- Travel Writer: picture sipping martini’s on the coast of Mexico, you do the odd bit of typing up here and there but all in all the job is a doss about. Most of your time is spent chatting up the coastguard and asking locals where the best restaurants are. Or do you? Perhaps instead you’re sitting sweaty in a non-air conditioned hotel room, torrential rain outside and you now have to go speak to local farmers on how they grow their Scarlet Queen turnips. Oh Joy.
Salaries: £20,000+
Alternative: Newspaper columnist, comfy office chair and no need to talk about turnips (hopefully).
- Chef: This is creative. Don’t tell me it’s not! From food presentation to taste combinations the job seems like a creative haven for the budding food lover. But! Slaving over a hot stove for 10 hours straight, all while getting an earful from the head chef who’s just broken up with his wife (for the second time) all because you blanched the cabbage that millisecond too long.
Alternative: Cookery school teacher, restaurant owner, TV chef.
Salaries: £25,000+
- Model: How glamorous, ‘everyone wants to take pictures of me’, you get to sport all the latest gear, set the trends and perhaps even develop an eating disorder in the process. Not to stereotype the industry but this serious issue can’t be brushed under the rug when it comes to modelling. Strenuous work schedules, constantly living out of suitcases all for a 2 hour photo shoot before your whisked off to the next place. Not saying the whole industry is a farce but it certainly has room for improvement.
Salaries: £25,000+
Alternative: Fashion blogger/influencer, Stylist, Fashion Designer, Social Media Influencer.
- Animator: No quicker way to go blind than trying to sketch out Ariel for the millionth time. Sure, seeing The Little Mermaid make it to the big screen would be such an achievement if you weren’t squinting behind your bi-focals.
Salaries: £24,000+
Alternative: Caricature artist, (wear better glasses), Gallery artist.
- Event Coordinator: You can see it now, ballet dancers break off to the wings to reveal the dazzling host for this year’s major corporate party. Everyone applauds you in the audience for organising the event , it ran so smoothly. Then you wake up from your sweet slumbers and realise you have to phone up 50 doughnut vans before lunchtime for next week’s charity supporting injured stunt dolphins. You then check the diary only to realise you have a meeting in two minutes for Friday’s city parade. You’re spread too thinly and underpaid!
Salaries: 20,000+
Alternative: Wedding planner (stick to one kind of event)!
Note all of these jobs may seem overrated in general but at the end of the day if you have a passion for any job regardless of general critique. Just bloody go for it and be the judge for yourself whether it’s overrated or not.
**Please note this article is intended for ERIC Mag, and I will link to the article on their site if/when it becomes live.
The Neon Squid 