Sanitation workers. They keep entire cities running, prevent disease, and do one of the toughest, dirtiest jobs imaginable, yet they’re barely noticed until something goes wrong. Without them, society would literally fall apart
Crop picker – having been raised on a large orchard and picking crops for many years I cannot think of anything as undervalued. Watermelons & beans were by far the worst!
Farmer here, we’re assumed rednecks and imbeciles and every farmer I know has a BFA or more and works so hard and people assume we are MAGA and not a bunch of socialists, ex-hippies and gays.
Call center workers. I’ve done it. It’s either needed or needed to help people that are too stupid to figure out things on their own. It is a mentally abusive and degrading job from people screaming at you on the phone to management that looks at you as a number rather than a person and essentially want you tethered to a desk for eight hours a day with very little breaks.
Honestly? Food services. They are some of the most underpaid and disrespected workers in the world but were considered “essential personnel” during the pandemic.
Teachers fall into the same category of underpaid and disrespected.
Long haul truck drivers. People don’t realize how critical the transportation of goods is to society. It’s one of the most overlooked positions in terms of necessity. And other drivers completely disregard their safety every day; cutting them off, passing them illegally, etc.. Some even purposely cause accidents with truck drivers just to collect insurance or sue them.
It may not mean anything to their job, but I think that people who work in customer service in stores or supermarkets are often mistreated and it is essential for them to stay mentally healthy so they do not react negatively to this
People working to keep basic utilities and infrastructure services functional. If you want to experience what will happen when these don’t function you can try out a game called INFRA on Steam.
Special education teachers for sure. I work as one and people have no idea how emotionally and physically draining it is. We’re basically therapists, nurses, and teachers rolled into one, yet we’re paid like glorified babysitters. The amount of paperwork alone is insane, and that’s after spending all day helping kids with complex needs.
There are so many… Every job that is public sector or provides public welfare, to include:
Military (we are one of the most misunderstood institutions, with many not knowing what we do, what services we provide, and what our jobs are, both by civil society and by many of our own members)
Emergency services personnel
Educators (particularly for teachers and university instructors, not administration staff)
Healthcare professionals
Sanitation and Public Health workers
Public works/construction/maintenance personnel
Natural Resources and Environmental Science professionals
Research and science organizations
And lower to mid level bureaucratic functionaries that make the government run behind the scenes.
The people who run the water and sewer systems. Access to clean water is an amazing benefit that society has only recently been able to enjoy, and many around the world still do not have it.
I’m a hospice nurse, and let me tell you, end-of-life care workers are seriously overlooked. We’re basically holding families together during their darkest moments while managing complex medical care, but people just see us as glorified babysitters.
As a bread lover, bakers. They wake up while the world sleeps. Work very hard to earn very little (not a lot of bakers with huge 401Ks) and make every meal better. Nothing better than that smell walking into a bakery. Tearing off a piece of still warm bread. Some butter. Heaven. Thank you bakers.
People think NGO jobs are only about volunteering or lack career growth. In reality, NGOs need professionals in research, policy advocacy, journalism, legal aid, and project management fields.
In India, stable government jobs IAS, IPS or high-paying corporate roles are often valued more than social impact careers, leading to less recognition for NGO workers.
Society often prioritizes prestigious careers like medicine, engineering, or law over social work. NGO roles, despite their impact, are seen as less glamorous or “charity work,” ignoring the skills and expertise required.
I know this will get a stigma. Security… after the pall blart movies, shit posting about sleeping guards, and everything else it’s literally treated as a joke. Plenty people have been assaulted, shot, and injured. We can’t unionize in certain states. It’s very underpaid.
I just saw a video of strawberry pickers running from one end of the field to another filling the strawberry cases making $2.35 per pack. Not to mention, the whole day bending over to pick them. I’m willing to bet no one thinks of this when they buy their fruit, because honestly I never did and it makes me wonder who will do that job when MAGA gets rid of all the scary immigrants.
Everyone who was deemed essential during COVID but still makes minimum or close to minimum wage.
They told me I was essential for all of COVID but couldn’t pay me more, when COVID was over I asked for a raise of 4%, they offered me 2% when inflation was at 6%.
I quit. They had to call in 2 people from the corporate office to do my job.
Home health care. Aides get paid like crap and the agency gets most of the money. A good aide makes all the difference to the infirm and the critically ill.
Those care workers who look after your family members in homes due to age or ill health etc Often low paid yet we expect exemplar care. And how we recoil when we see incidences of loved ones being mistreated ..
EMT responders and vets, at least in my country. I make multiple of what they make (EMT is a pretty much minimum wage job), and my job is not even 1% as important as theirs. crazy
Service workers, custodians, librarians, farmers, nurses. I blame capitalism, as with all things, for undervaluing the worker and setting the tone for how others should treat them too. We have so much ease in society that we take for granted. Someone made our clothes, caught our fish, delivered them to a place where we could pick them up with ease and we don’t appreciate it. All roles in society, besides ceos i think, are valuable and necessary.
Anything involving front-line workers in social services. Most agencies assign caseloads of individuals whom are many times at the end of their rope. Dealing with major societal problems day in and day out for very little pay or recognition often goes unrecognized.
Bartenders, Baristas, and waiters (cooks, why not?).
edit: added to those posts mentioning sanitation workers, and infrastructure workers
In the country were i live these are not even considered ‘real jobs’. Nobody would rent them an apartment if there is any option. Yet, go try to keep big cities together without them. No night life, no lattes, no spritz in terraces in the sun, no pubs, no going out for dinner…
Besides, the differences between when they are good at it or not directly impacts your life. Put you up when you are down, introduces you to people when you are alone, makes you listen to new music, takes care of your comfort so your business talk goes well, makes your date be more into you, knows what you want even when you yourself have no idea… good workers also keep the prices down, by doing the job that otherwise 3 people would kinda do while looking at their phones.
Cheers to you my fellow Bartenders, baristas, and waiters!
Teaching. If knowledge transfer is what promotes societal betterment (and fostering curiosity), it has to be this.
Taking the inverse, for example, would cause extremely negative reactions. “This is Mr. Blinders. He is your child’s new teacher. He is incompetent, bland, and dull. We couldn’t find anyone better because of salary and prestige issues”.
Any job that doesn’t pay enough to afford comfortable living and a vacation a year somewhere nice for a week. And yet somehow still needs you to show up 50 hours a week.
garbage collectors, the fact that they are still to this day used as a sort of threat for not doing well in school. like mf count your lucky stars youve never experienced a city wide garbage collector strike, or even just hazardous weather resulting in collectors skipping a week.
EMTs and Paramedics working outside of a Fire Dept.. The majority of city’s/towns in America are covered by non FD ambulance services. EMS has no real national representation. The NREMT is the closest and it’s not even recognized in every state. EMS outside of a FD is not even considered an “essential service”. If it was considered an “essential service” then it would be the accountability of city/town leaders to fund that public service like with a FD/PD/Sheriff. So the solution is don’t deem them essential so we don’t have to figure how to fund them.
You would have thought that COVID would have brought this issue to light and got it addressed, but that was not the case. In reality in just reaffirmed the fact in America we choose profits over patients.
Comments
Farmers
Fisherman and janitor
caregivers
All the ones that actually keep society functioning.
Sanitation workers, they keep our cities clean and prevent the spread of disease, yet their work is overlooked and underrated
Motherhood
Teachers and nurses.
Sanitation workers and farmers.
House wife
Cleaners, especially in settings such as hospitals
Any operational job in a factory
Sanitation workers. They keep entire cities running, prevent disease, and do one of the toughest, dirtiest jobs imaginable, yet they’re barely noticed until something goes wrong. Without them, society would literally fall apart
Telephone sanitizers (IYKYK)
Service, Teaching, Healthcare, Sanitation & waste management. They keep the world going around.
Any job that is mostly manual labor – construction, road crews, plumbers, electricians, etc.
Construction workers and nurses
Crop picker – having been raised on a large orchard and picking crops for many years I cannot think of anything as undervalued. Watermelons & beans were by far the worst!
Dishwasher! They are the reason restaurants run smoothly
Garbage collectors
Construction workers
Truck drivers. They used to get paid a decent wage until it became a bidding war to the bottom. But without them, well, we fucking starve.
Crane operator. The old cranes had limited safety devices yet look at the built environment they helped create.
Teacher. The decades of underpaying and underappreciation have resulted in where the US is today.
Farmer here, we’re assumed rednecks and imbeciles and every farmer I know has a BFA or more and works so hard and people assume we are MAGA and not a bunch of socialists, ex-hippies and gays.
Janitor
Mechanics. They keep the world moving
Teacher.
Dirty jobs as a whole
Call center workers. I’ve done it. It’s either needed or needed to help people that are too stupid to figure out things on their own. It is a mentally abusive and degrading job from people screaming at you on the phone to management that looks at you as a number rather than a person and essentially want you tethered to a desk for eight hours a day with very little breaks.
Paraprofessionals
Cleaners, teachers, and nurses.
Honestly? Food services. They are some of the most underpaid and disrespected workers in the world but were considered “essential personnel” during the pandemic.
Teachers fall into the same category of underpaid and disrespected.
Sanitation, hands down. Without them, society totally breaks down. And yet there’s no national holiday for the people who make it all possible.
Bakers
A lot of essential public service jobs. They’re the ones that keeps society functioning.
Any caregiving occupation– whether for the very old, very young, or disabled. Chances are they’re paid close to minimum wage.
In addition, social workers, CPS workers, and EMTs.
Long haul truck drivers. People don’t realize how critical the transportation of goods is to society. It’s one of the most overlooked positions in terms of necessity. And other drivers completely disregard their safety every day; cutting them off, passing them illegally, etc.. Some even purposely cause accidents with truck drivers just to collect insurance or sue them.
It may not mean anything to their job, but I think that people who work in customer service in stores or supermarkets are often mistreated and it is essential for them to stay mentally healthy so they do not react negatively to this
By salary? Spin the wheel of public sector workers. Teachers. Sanitation workers. The list goes on and on.
People working to keep basic utilities and infrastructure services functional. If you want to experience what will happen when these don’t function you can try out a game called INFRA on Steam.
Agricultural harvesters
nurses!!
Teacher
Teacher. This is the worst job possible.
The only reason people become & remain teachers is because they are insane. Fucking insane.
My wife has been a school teacher for 19 years.
Logistics and warehousing. Without it nothing happens. Also farming.
Truck drivers. They are the reason we have food & all the other products on shelves everyday. And talk about a tough job! Kudos to all of them
Let just call it the bottom 90%. These and my people and we have been absolutely robbed blind for over 40 years.
CNAs who take care of our elderly. They barely make above minimum wage. It’s NOT unskilled labor.
All the ones that get paid badly.
Daycare teachers
Sanitation and waste management workers are as if not more important in keeping us healthy as medical professional and should be paid the same
Special education teachers for sure. I work as one and people have no idea how emotionally and physically draining it is. We’re basically therapists, nurses, and teachers rolled into one, yet we’re paid like glorified babysitters. The amount of paperwork alone is insane, and that’s after spending all day helping kids with complex needs.
Nurses.
Government workers who make stuff run on time
There are so many… Every job that is public sector or provides public welfare, to include:
Military (we are one of the most misunderstood institutions, with many not knowing what we do, what services we provide, and what our jobs are, both by civil society and by many of our own members)
Emergency services personnel
Educators (particularly for teachers and university instructors, not administration staff)
Healthcare professionals
Sanitation and Public Health workers
Public works/construction/maintenance personnel
Natural Resources and Environmental Science professionals
Research and science organizations
And lower to mid level bureaucratic functionaries that make the government run behind the scenes.
The people who run the water and sewer systems. Access to clean water is an amazing benefit that society has only recently been able to enjoy, and many around the world still do not have it.
All basic in-store service jobs and retail jobs.
Seriously – look at the Pandemic to consider that all Walmart and Target employees in the store were still essential.
I’m a hospice nurse, and let me tell you, end-of-life care workers are seriously overlooked. We’re basically holding families together during their darkest moments while managing complex medical care, but people just see us as glorified babysitters.
As a bread lover, bakers. They wake up while the world sleeps. Work very hard to earn very little (not a lot of bakers with huge 401Ks) and make every meal better. Nothing better than that smell walking into a bakery. Tearing off a piece of still warm bread. Some butter. Heaven. Thank you bakers.
I’d say, small business owner or people who work in warehousing.
CEOs of major tech corporations
People think NGO jobs are only about volunteering or lack career growth. In reality, NGOs need professionals in research, policy advocacy, journalism, legal aid, and project management fields.
In India, stable government jobs IAS, IPS or high-paying corporate roles are often valued more than social impact careers, leading to less recognition for NGO workers.
Society often prioritizes prestigious careers like medicine, engineering, or law over social work. NGO roles, despite their impact, are seen as less glamorous or “charity work,” ignoring the skills and expertise required.
I am sick of this mindset of society.
Water and sewer workers. Wait until you can’t flush your toilet or drink out of your sink. Then you’ll come crying.
Trash collectors and other public sanitation jobs.
People don’t realize how . much of the big increase in life expectancy in the last century can be attributed to modern sanitation.
Sanitation and line workers. Keep society clean and the lights on.
Pest control
I know this will get a stigma. Security… after the pall blart movies, shit posting about sleeping guards, and everything else it’s literally treated as a joke. Plenty people have been assaulted, shot, and injured. We can’t unionize in certain states. It’s very underpaid.
Pretty much all those roles that had to keep heading into work during COVID + teachers who continued online.
Farmers
Public mental health workers
Mine.
I just saw a video of strawberry pickers running from one end of the field to another filling the strawberry cases making $2.35 per pack. Not to mention, the whole day bending over to pick them. I’m willing to bet no one thinks of this when they buy their fruit, because honestly I never did and it makes me wonder who will do that job when MAGA gets rid of all the scary immigrants.
Male prostitute
Everyone who was deemed essential during COVID but still makes minimum or close to minimum wage.
They told me I was essential for all of COVID but couldn’t pay me more, when COVID was over I asked for a raise of 4%, they offered me 2% when inflation was at 6%.
I quit. They had to call in 2 people from the corporate office to do my job.
Home health care. Aides get paid like crap and the agency gets most of the money. A good aide makes all the difference to the infirm and the critically ill.
ANY job in the service industry.
The person who works.at the gas station all night long.
Drug dealers, just wait for the economy to collapse the day they stop selling
CEOs. Not!!
Most things dealing with food handling and food safety, honestly.
Those care workers who look after your family members in homes due to age or ill health etc Often low paid yet we expect exemplar care. And how we recoil when we see incidences of loved ones being mistreated ..
most positions in care
B2B Enterprise SaaS Sales
EMT responders and vets, at least in my country. I make multiple of what they make (EMT is a pretty much minimum wage job), and my job is not even 1% as important as theirs. crazy
Service workers, custodians, librarians, farmers, nurses. I blame capitalism, as with all things, for undervaluing the worker and setting the tone for how others should treat them too. We have so much ease in society that we take for granted. Someone made our clothes, caught our fish, delivered them to a place where we could pick them up with ease and we don’t appreciate it. All roles in society, besides ceos i think, are valuable and necessary.
Trash and sewer / water people keep society alive and healthy.
Anything involving front-line workers in social services. Most agencies assign caseloads of individuals whom are many times at the end of their rope. Dealing with major societal problems day in and day out for very little pay or recognition often goes unrecognized.
Bartenders, Baristas, and waiters (cooks, why not?).
edit: added to those posts mentioning sanitation workers, and infrastructure workers
In the country were i live these are not even considered ‘real jobs’. Nobody would rent them an apartment if there is any option. Yet, go try to keep big cities together without them. No night life, no lattes, no spritz in terraces in the sun, no pubs, no going out for dinner…
Besides, the differences between when they are good at it or not directly impacts your life. Put you up when you are down, introduces you to people when you are alone, makes you listen to new music, takes care of your comfort so your business talk goes well, makes your date be more into you, knows what you want even when you yourself have no idea… good workers also keep the prices down, by doing the job that otherwise 3 people would kinda do while looking at their phones.
Cheers to you my fellow Bartenders, baristas, and waiters!
Janitors/Custodians, and any sort of Sanitation professional.
Farmers and all food chain workers. We appreciate them, but what would this world be like without them?
The average construction worker.
Teaching. If knowledge transfer is what promotes societal betterment (and fostering curiosity), it has to be this.
Taking the inverse, for example, would cause extremely negative reactions. “This is Mr. Blinders. He is your child’s new teacher. He is incompetent, bland, and dull. We couldn’t find anyone better because of salary and prestige issues”.
Teachers, farmers
Childcare workers. Undervalued and underpaid for such an important job.
School bus driver
Small scale farmers (im talking about the likes of coffee farmers being exploited by big companies)
The moms and dads out there doing everything possible to help their kids get on their feet, and then help nurture their grand kids!
90% of them. In general I see a pattern, the harder the job the less you get paid.
School teacher
Bin collectors
Teachers are up there.
teachers
Teachers
Garbage worker.
Any job that doesn’t pay enough to afford comfortable living and a vacation a year somewhere nice for a week. And yet somehow still needs you to show up 50 hours a week.
In the United States it’s HVAC workers. They are the thin vaneer keeping the south sane enough to not slip into a second civil war.
Nurse, then teacher, then ambo.
Automotive Technician
Accountability
Journalists.
CNA take care of people can no longer take care of themselves.
Bathing them, feeding them
Teachers
Paramedic and EMS workers. Underpaid and under appreciated, for emergency personnel.
Nursing
On reddit it is lower management.
Teachers.
I may be biased because I am one, but teachers. The amount of shit I have to deal with.
Farming, full stop.
Nursing Assistants, very hard and dirty job that helps immeasurably.
caregivers.
garbage collectors, the fact that they are still to this day used as a sort of threat for not doing well in school. like mf count your lucky stars youve never experienced a city wide garbage collector strike, or even just hazardous weather resulting in collectors skipping a week.
Teacher and it’s not even close
Carer. Every time.
Teaching, and isn’t particularly close
Farmers, EMS, Teachers
EMTs and Paramedics working outside of a Fire Dept.. The majority of city’s/towns in America are covered by non FD ambulance services. EMS has no real national representation. The NREMT is the closest and it’s not even recognized in every state. EMS outside of a FD is not even considered an “essential service”. If it was considered an “essential service” then it would be the accountability of city/town leaders to fund that public service like with a FD/PD/Sheriff. So the solution is don’t deem them essential so we don’t have to figure how to fund them.
You would have thought that COVID would have brought this issue to light and got it addressed, but that was not the case. In reality in just reaffirmed the fact in America we choose profits over patients.
Water treatment plant employees. Look what happened to Flint when they screwed-up/were overridden.
Teachers, social workers, CNAs (certified nursing assistants).