"It Would be so Much Fun to Work Here!" Said the Idiot

[Misty]

If I had a nickel for every customer who commented that working at the yogurt shop would be fun, I'd have...a quarter. I don't know whether to laugh at them or smack them.

Sure, from where they're standing working here looks like fun. You swirl tasty yogurt all day long and serve it to shiny happy people, while in the back room tiny fairies mix up fresh batches of yogurt and rainbow-colored unicorns poop out an endless supply of colorful candy toppings. What they don't seem to realize is that this is a job, and like any other job, it sucks.

Let's see how much fun they think the job is after they spend a few hours washing dishes and cutting fruit; even the "fun" jobs like swirling yogurt gets pretty tedious after the first hundred times. And let's not forget the customers; let's see how they handle the giggling teenagers, the little kids who change their minds a dozen times in thirty seconds, and the customers who decide that you are responsible for everything that's wrong with their lives.

You want to have fun? Go to an amusement park. Then tell the employees how much fun it must be to work there and watch their heads explode.

[Pixilated]

I think every job looks "like fun" or "great!" from the outside. Nothing like familiarity to rub all that gloss off, though!

Love your descriptions and flights of fancy, especially the rainbow-colored unicorns pooping out the candy toppings.

[fireheart]

Sure, from where they're standing working here looks like fun. You swirl tasty yogurt all day long and serve it to shiny happy people, while in the back room tiny fairies mix up fresh batches of yogurt and rainbow-colored unicorns poop out an endless supply of colorful candy toppings. What they don't seem to realize is that this is a job, and like any other job, it sucks.

Don't forget, they only come in one flavour: chocolate

Otherwise,

[ozcatbug]

You want to have fun? Go to an amusement park. Then tell the employees how much fun it must be to work there and watch their heads explode.

Working at the World of Dreams on the Gold Coast, that statement would be heard several times a day, or its variant "Working here must be a dream". My response was typically, "Yes it is a dream to work here. A nightmare."

[Syriilord]

rainbow-colored unicorns poop out an endless supply of colorful candy toppings.

Don't forget, they only come in one flavour: chocolate

Yeah, but they're 20% cooler

[Seshat]

Even (fiction) writing and art, when they become jobs, can get difficult and tedious.

[Bright_Star]

Too many people think that working at a place like that means you can have ice cream & stuff whenever you want for FREE. It doesn't work like that.

[XCashier]

Too many people think that working at a place like that means you can have ice cream & stuff whenever you want for FREE. It doesn't work like that.

Even if you did, you would get tired of it PDQ.

I get those people at the fabric store, too. "Oh, it must be so much fun to work here and play with fabric all day!" Well, it's better than many jobs I've had, true. However, after an eight-hour shift of cutting and reshelving fabrics, many of which are difficult to cut (thick corduroy, chenille, the dreaded burlap, etc.) or have the shelves too tightly packed, your feet hurt from standing on that hard floor (we have floor pads, but they're decades old and nearly as hard as the floor itself!), your back aches from bending over a slightly-too-short cutting table and your wrist hurts so badly you have to drive home steering with your non-dominant hand. We won't even go into dealing with idiots, non-planners and EWs. Yep, such fun.

[NateTheChops]

I'll admit to thinking that myself on a number of occasions. Or at least I'll see a job in a place I'd love to work and I'll be so in love with the idea of it that I forget that there are aspects of the job that would probably get annoying quickly.

Typically I keep those thoughts to myself though. Because I still wouldn't mind working in places like bookstores or movie theaters.

[AyreBiskits]

oh man, i never think that about somebody else's job. only time i would even come close to thinking that would be if someone totally loved their job and enjoyed doing every aspect of it, like it was their dream job and wouldn't consider doing anything else.

you know, it's kind of like this: the most beautiful woman in the world will always have somebody tired of her sh!t. Dream jobs might look great on the surface but you know there's some parts of the job that have to suck.

[wagegoth]

I ran a yogurt and ice cream shop back in the early days, the mid-80's, so long and long ago.

1. It's just like any other restaurant: hours of cleaning, whiny complaining customers, working shorthanded, continuous inventory control, low ROI, etc.

2. I still have a hard time going into an ice cream shop as the smell of sugar and cream seems to clog my nose and brings back horrible memories.

3. Pushy salespeople drive me nuts. I have an issue with people who ignore me when I say, "No," and since the shop it is an absolute hot button. Want to see me go into ice queen laser eyes mode? Ignore me or keep pushing after I say, "No."

4. I lost weight while working at the shop. As noted above, the smell got to me, and it was a lot of physical work. The smell of Dreyer's bubble gum ice cream is a guaranteed stomach churner. A quart of Breyer's french vanilla can sit in my freezer for months.

[Lace Neil Singer]

When I worked at the pet store, I often had people thinking mine was a fun job. "OMG! You can cuddle fluffy bunnies all day!" Er, no. However, I do get to clean out said fluffy bunnies which is nowhere near as much fun as cuddling them would be.

[MoonCat]

Same thing happens when you tell people where you work and they ask, "Do you like working there?" I mean, it pays the bills, but after this many years it's like spending 8 hours a day, 5 days a week with a big, dysfunctional family. And that's not even including the customers.

[fireheart]

However, I do get to clean out said fluffy bunnies which is nowhere near as much fun as cuddling them would be.

Wait, so you give them enemas?

I did get to hold one a kitten at the pet shop once. It then kept trying to climb over my shoulder.

[simplyanother]

Stay at home moms addicted to scrapbooking think that working at the craft store would be zomgAWESOME. "I would spend my whole paycheck here!" Which is true, because you'd probably only get about 4 hours a week...