People Reveal 20 Professions That Are Constantly Underestimated

In my hometown, whenever there is a particularly bad bumper-to-bumper traffic jam, we say that the authorities would have switched off the color-lights and put up an ‘useless’ traffic cop instead and 99.9% of the time that is indeed the case.

#1 Lawyer here. The expectation that because you are a lawyer you know everything about every law everywhere. In reality most lawyers are highly specialised.

Image source: Bisjoux, Sony Pictures Television

#2 The US Coast Guard for fishermen and boaters. Usually there’s a pretty good working relationship between them, but some hate the Coast Guard for the various inspections they do. But the USCG is also the ones who will come out there in a storm to rescue them.

Image source: raym0ndv2, United States Coast Guard

#3 Dentists for sure

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#4 Lineman. Been called a lazy overpaid drug addict by old men I don’t even know. God forbid we go grab lunch or a coffee.

Image source: MaesterKyle, puhimec

#5 Child protection caseworker.

People generally hate us and vilify us but man when you need us you need us. Most people genuinely do not understand the work that we do (I work in Australia) and I have been chased out of houses with knives, punched, had abuse hurled at us, had my kids threatened the whole shebang but we never stop trying to keep kids safe.

Image source: Aliburns79

#6 Thanatologist, embalmers…any funeral workers really.

Image source: Nanyangosaurus

#7 Tow truck drivers

Image source: diasaurus1, Anyra22

#8 The guys *actually* trying to contact you about your cars extended warranty

Image source: PartTimePOG, wutzkoh

#9 Safety manager.

Everyone thinks they’re sissies that needlessly spend money and complicate things… until someone gets hurt or the company gets cited, then suddenly everyone wants to know what can and should be done to remedy the situation.

Image source: Spooky-SpaceKook

#10 Locksmiths, or people in general who know how to pick locks or how they work.

Image source: DuckJuice128, photovs

#11 All the trades guys. “They’re so expensive!!!”

Image source: Wolfie1531, polga2

Until that plumber shows up at 2am to prevent the sewage backup. Or the electrician that fixes an overloaded breaker panel, preventing a fire. Or the carpenter who builds the room for your toddler so you can get some sleep and *maybe* some sexy time.

Definitely tradesmen.

#12 Nurses.

A lot of people think they don’t deserve pay raises or think we’re not overworked, or that not much education is required but they don’t realize a 12 hour shift is 13 hours with patient handoff, most hospitals require a bachelors rather than associate’s, and a lot of hospitals stick a nurse with 6 patients which is extremely demanding and also dangerous for the patients and can result in a nurse losing their license if something goes wrong. Nursing is 100% either manual labor+ critical thinking or tedious charting, there is 0 downtime for 13 hours straight.

If nurses didn’t advocate for their patients, nobody would. Doctors treat the illness, not the patient. I’m not trying to downplay the importance of doctors or anything but if they actually had to take care of the patients they treat, the patients would be dead. Nurses are specialized in reacting to the needs of a patient and identifying underlying causes quickly.

EDIT: People are interpreting this wrong. I’m not saying other healthcare professionals don’t care about their patients or protect them, but doctors see 20+ patients a day in a hospital setting and spend around less than 5 minutes around each patient in most cases. (Yes they are taking care of their patients all day long but its by orders, virology, etc. They are barely with the patient at all unless something arises). My point is that nurses do nearly all of the direct medical care and CNAs do a lot of the daily living tasks. This isn’t the doctor’s fault its just a symptom of our broken healthcare system. If the doctor is not in the room with the patient for 23.9 hours out of the day, how are they going to do anything for their patient without a nurse first inquiring on the patient’s behalf?

Image source: pingasthrowaway

#13 Disease Intervention Specialist!!!

By state law, when you test positive or are exposed to a certain infection (in my work’s case, STDs), the state health department is required to reach out to you to follow up and make sure you have access to treatment, resources, answer questions, etc. DAILY I am cursed out (as if I’m the one who gave them Syphilis…), hung up on, told to never call them again…….until they realize they have no idea where to get treatment. Then they come crawling back, being as polite as ever, because they finally realized we’re literally just trying to help them get through a potentially scary/confusing situation.

Image source: birdwomanofalcatraz4

#14 I’ve been scrolling forever and haven’t seen this yet: Scientific research.

During downtime, we routinely get made fun of for doing “pointless” things like dropping balls down a waterfall or making people listen to sounds. Our staffing is small and we’re chronically underfunded, which only gets made worse when some guy in a basement thinks he knows more about climate change than someone with a PhD and politicians claim vaccines cause autism.

But then a catastrophe happens and suddenly everyone looks to us to churn out answers at 300% speed.

Image source: eekspiders

#15 Therapists.

Image source: oaksmokedtruffle, Rawpixel

I’m a licensed therapist. Even in this comment thread someone called therapists “glorified life coaches” which couldn’t be further from the truth. We are significantly more qualified. Everyone wants to s**t on therapists until someone gets hurt or hurts themselves and suddenly “Mental health matters! They should’ve had a therapist!”

#16 Plastic Surgeons.

Image source: darkysix, GeorgeRudy

My uncle is a plastic surgeon and he does only reconstructive stuff, fixing burn victims faces and stuff like that. But when people ask him what kind of doctor he is and he says Plastic Surgeon, they usually kinda scoff.

#17  Garbage collection workers. Without them, our streets would literally be overflowing with refuse, but people still talk down to them like they’re less than human.

Image source: BuffaloWings068, YuriArcursPeopleimages

#18 When I was a janitor I got a lot of hate for knocking out my 8 hour day in 4 individual hour long chunks of effort.

Image source: Electronic_Warning49, svitlanah

I Was always available for spills and got extra work done every day but spent another 4 hours basically chilling and management not once got on my case.

The other employees despised this until a customer’s colostomy bag somehow ruptured in the bathroom. From that day forward none of them gave a f**k if I was just hanging out on my phone.

#19 Paramedics for sure. Doctors and nurses spit on us and treat us like we have no qualifications. the media calls us ambulance drivers or ambulance workers.

Image source: breathlesstuna, LightFieldStudios

And whenever there are reports of the Healthcare crisis, you rarely hear about medics getting ground into dust due to call volume, its always about nurses and doctors.

TV shows only ever show medics being told what to do by cops, or just plopping a patient on a stretcher then disappearing.

The general public votes for policies that make us get paid like s**t.

Yet, when their family is dying at home or in a ditch, people beg us to help and cheer for us.

#20 Truck drivers. Everyone is either scared or annoyed at us, but good luck buying anything without truckers.

Image source: ExcellentPlay9684, Mint_Images