The Horrors of the "Professional" World - Stories that will make you wonder how we exist.

[God Emperor]

So people think the art industries are gonna be magical fantasyland and save them from working people's problems but it turns out is an actual career with the same woes all careers have, then they get perpetually sour grapes about it.

Basically, yeah, that sounds about right, except it's NOT a problem all careers have, or even most careers for that matter.

I've worked plenty of other jobs, and I no longer work in a creative industry - all of the problems associated with being an artist went away when I switched careers.

I work in health care now, and it's basically like being retired by comparison; the work is easy, steady, well paying, and predictable which is the case with most jobs.

 

[BIG BILL HELL'S]

The term 'artist' could be applied to literally hundreds of totally unrelated, and VERY different, careers.

Someone doing crappy graphic design work in house for a corporation's advertisements, doing caricatures for fairs and corporate events, managing the graphics for a live broadcast, pouring through hours of footage for a reality television show to flag significant scenes, drawing pornography for degenerates online, creating assets for terrible mobile applications, painting murals for schools and businesses, selling your crafts online and at conventions, giving drunken housewives painting lessons, trying to stay awake in the control booth of a cruise ship theatre, working through the crunch animating for some terrible television series made for toddlers, composing a few seconds of music for a commercial selling car insurance, etc.

People think 'artist' and imagine someone in a jaunty beret painting nude models and being eccentric or cool, when the reality is more likely a fat young man alone at a computer reading emails about revisions, from some client with no taste or art training, and wearing a carpal tunnel brace.

For some reasons, kids think it's going to be fun and fulfilling working as a 'creative', and there are countless schools out there churning out thousands of graduates every year willing to work for literally nothing based on this delusion.

Later in your career clients will start coming to you and you'll have made enough connections to be contacted by colleagues when work comes up, but it's still feast or famine, and you never know if you'll be employed a year from today - you spend a great deal of time and effort looking for work, sending out your portfolio or demo reel, going to interviews, maintaining your online presence through social media, etc.

Studios and companies fold constantly, projects get cancelled half way through production, the grant or public funding ends, clients go bankrupt or refuse to pay and you have to take them to court.

Even when you're working, you're not actually being creative, in any sort of meaningful sense; you're working for a client, usually based on an existing property, with an entire team of people who all get creative input (so called 'design by committee').

Want to be an auteur with total creative control? Well, okay, then you better also learn to be a great entrepreneur, business manager, accountant, producer, and salesman as well because unless you control the money, and know where to find it, you're never going to be able to call the shots.

There are a surprising number of professional artists with wealthy spouses or parents...

Making a living as an artist isn't an impossible dream, provided you actually know what that entails.

...or go the Charles Ives route and be an office drone selling insurance for a living and being a musical pioneer on the weekends.

 

[totse]

...or go the Charles Ives route and be an office drone selling insurance for a living and being a musical pioneer on the weekends.

He knows what's up, turning a perfectly good hobby into a job is a mistake

 

[SITHRAK!]

I once worked for a company that rolled out an expensive nationwide advertising blitz for a retail product that hadn't been completed and made ready for release to the public. Our call center staff had to field three weeks of sales enquiries for a retail product that didn't exist.
That company closed its consumer arm and went back to wholesale-only operations as a result of the incredibly shitty management incompetence.

 

[neverendingmidi]

I once worked for a company that rolled out an expensive nationwide advertising blitz for a retail product that hadn't been completed and made ready for release to the public. Our call center staff had to field three weeks of sales enquiries for a retail product that didn't exist.
That company closed its consumer arm and went back to wholesale-only operations as a result of the incredibly shitty management incompetence.

Reminds me of a project I'm working on now. We were doing proof of concept testing (not even a prototype), and a sales guy comes in, sees this bare-bones setup that's just built to see if the sucker can pass thermal testing. Immediately demands we make it narrower in depth for sales. It was barely squeaking by thermals as it was, this adds several more months of thermal testing to try and meet said sales demands.

Now they want to ship these in August. This year. Note- we still haven't seen an actual prototype.

 

[Monika H.]

This one from my sister.
She works as manager in a somewhat costly place that delivers drinks, snacks and other stuff - not store brand, but custom made shit, from ostrich & champagne to sandwiches, cakes, etc.
Usual customers have a feature where they can just order with an app at discount rates and pay after two to three months.

In the last month and half my sister notes that a particular customer keeps ordering stuff unusual for an elderly woman like her: beers, fast-food like snacks, assorted soft and alcoholic drinks, etc.
She gets some doubt the lady got the account stolen but the delivery address is the same so her boss tells her to not worry about it.
Last week they get a call from the daughter of the customer, who's very worried about the costs accrued on the account and starts crying when she's told the debt is into the thousands of thousands of Kč (korunas).
Turns out grandma died teo months and the woman's daughter (the granddaughter) has been using her account like no tomorrow ordering shit every day.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Had a particular asshole customer recently. Guy calls in, has a whiny fat guy voice ala Boogie but gayer. He demands the phone number of a supplier. I've never gotten a call like this before where they immediately demand that so I was taken aback. I told him I need more info. He starts cursing me out. Very belligerent. Didn't give me any info to look up his account. I warn him to stop cursing at me or I will end the call. He goes, and I quote:

"You know what? I'm gay and you're going to give me special rights!"

Hung up on that one. First time I've ever heard of that.

 

[Kyururu-kun]

"You know what? I'm gay and you're going to give me special rights!"

Hung up on that one. First time I've ever heard of that.

Well, you did give him a special right. The special right to fuck off, that is.

 

[Sped Xing]

The owner of my company just introduced himself to me. He has done this at least twelve times in the two years I've worked for him.

I'm not even offended at this point. I think he should see a neurologist.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

A friend of mine has said that his workplace is letting them all back in to the office, but they have to have 3 negative coof tests per week or they're in quarantine.

This is despite cases and hospitalisations being in freefall in bongland due to the fact that we've finally done something competent with our vaccination rollout.

 

[neverendingmidi]

We now have to demonstrate our prototype to the customer sometime in June. As of today, the first of April, the prototype is a bare sheet metal frame with nothing in it. We’re supposed to do six weeks of testing before that point.

Ahahahaha, IDGAF, it’s done when it’s done you fuckers.

 

[Adamska]

We now have to demonstrate our prototype to the customer sometime in June. As of today, the first of April, the prototype is a bare sheet metal frame with nothing in it. We’re supposed to do six weeks of testing before that point.

Ahahahaha, IDGAF, it’s done when it’s done you fuckers.

Marketers and sales never learn that you never give a solid deadline until AFTER you consult the technical guys. Overpromising is just going to make sure that customer is not likely to have interest in buying from you guys again.

Fucking idiots. At least your boys want the widget to work.

 

[Stasi]

I have enjoyed coming back to work after lockdown. I guess the building my company is in got a new building manager. Dude just strolling around the place maskless and has a Nazi iron eagle tattoo on his arm (and wears a short sleeve top lol)

Everyone is a hero hunting white supremacists on twitter but no one saying shit IRL to the guy that looks like stone cold Steve Austin.

 

[Sped Xing]

Replace "artist" with literally any other career and is the same thing, there are millions of graduates for literally everything. Anything that's is usually mentioned as sucking for artist can be applied to any career just the same, there's still tons of jobs and opportunities for people who reach a good level. Careers in general are hard, take sacrifice, are not very glamorous and have too much competition.

Careers are for chumps. Any job where you're expected to not "be in it for the money" is for suckers. Don't be a maroon. Get a job, not a career.

 

[Maxliam]

The owner of my company just introduced himself to me. He has done this at least twelve times in the two years I've worked for him.

I'm not even offended at this point. I think he should see a neurologist.

If you fuck up and he gets mad, just pull a Homer and tell him it's your first day.

 

[lurk_moar]

Here's a horror story that just happened at work.

The nurse pulls blood off an IV and brings it down to the lab. I check and the labels are from a sickly old lady who has been in and out of the place, and she has already been drawn later in the day. I call the ER to find out the problem. Is the old lady coding really badly, and they need new lab results pronto which was why she was redrawn without calling the lab? The answer is big fat nope.

Turns out sickly, old lady was discharged, and the nurses forgot to toss her labels. They motherfucking left her labels in the room. Guess who the next patient was? A kid with one of those stereotypical generational names that every other boy has. How can they make a mistake this big. Those two names aren't even close. I tell the nurse that this is unacceptable and that I cannot accept these specimens. That kiddo needs to be redrawn. The nurse was like over my dead body that kiddo will be redrawn because it was already traumatic for him. They were like we need results right this instant because he is being flown out, and no fucking way is he being redrawn because us nurses fucked up badly. Nurse makes me speak with the nursing supervisor, same thing. The nurse even offered to come down and relabel the specimens. I was in a hard place, so I had to accept these mislabeled specimens. I feel bad about contacting my manager at home, but that was the right thing to do.

Edit: This. Is. The. Bloody. Second. Time. This. Year. That. I. Just. Had. To. Accept. A. Mislabeled. Specimen. Instead. Of. Throwing. It. In. Biohazzard.

I have been getting mislabeled specimens at least once a week it seems. This is why you should be more than happy when they keep on asking you your name and birthday all the time when you are getting medical care/attention.

 

[Michael_Jordan_Peterson]

Dont do anything on corporate owned machines. Have chrome block all credentials and use a third party app like bitwarden. I've had owners ask me to log into people's personal facebook or linkedin profiles after they were terminated. Change the password on your password app ASAP once you leave and if you sync to chrome, clear the passwords remotely. We don't know your Active directory passwords unless you give them to us, which you probably did but we can reset your password and log into your profile whenever we want where your chrome browser is just open to whatever some shithead manager would want to do with it.

 

[Seymour Glass]

Had a job doing an alta for a newly constructed parking structure. Discovered two pillars had shifted apart nearly two feet away from eachother and the elevations of the bottom of the pillars were several tenths high. Called my boss (whose degree is in soil not civil engineering) and asked what I should tell the client. He asked if I could chisel the concrete around the bolts of the pillar and make the numbers match. I still feel dirt about that alta.

 

[Road Work Ahead]

Heard this one from one of my supervisors.

Apparently there's a woman in right of way who's been preparing the same weekly report since the 80's. That's all fine and good, but nobody wants it, the person who requested it retired who knows how long ago. When they told her she didn't need to do it anymore she burst into tears.

She also prints out every email she gets so she can file them away....

 

[Feet Seeking Missile]

I used to work for a real estate company to get through college, and boy we had a lot of interesting tenants.

One of interest was a studio apartment I was showing to a group of very meek women. This was in the complex my boss called "the curry house", and you knew why the second you were within 15ft of it's steel door. In this particular studio, the place was absolutely trashed: rotting food everywhere, no furniture except an inflatable mattress, boxes all over the floor, cat food in every nook and cranny, you get the picture. This was pretty typical for studio apartments, and at this point I was unfazed. Until I was showing the prospective tenants the walk-in closet, which is about the only nice thing about these apartments. It had absolutely nothing in it except a 3 piece suit on a hanger and a japanese school girl outfit on another. It was so hard not to laugh.

There was a house that I was showing that was pretty nice. 6 beds, 3 floors and on my side of campus. It even had a driveway to park in, a blessing for someone doing showings. I met with the gaggle of students at the front door and did my usual routine of knock a few times, wait, knock, wait, and knock once more until opening the door and yelling "such and such realty I'm here for your scheduled showing" to be make it really obvious to anyone in the building. It's going well until when I go to the second floor bathroom (unlocked and I knocked again), open it up, and a naked girl screams at me. I'm flustered, but by then I was used to accidents happening like this. The group I was showing to was trying to hold back laughter.

The kicker is when I saw off the group, answered questions, and was ready to hop in the car to head back to mother base. I was blocked in the driveway by another car! In less than 10 minutes of being there! And from the parking pass they lived there. I knocked on the doors, no response. Called the office to call all the tenants and got nothing back. Until the girl I walked in on came out about 30 minutes later, fuming, and wouldn't even respond or look at me. Towel on head, peeled out of the driveway and left without saying a word.

I have tons of real estate horror stories if you're interested