They are all in medical or medical-adjacent careers: nursing, radiology, pharmaceutical R&D, medical device R&D, etc. They are fields that seem to attract empathetic people who want to do good.
Let it be known that nursing saps your empathetic energy faster than any other customer service job. The main reason being that it’s just another customer service job (in the US)
My heart goes out to the good nurses. Putting up with people in general is incredibly draining, especially when they’re acting out while you’re trying to help them.
👆
and in the ways that’s it’s not customer service focused it’s so focused on flowsheets and tracking metrics that you have to constantly consciously remind yourself that the human in front of you isn’t just an object that you’re doing things to. It gets to a point that you’re wiping people’s genitals with the same efficiency as you’ll wipe down the bed when they’re done with it and some patients can tolerate that well enough but then every once in a while you get someone with sexual trauma. And that’s just one example.
Genuinely curious: do you tip your nurses in the US?
No, it’s not a tipped position. Not really supposed to accept gifts either (flowers/treats for the team are sometimes given but never supposed to be an individual gift of any real value.)
All those jobs are the most in demand to boot.
The nicest people I know are nurses and teachers. Although I think there are genuinely nice people in all professions. I know nice people in HR and IT too.
One is a teacher, one works in a college applications office and one works in a helicopter parts factory.
They deal with parents, helicopter parents, and helicopters. neat
As a teenager, my friends and family always told me I was the nicest guy they knew… and they were genuinely shocked when I joined the US military.
I came home after Basic Training for a couple weeks before moving to my first assignment and everyone was surprised I came back successful. They expected I would’ve been kicked out for being too nice. In fact, I earned Honor Graduate.
I didn’t know much about the military when I joined, except for what I’d seen in old war movies. But they had some amazing benefits that I couldn’t pass up, and my uncle, a retired service member himself, highly encouraged it. I got free medical and dental, free college education, my initial career field training qualified me for most of an associate’s degree in my field, free travel around the globe, free food/housing… and they paid me to do it all. It was the best deal I could get right out of high school.
My whole military experience was a lot different than I expected; I spent a lot of time correcting stereotypes about military service with my friends and family. I actually had a pretty good career and retired after 20 years of service.
I’ve noticed anecdotally that people who join the military are mostly either really nice people or really terrible
That is very true. Leaning more toward the terrible side, in my experience. However, the terrible people usually get out pretty early in their career, while the good people tend to stick around longer and make a full career out of it.
Not always the case; I’ve definitely met some terrible high ranking leaders in the military. But generally speaking, You need some solid core values in order to go far in your military career.
I guess it’s okay to join a terrorist org if it has good benefits 👁️👄👁️
Yes, this was one of the common stereotypes I heard a lot, mostly from anti-war people who only view the military as a war vehicle. Fortunately, I had no direct involvement in terrorism during my service. We mostly engaged in humanitarian aid. Publicly, we promote ourselves as a humanitarian service, and in my experience, that was the majority of what we focused on. But some people (like myself, initially) only know the military through war films and assume we’re just there to kill people.
That’s not to say the US is completely exempt from bad deeds. For instance, the Iraq War should never have happened and there was literally no reason for us to be there. That was a very bad call by Bush Jr., who expected we’d find something to justify our campaign into the country. (Note: we did not.)
We have regulations about what type of orders we have to obey and what orders we’re required to disobey. Thanks to the Nuremburg Trials, we know that “just following orders” is not an excuse to carry out horrific actions. So if we’re given an order that violates the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), we’re expected to ignore those orders, and depending on the situation, we may even remove the person who gave those orders from command.
Honestly, I’m glad I retired when I did. I served during Trump’s first term in office and it was a dark time for us. But he was mostly restrained by a majority Democrat government that time, so most of the fascist ideals he demanded got shut down.
This time around though, he’s running with a majority Republican government and they’ve given him a green light to do as he pleases. He even replaced the Secretary of Defense with an unqualified alcoholic National Guard captain. Completely circumventing the promotion programs we have in place to ensure only the best and brightest are allowed to hold those positions. You’d better believe I’d be abusing the hell out of that regulation to disobey unlawful orders if I was still serving.
So you ran PR for the murder machine then? What difference does it make. I’m not calling you an awful person for joining the military, a lot of people join really young before they have a developed understanding of the world and honestly, nationalist indoctrination (cultural osmosis if you want to call it that) plays a huge role. Despite that, serving in the US military IS an awful thing to do no matter the capacity in which you served. It is worth contextualizing the military through how it serves empire (regardless of who is steering that empire) and, through that, internalizing your role. The purpose of the US military is not humanitarianism, it isn’t world peace, it isn’t protecting American citizens. It exists to protect the interests of the American ruling class through violence. You helped do that. I am not asking you to beat yourself up about it, I am not even asking you to atone through actual community service. I just want you not to pretend that there is a single benevolent role that someone can play in a machine made for murder.
Are you serious? The US government as a whole is a terrorist organization. They have been responsible for untold amounts of death and destruction and suffering throughout the world for decades and they still are today. How many democratic governments have been overthrown and replaced with fascist dictatorships because of America? How many people starve to death because of American sanctions imposed simply because the country in question dared to disobey people who think they own the planet? You talk about Iraq as if it was a one-off, an outlier. Point to any random place on the planet and you’ll probably find the tentacles of America somehow involved.
If you were a member of ISIS, you would be considered a member of ISIS regardless of whether you were a janitor or secretary or worked in the cafeteria or you were a combatant. The analogy isn’t even too far off, given ISIS would not exist without the US. Humanitarian service, my ass.
If you were a member of ISIS, you would be considered a member of ISIS regardless of whether you were a janitor or secretary or worked in the cafeteria or you were a combatant.
By this logic, all Americans are terrorists, since they exist under the rule of the US government and haven’t risen up to overthrow it. Therefore, complicit in its actions.
Which, by the way, is the mentality I was regularly exposed to while living abroad. There are some countries that judge our entire nation based on the actions of our government and persecute any citizens of that country because of it.
The world isn’t black and white. Real life is complicated. You can’t make blanket statements against an entire group of people based on the actions of an organization. That’s just encouraging hateful and biased rhetoric toward people you don’t know anything about.
That’s a life lesson I learned while traveling the globe. Some people treated me like a hero when I arrived; some treated me like a terrorist. None of them actually took the time to know me. I was judged based on the actions of the organization I associated with instead of taking the time to witness how I was trying to influence that organization.
And the same could be said of other countries. We’d receive reports of terrorist cells embedded in the populations of third-world nations and be told not to trust the citizens. Yet most people I encountered in that nation were grateful for our presence and glad that we kept the local crime and violence at all-time lows, simply by being there.
I worked with Iraqi citizens who begged us not to leave their country because they hadn’t known peace until we arrived; there was so much violent and murderous infighting between the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds. And having a foreign military power in the area, especially one with our reputation, prevented a lot of deaths and gave local citizens a chance to rebuild and get back on their feet.
I don’t believe in violence. I don’t believe in supporting rich powerful elites. I joined the military to help empower the working class; to give them the tools and resources to rise up against dictators and take back their rights as human beings.
And during my 20 years of service, I had a net positive result in that regard. I never had to raise a weapon against anyone. Never had to violate anyone’s rights while supporting their oppressive government. Never had to compromise my own morals for my job. I accomplished my personal goal of being a positive influence on this world.
You talk about Iraq as if it was a one-off, an outlier.
This was the largest conflict during my time in the military, so it was the first example I defaulted to. Yes, I’m aware that the US has involved themselves in foreign conflicts that it doesn’t have any right to be associated with. Heck, I’ve been protesting our direct involvement in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and the poor way we’ve handled the Russo-Ukraine War so far.
I am but one man. I can’t stop the US government from making bad decisions. But sitting on the sidelines and protesting something I don’t have any experience with hardly made a difference. I chose to be directly involved so that I can influence positive change from the inside.
While serving, I made sure my subordinates were educated on our military’s current actions. I made sure they made informed decisions when ordered to do something, so they would use critical thinking skills when given orders and not just be “yes men.” This was not only to protect them, but to ensure they made choices that helped people instead of pushing ruling party objectives.
The military is a propaganda machine, I won’t deny that. But by being directly involved, I could use that propaganda to push its members toward wholesome choices. The military claims they’re a humanitarian service? Fine, let’s do some solid humanitarian work! Let’s get outside and actually help struggling citizens.
Community volunteer service was a requirement in military life, and I made sure myself and my subordinates were actually affecting positive changes in communities instead of just going through the motions for the publicity. We rebuilt low income neighborhoods, set up organizations to house and feed homeless and/or abused people, created safe spaces for people to receive free mental health services, etc. I did my best to ensure we weren’t just showing up to a single public event to “help out” and then abandoning it the next day.
Change comes from within. You can shout and protest the government’s actions from the sidelines all day, but what are you doing to actually change them? Until you’re directly involved and have hands-on experience with that organization, you can’t really claim to be doing something positive. This is why I joined the military, despite my friends and family thinking I wasn’t the kind of person to do well there. I didn’t join to shoot people or spread hate and fear. I joined to use their power and influence to help out citizens. And I’d like to think I succeeded in that regard, while also positively influencing other military members to do the right thing.
My hope is that the “butterfly effect” of my actions permeates through the organization and continues to positively influence members. Heck, I’m still mentoring some of my old subordinates, several years after my retirement.
One of my friends is currently working for a unit stationed in Germany that is filled with pro-Trump members, and he claims it’s getting hard to see any opinions besides their view. We’ve had lengthy discussions on the destruction and harm Trump has been up to here in America. I’m hoping he can turn around and be a voice of logic and reason in his unit and spread some reality instead of the fascist propaganda that’s already settling in. If I hadn’t served, there would be at least one unit in Germany who is falling for that fascist propaganda. Every little bit helps.
If you’re a US citizen, I’d recommend getting involved yourself. You don’t need to join the military, but we need positive voices in local and federal government positions to fight against tyranny and oppression in our own nation. Our human rights are already on the chopping block and we need everyone we can to speak up against it from positions of authority. Even being on the board of your local town hall is better than nothing.
One of the only people I’ve heard actually recommending the military. Maybe it’s a generational difference, but all my friends in the military absolutely do not recommend it. We’d throw a DD214 party every time one of them got out
The only person I know who is more positive about it was medically discharged after ~15 years. Despite loving his time in the Marines, he doesn’t recommend it to anyone, and wouldn’t ever allow his kids to join when they get old enough because of how much he got fucked up from it
Works at a dog daycare. Seriously she’s the sweetest woman and super socially awkward.
The nicest, sweetest, friendliest but also strangest people I know are all circus folk
Librarian. They love their time on the reference desk. Their main work is in discovery services.
What are the discovery services?
They have access to a bunch of digital content. However it can be hard to find what you are looking for or even know what databases and other services are available.
Discovery services try to make that more available to end users. Kind of like a index of all the digital content the library has available.
Hallmark store retail worker. I swear it requires a very particular type of person to work there.
Several of the most kind hearted people I know got into social work. My mom is one too and is the reason I know so many.
The kindest most caring person I know works in a toy store. Second most is a phlebotomist
I worked at a strip mall that used to have a toy store run by the grumpiest old bastard you’d ever meet.
I always wondered why the hell he was in that business when he clearly hated kids.
I’m sure a bit of it was all the years of kids getting boxes sticky and what not but damn maybe retire or something. I used to compare him to a character in a movie a saw back then “nobody tells DJ Request what to play!”
Get a different job man lol
Interestingly… an insurance assessor. Proper good human.
Teaching, early childhood education, and health & safety
One’s an AUSA and the other is a stay-at-home dad.
A lot of them went into academia, the poor fuckers. My old university tutor comes to mind as the best of what they can hope for from that path. He did relatively well for himself as a scientist, but I reckon he was a far better scientist than what his level of prestige in that area would suggest.
There’s one paper he published that was met with little fanfare, but then a few years later, someone else published more or less the same research that massively blew up. This wasn’t a case of plagiarism (as far as I can tell), nor a conscious attempt to replicate my tutor’s research. The general research climate at the time is a plausible explanation (perhaps my tutor was ahead of the times by a few years), but this doesn’t feel sufficient to explain it. I think it’s mostly that the author of this new paper is someone who is extremely ambitious in a manner where they seem to place a lot of value on gaining respect and prestige. I’ve spoken to people who worked in that other scientists lab and apparently they can be quite vicious in how they act within their research community (though I am confident that there’s no personal beef between this researcher and my old tutor — they had presented at the same conference, but had had no interactions and seemed to be largely unaware of the other’s existence). Apparently this researcher does good science, but gives the vibe that they care more for climbing up the ranks than for doing good science; they can be quite nasty in how they respond to people whose work disrupts their own theories.
I suspect that it’s a case of priorities. My tutor also does good research, but part of why he left such an impact on me was that he has such earnest care in his teaching roles. He works at a pretty prestigious university, and there are plenty of tutors there who do the bare minimum teaching necessary to get access to perks like fancy formal dinners, and the prestige of being a tutor — tutors who seem to regard their students as inconvenient obstacles to what they really care about. It highlights to me a sad problem in what we tend to value in the sciences, and academia more generally: the people who add the most to the growth of human knowledge are often the people who the history books will not care to remember.
