, keeping autograph-seeking fans away from the player while they're trying to do their job and, if necessary, taking away noisy cameras and throwing them in a lake?

Caddies do all that, yet most of the people watching on TV don't even notice -- they figure the guy just came with the cart or something.

2 Food Critic

What People Think:

Food critics get paid to eat and bitch about it. This sounds like one of the cushiest positions in the world, especially since most critics get reimbursed for the food they order. In short, it's free food with pay on top of it, and food critics are expected to be snide about the whole thing.

The biggest danger this job poses seems to be the potential for overeating and ending up face-first in a pile of spaghetti, like the glutton in Se7en.

The Reality:

Your bad review can ruin some family's business -- and they know where to find you. At least one critic has been threatened with a gun over a bad review. Another has been beaten bloody by the owner's associates (i.e., mob goons) over several bad reviews; to be fair though, he probably shouldn't have posted on his paper's website where he would be dining that night.

You can't think of this as Michael Bay threatening Roger Ebert with a shotgun over a bad review -- they're both famous, that's not going to happen. But as a food critic, you are literally going into enemy territory -- a business owned by some regular guy who you don't know -- assessing the fruits of his labor, and telling everyone in your readership whether or not to give that business their money. That restaurant owner's ability to pay his mortgage can lay on what you write, and you don't know how he's going to react.

Not wanting to become the next bloody statistic, many a critic will go to work in disguise and assume a false name -- whatever is deemed necessary to stay anonymous. But shit happens, especially when you have an entire industry like Eater devoted to outing you and ruining your career. Longtime L.A. critic Irene Virbila, operating under the not-at-all-suspicious name of "Fred Snow," was discovered after a worker presumably woke up and realized that Fred is not a girl's name. She was photographed, kicked out and banned from the restaurant forever, and her photo was spread all over town so every restaurant in the area knew who she was.

It can almost be likened to being an undercover spy. But instead of riding knee-deep in smoking-hot foreign babes who initially want you dead but eventually succumb to your ultra-suave charms, you get endless club sandwiches and pissed-off restaurant owners who in no way want your sex.

1 Casino Dealer

What People Think:

What could be easier? Casino dealers stand at the table, give out the money when people win, take it away when they lose, entertain the people a little and just generally look awesome. They get to meet powerful people, possibly even celebrities, and they have a good chance of getting huge tips when someone strikes it rich. Also, when no one's around, they can sit at the table and pretend they're the Dos Equis guy.

The Reality:

Of course, there's a lot of math involved, for starters, and while most of it is pretty simple, it's a constant thing. And dealers can never make a mistake. When they're dealing with high-stakes stuff, they've got to be able to tell, at a glance, how much money is stacked on the table (not to mention who it belongs to). And maybe they're running games like craps, where they sometimes have to pay out in weird ratios, and you can see why they might be tempted to break out a calculator.

But worst of all is the customers. This isn't Walmart cashiering. When real money is on the line, people lose their fucking minds. Dealers are frequently insulted (and sometimes even spit on) by sore losers. And if some dude comes up with his life savings and wants to gamble it all away? The dealers can't turn him away. That's a fun story for the grandkids.

Then there are the high rollers, the folks the casino management loves and will do anything to keep happy. If a high roller wants a booster seat made out of Twizzlers, the casino is going to do its best to get it for her. If a high roller wants to piss under the dealer's table, well, apparently that's OK, too, as an ex-Atlantic City dealer once discovered when a man who was winning "relieved himself" under the table so he didn't have to give up his hot streak.

Even death won't stop a high-stakes game. When a man dropped dead at a dealer named Vinnie Springer's table, no one stopped playing. They just rolled his ass under the table and kept right on going. According to Springer, the players didn't even break stride when the paramedics came to remove the body 15 minutes later. You think your job requires dedication? When's the last time you had to keep working with a dead guy at your feet?

Jason can be found via Tumblr, Facebook and (if you catch him the one day out of a hundred he actually posts there) Twitter. To read more from Ashe, check out Weird Shit Blog and Film School Rejects. He also wrote a short story for a charity anthology which you can buy here.

For more modern jobs you don't want, check out 6 Dream Jobs That Would Actually Suck. And check out how employers of some even worse jobs get people to work for them.

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