If someone comments saying their actual current job, please be kind and thank them in a reply.
Teacher.
As a teacher, I have to say I do get a lot of thank you’s. I get Christmas presents, gift cards, coffee, and hand written letters/cards. Sometimes my students reach out and/or visit me after they graduate. I feel quite valued and thanked. I live in Canada, if that makes a difference.
My wife who is a social worker spends her days slaving over people’s cases and is repeatedly harassed, and has been assaulted countless times. Now that is a thankless job.
Yeah, I’d say living in Canada makes a huge difference. However, I think people answers “teacher” because, all things considered, it’s a very hard and valuable job, frequently an underpaid one.
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At my schools, we get appreciation from 80-90 percent of our families and campus admin. Much less from the people above that.
This is highly dependent on what age of students you teach. Elementary teachers get thanked by parents. High school teachers get thanked by graduating students. Middle school teachers…well, not so much.
When I taught middle school, I got thanked a lot, and not just at holidays.
Thank your wife for me. Social workers are the best people for so many reasons.
Thank you, teachers! o7
Youve never been thanked for being a teacher?
Drive-through window clerk gets thanked a lot, too.
This is a perfect response. I could never write anything this succinct :(
No, quite the opposite
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Waste pickers in the clothing canyons of Ghana, or any other landfill/wasteland
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Volunteer caregivers for people with disabilities, especially in places where there are limited or no social safety nets
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Street vendors like the children hawking goods in Yemen or Samoa or Zimbabwe…
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Cleaners, such as the Sewer divers in places like India where there is no protective equipment provided
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Food services workers.
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“Domestic” services workers like childcare, housekeeping, etc. I include victims of forced marriages here.
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All other exploited, outsourced, trafficked, and/or forced labour, such as the cobalt miners in Congo, or the clothing sweatshop workers in Bangladesh, or the Phillipines call centre workers, or the hazelnut pickers in Turkey, or construction labourers in Qatar, or the chaingangs in the US.
thanks for this very exhaustive list. this is the first time ive heard of sewer divers - with no PPE - sounds terrible.
Sudharak Olwe has spent a lot of time documenting the lives of “conservancy workers” in Mumbai. His entire body of work is worth a look, Content warning: Image 12 is extremely NSFL with the body of a human child, but there are also dead and dying animals in images 4 and 11 but here is one collection. The photo I see most frequently is the one of a worker neck-deep in a drain
Terrible is certainly a good word to describe it.
Klick on those links with caution, especially the collection is most definitely NSFL.
Oh goodness, I’m really sorry! I entirely forgot some of those pics were at that level. I’ll add a content warning to my post.
This is a great comment, and I believe the best addition to the thread.
I think you may really like this 4 part music/art video series.
Filastine - Abandon
From the description: Abandon bridges video art, documentary, and music to explore how we sell our time on earth, and how we could imagine to get free. Each of the four episodes profiles a unique personal revolt against low-valued work: an Indonesian miner, a Portuguese maid, American office workers, and Spain’s scrap metal salvagers.Thanks for sharing that! I confess dance is not really a medium I appreciate enough, but the music and filmography and overall sentiment were great. It reminds me of my favourite movie, Baraka.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s a beautiful collection of global footage with music, and arguably more optimistic than I am. But it was from 1992 when things did seem a little more hopeful. It’s in a similar vein to the Qatsi trilogy, which is more famous.
This is just one “Chapter”/song from it, but it’s something I think about often. It’s probably the saddest part of an otherwise emotionally varied film: Baraka: Dead Can Dance - Host of Seraphim (7mins 14sec) Unfortunately none of the people here are actors or performers though, except the Japanese Butoh dancers at the end of it.
I can’t help but wonder how many of these people have survived the last 30 years since this movie.
Baraka and Samsara are both amazing films
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/playlist?list=PLOgOGcIsnvZw7Fslm-afdYk-JHOsXclv4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
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Social media moderator
God I cant even imagine the shit they see. I saw a podcast episode of one and it just made me sad, think the podcast was other people’s lives
They don’t get thanked, they get PTSD.
It’s a long read, but very much worth it. It goes into detail about the types of material these people have to spend all day watching and reviewing, and talks in length about some of the unhealthy coping mechanisms these teams develop for themselves. Lots of drug use, sex in the office, and suicidal ideation.
While the article focuses mainly on Facebook moderators, I used to share an office with YouTube’s content moderation team around the time this article came out, and a lot of the article rings true for YouTube, as well. I imagine it’s similar across all the big platforms.
There was that whole fiasco with the CSAM issue very recently on Lemmy. All of those poor moderators had to deal with all of that.
I hadn’t heard about this, is there any posts about it?
a significant portion of my job is to moderate and provide first line direction of all the social media pages for a huge company that commissions my company. We dont do any marketing or real engagement just moderation and essentially telling people to reach out to customer service per big company’s poorly provided directions. I don’t particularly care much for big company’s product but ive seen some really nasty people with attitudes towards my and my coworkers as if we physically made and handed them a defective product. We do sympathize and understand a certain level of anger but there are some people who are just outright cunts. It doesent help that big company does big company things and barely has customer support so more of the anger is directed towards us social media people
If you’re a public moderator (eg. on reddit) you get thanked if you’re doing a good job.
But not nearly as much as you get verbally abused or defamed.
There are (or were) definitely some subs that were harder to moderate than others I’d imagine.
Gaming subs: Easy
Ask subs: Intermediate
Location-based subs: Hard
Political subs: Ironman
If you did politics I think reddit should have had to compensate you for the years lost deleting all the hate and bs.
It’s certainly thankless but is it a job if you don’t get paid?
Yes, definitely - being the caregiver for a child is often unpaid but still very much a job. Many volunteer positions are important jobs which are unpaid.
Cook.
Kitchen staff, for the most part, work long hours in chronically understaffed kitchens for very little pay. You get a break when things slow down and chances are you’re going to be eating, hitting the bathroom, and trying to get a little sit time in a milk crate out back in that short little window (hint, pick two of those, the third might not happen).
You get burned, cut, over heated, covered in filth, and breathe in noxious crap all day from stoves, fryers, industrial cleaning chemicals, and other things.
You, probably, and a lot of your coworkers are short tempered, sore, tired, and possibly on drugs or alcohol. You are surrounded by ideal weapons for hurting others and you will be in or see a fight every so often.
Wait staff pretend to like you but really they work shorter shifts, go home relatively unscathed, and make a fortune in tips. So you also dislike and resent them. You don’t want to but see above.
You work when everyone else is off so you end up hanging out with people in similar situations who aren’t always the best people for things like networking into a better job. They really like partying though, and who needs a future.
Then you get a little older. Maybe you are running a kitchen and finally don’t need to have roommates to afford the horrible apartment but you’re only there about seven hours in a row at any given time. You met someone through friends but they don’t see a future because you are always working.
Eventually, health issues force you to find other work and you claw your way to normalcy 15 years behind everyone else in retirement saving, salary growth, and so on.
Well fuck man I’m a senior in highschool and I was debating between culinary school and IT/engineering or something the like. Just made my choice a hell of a lot easier.
Oh shit. My daughter just started culinary school. Is there a fulfilling path forward for her?
Food is art and just like art the people that produce them often run on razor thin margins. Aside from being a celebrity or an extremely niche job like being a private chef I am not sure if there is a lot of culinary work that pays very well.
It’s certainly an excellent hobby and life skill (you’ll never be hungry again) but you can very easily learn that from home by watching other famous chefs.
Yeah, I’ve put a bug in her ear about some of the niche job paths. Private chef, test kitchens, etc. would love to see her win the lottery with something lush but know that is not to be expected. Thanks for your response!
I haven’t worked in the industry since the late 90s so maybe it’s better now?
There are positives. I learned that stress is transitory and I don’t have to give in to it. Staying calm and working the system is how you survive getting slammed (overwhelmed by orders). I was in charge of a kitchen as sous chef in my early twenties, hiring people, ordering the supplies and ingredients, preparing for banquets and events. This was a massive confidence builder. I learned how to work with people I literally could not stand, and got to work with people I would back up in any situation.
Plus your going to be a good cook for the rest of your life and that’s a big plus. You might not want to cook when you are not at work but you can and that’s great for family entertaining and your own personal enjoyment later in life.
I also traveled to places I never would have been able to go to if I wasn’t working there. I lucked out and worked in high end places, including one featured in the European Vogue Cooking magazine (meant something back then). I also worked in some dives.
I learned so much about people and myself. But you can do that a lot of other ways that pay better!
One last thing. With the exception of one or two really tough manual labor tasks I’ve done, no job has seemed hard after my time as a cook.
This is encouraging. Thing is, she’s on the spectrum. I could see that working in her favor or becoming something unmanageable. So far she is the star pupil according to chef and if she could just complete a two year program and feel good about that accomplishment, my heart would be swole.
Even if she walked away from it in a few years, if she took away half of the positives you did I would consider it a win.
Thanks, dude!
No worries, there other ways to work in food services. Breakfast cooking was a favorite of mine because I was mostly alone until 9 or 10 am in different hotels (you start at 5). Just you and the bacon. When breakfast is over it help with lunch and then you’re done.
Pastry and bakery shops are also usually much more professional environments where attention to detail and consistency are very important. I have worked in a few of these (once full time, mostly just helping out here and there as needed in hotels) and it’s nothing like the main kitchen.
You can also work in banquet venues where there’s less yelling and stress compared to a la carte cooking.
One thing I really liked is if you worked hard, helped others when they needed it, and did your share of the cleaning, and showed up days after day you were part of the crew. I worked with people that could barely read, lapsed philosophers, guy training to be a pilot, washed up old guys who didn’t know anything else, and we had each other’s backs. It was good a lot of the time.
Make her dethrone Rachel Ray and then do a show about cooking her remains.
She would do that. She’s twisted.
If she has good qualifications, she could cook in China in a city like Shanghai if she doesn’t want to get burnt out. They would give good working terms and conditions, they just want a foreign cook on the team. Moreover foreign cooks are very common in big hotels and can usually run the kitchen as the Chinese staff can still be pretty mediocre at Western dishes.
Extremely interesting. She’s really into Asian food (Vietnamese and Filipino) but has a natural talent for Tex Mex and soul-ish food. Thanks for the response!
I’d say so. My wife has a degree in culinary. She’s used it to work her way up the hospitality industry and is now a regional GM over a few hotels in our area.
I just left the restaurant industry after 10 years (mostly as a cook). This is too accurate, unfortunately 😐
Uhhhhh did you just read my autobiography? Graduated with a degree in culinary arts after high school whilst working in kitchens throughout the course of school. Worked my way up to district management in a metropolitan area. 15 years in I had zero life outside of work and nothing to show for my work other than crippling depression and addictions. Moved back home to start over. Got a 9-5 municipal job and I’m back in school working towards a doctorate in a completely different field. Never been happier in my adult life than the past 4 years that I’ve been out of the service industry. Fuck restaurants. It’s even ruined my ability to enjoy eating out. Doesn’t help that it costs a fortune now and 20% tips aren’t enough anymore. Also fuck the restaurant owners that take advantage of their staff.
I can enjoy a good restaurant but get really upset at crappy ones. I mean the kind of crappy you can detect with this kind of background. Like terrible menu choices that you know mean tons of frozen product or line cooks that have so many dishes to remember that they just wing it on half of them.
And I’ll never spend my own money to have someone else cook me a steak. :)
IT in so many ways in so many industries.
- “Everything’s working, so what are we paying you for?”
- “Everything’s broken, so what are we paying you for?”
At least it pays… usually
Honestly, not that well. I got out of IT because I could make double as a developer.
What do you mean? Software developer? That’s still IT. If you mean as admin then yeah it’s super thankless and pays not enough
Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs). These people do the grunt work at nursing homes. They change bed pans and wipe butts, they fetch things, help people stand and sit, and generally get talked down to by the lower level nurses. When I did ambulance transfer, they were the ones that actually knew the patient’s normal mental state, and how they’d been changing over time. All for minimum wage.
One of my old roommates did it. I work in patient transportation at the hospital, and two of my coworkers did it. All of them have talked about terrible the job was. And not even because of the things people think would be terrible. Like bed pans aren’t fun. But its part of the job.
But they’re understaffed, the managers suck because they’re all only interested in money, so they get mentally abused by the higher ups, they have to work over time to get things done so people don’t die but then get yelled at for working over time, etc. And all you said, it’s for shit pay. I don’t blame anyone for leaving those jobs. And it’s sad, because ultimately it’s the elderly who suffer from all of this.
My wife was a CNA until a few months ago. The pay rate has gone up to $12-15ish per hour at least but still terrible benefits on top of getting verbally beaten down by the nurses while getting physically beat up by the residents. Could make the same money with less risk of bodily harm working fast food
Speaking as a surgical tech: hospital janitorial staff, and sterile processing staff. They are INVISIBLE until something goes wrong, then everyone likes to bitch and point fingers, but they bust their asses constantly to keep us from becoming a giant pathogen cocktail. Hospitals would be fucking disgusting in the scope of like, idk, 2 hours, without those peeps.
Been a little bit since I put one of them in for an award. I think it’s time to flex my keyboard again.
Being poor. You pay the bills of the rich.
Poor persons credit card interest pays for the points rich people can easily gain and spend.
I’d imagine the margins on many cheaper products are better than the luxury version. Disney+ comes to mind where they want people to take the cheaper ad version because it earns disney more money.
Hell, the whole point of a credit score is so that poor people pay higher interest rates, allowing for interest rates for the rich to become more competitive.
Thankyou for your service
Tankless water heater installer.
You’re throwing downvotes! 😱
It’s thankless not tankless/s
Its tankies not tankless/s
Tank you!
No, that’s a tankless job
He’s talking about ultrasonic-cleaning those little gold things people hang around their collar
No, that’s a necklace job
He’s talking about connecting to work on the Internet over the air without any cables at all
Street/Parking Lot Cleaners.
Every night, I clean up:
- Styrofoam cups/cans/plastic cups & bottles
- tossed out left over fast food
- dirty diapers that someone couldn’t walk 7 feet through the Walmart parking lot to throw in an actual trash can
- empty boxes for: flat-screen TVs, Car seats, memory foam mattresses, or Amazon purchases
- disposable vapes
- trash bags that someone decided needed to be left in a parking lot instead of in a dumpster
- So. Many. Plastic. Hangers.
- receipts
- grocery bags
- candy wrappers
- Edit shattered glass, but it makes that gravel in a vacuum sound when the truck sucks it up, so that’s nice.
And the only time I get thanked is when my employer asks me to do extra work because there was a storm, another driver was out sick, another driver needed help on a site, or there was a big event that needed to be cleaned for/after.
Thank you for your work.
Thank you.
Thank you for doing this job !
I’ve learned shoppers in your country are messy pigs.
Garbage collector.
I only ever see mine from a distance and never get the chance to say thank you. My mum used to give them a tip at Xmas.
They should just swap the names for pickup artists and garbage men.
I thank mine all the time. You know how much job security I get from people constantly running into walls, or leaving the PTO on while driving?
Walmart greeters. They always say ‘thank you’ to you, but have you ever thought to thank them? I dont think so.
The ones in the town I live in check receipts of anyone who looks not like a white middle class family. It’s such blatant discrimination it’s not even funny
Thanks for… thanking me?
Get a real job
Health care aide. They get paid a pittance to clean up people who have pooped themselves. They should get 300 dollars an hour and a bottle of tequila per shift.
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I very much appreciate the work truckers do.
However, 90% of the people who cut me off just to go 10+ miles under the speed limit are truckers.
Like y’all are already going slow, why inconvenience 10 other drivers in the fast lane who are all going to pass you in 30 seconds.
Truck drivers aren’t even allowed to go in the fast lane where I’ve lived.
Does it stop them?
Who cares? Without trucks moving goods, we literally have nothing and society as we know it doesn’t exist.
“They can disregard regulation because what they do is important” is a terrible take
I always wave or nod to truckies. Truckies are the best.
And if one pull to the side so I can pass I flash my indicators at them when I’ve passed to say thank you.
Nobody said cleaners? Cleaners, and rubbish/trash/garbage collectors
Good booked called “A Decolonial Feminism” by Françoise Verges talks about the line of oppression which is defined by those which arrive at clean places and those that must make those places clean. Totally thankless and even exported for imperialism (sending trash to other countries to deal with for very little money, which they must accept because they’re already in poverty from Imperialism).
In the USA, garbage collectors are in the top 10 most dangerous jobs, due to injuries involving Dumpsters and equipment
A story from before I joined, someone was training and got pinned with a light pole. The vehicle cut him in half. Now we require backup cameras :D
