Which career choice, in your opinion, causes the biggest disappointment/disillusionment when you actually start working in the field, contrasting with the preconceptions you had before you chose that path?

Most of them, but probably at the very tip top I would vote for lawyer as THE profession best suited to smothering idealism.

Any job portrayed on popular TV shows like criminal minds

Teaching. Teachers think they’re going to teach, to develop young minds… and they end up managing paper. When I worked as an LTD counsellor, it was teachers teachers teachers and professors all with problems brought on by what I’d call disillusionment and frustration.

At least for me, working in CPA firms was the most miserable thing I’ve ever done. The workload was burdensome; the stress literally made me physically ill; the hours were long; the pay wasn’t nearly enough to compensate for any of these things.

I think this is true for many professions. Studying a subject is so very different from working in a field.

Then, there’s always the good ol’ Peter Principle—the better someone is at his job, the sooner he’ll be promoted out of it. A brilliant professional gets a brief window to use her knowledge, then she has to supervise other staff or even run an entire department or subdivision. Talented people who truly love architecture, engineering, accounting, etc. find themselves working as managers, something that they might dislike and lack the skills to do.

Almost anything can be disheartening.

I know people who have who have gone to Med school and even practiced as doctors and became depressed and disillusioned.

I know a bunch of teachers who were idealistically motivated to ‘save the world’. They lasted a couple of years.

I have one relative who got his MSW and was a social worker for 15 years – became depressed, and became a stockbroker.

Major media. Everyone thinks it’s fun all the time, it’s actually just work like any other business, with a few perks thrown in on rare occasions.

Although in a previous post I said ‘helping mentally challenged’. Sounds great, in reality it was depressing and VERY hard emotionally.

Writer Francis Brett Young coined the phrase creative accounting in 1940 because accounting gets boring real fast until you start creative accounting. Then you go to jail.

Teachers.
My daughter in law is a 1st grade teacher, and she has horror stories.

Well there’s the military.

And the CIA.

Probably running for elected office and at some point being threatened/blackmailed/forced to submit to agents of corrupt powermongers.

Teaching. At least to go by a couple of friends of mine. One (actually a former teacher of mine who I’ve maintained a friendship with over the years since) was, by the end, simply ticking off the days until he could take early retirement. Another friend, one around my age, quit teaching after three years.

Most jobs that are glorified. I for one never thought my job would be so stressful.