Get an advanced education, work harder, never be the one to say, "That is not my job" was the worst advice I could ever receive. I got into debt and was abused and exploited by my employers.
Oof. A lot of "helpful advice" about jobs is helpful not for the workers, but for the owning class.
The problem is that when the people giving that advice were working, it was great advice. Companies took care of their employees. Tenure mattered. Companies today are mindless corporate blobs that only care about spreadsheet numbers and the next quarter's results.
Maybe in some situations in the past owners were better to their workers, but in many cases there is an unbroken line of exploitation going back in the past. The idea that exploitation is an extremely new phenomenon benefits the owning class by concealing the long and bloody history of proletarian struggles.
If your children would just adopt a can-do attitude while they're mining, they'd be getting promotions
Don't ever quit.
Screw that. Quitting is healthy, quitting is good. Nothing worse than digging yourself deeper and deeper based on sunk cost fallacy.
"Don't be a quitter" is like saying "Fuck your boundaries. Stay in toxic situations no matter how bad they get."
"Just be happy" to a depressed person
Oh wow, jeez, thanks, why didn't I think of that earlier!
Ah yes, the good ol' "Just get over it" technique that is supposed to work for any mental health condition.
The problem is that a version of this advice can be very helpful. As someone who has suffered from ongoing mental health issues and also work in an industry where I regularly support people with mental health issues, one piece of advice I often give is to identify what traumas are you unnecessarily holding on to, which are contributing to your depression/anxiety etc.
When you can let go of some of the more mundane stresses in your life, you have more energy to tackle the real issues you're facing. Of course this is much easier said than done and has to be used as part of a more wholeistic approach, but sometimes the advice to just learn to let it go is very good advice.
Unfortunately, many people don't understand that intricacy and so just repeat the surface level comment which is far from helpful. And this in turn also leads to a push back in the other direction where people who could genuinely benefit from letting go of some of their stress refuse to do so because they have spent so long being told that's all there is to it.
"There are people worse off than you"
Thanks, that totally solves my problem.
Someone told me that if I wanted to be a history teacher I should get a degree in special Ed to "make myself more marketable." It took 14 years to get out of special education and land a job teaching history
14 years is a long time. Hope you're having a better time now.
Teaching as a profession sucks ass in general right now... but at least a lot of the special educator-specific bullshit is not my problem anymore. But thank you.
I was a new dog owner, went to /r/Dogs to ask about a particular behavior my dog was exhibiting I'd never seen or read about before (turned out to be normal tho) and every reply I got basically told me I don't know how to care for an animal and that I should give him to someone else.
It was then I realized that it wasn't just /r/RelationshipAdvice that was full of bitter, jealous losers whose advice is always "dump them." It applied to literally every single subreddit dedicated to advice. They may have started with good intentions and knowledgeable people, but over time filled up with people who had no business giving anyone advice.
Oh yeah even lifeprotips, if you go in the comments it's just full of people grasping at straws to find the tip useless and upvoting each other's cynicism
There was one: "If you want a fridge's compressor to turn on and off less frequently (ie: if you sleep in the same room), fill it with water bottles to increase thermal mass" and the top comments were "Actual life pro tio: get an apartment with 2 rooms???"
I was like: are these people actually that slow?
The less there is to say about an advice, the less reasons you have to go write a comment. Therefore the people in the comments are often outliers
My dad threw a party to celebrate when I graduated university with a degree in Computer Science.
At the party, my dad's friend took me aside and said "My nephew just got a degree in electrical engineering. Now that's an up and coming field, you should get a degree in that."
Like, alright buddy. Hopefully that career pays well enough for another four years of student debt. I'm still kinda in shock at how dumb of a thing to say that was.
Ah yes the brand new exciting world of electricity. Rumor on the street is they've got this fancy new device called a tellyfone that uses this electricity. You can talk to anyone in the world!
Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
"Nothing is fun 8 hours a day" isn't an advice but at least it's true
Me: having a hard time mentally and emotionally Someone: "You need to pray to God to make your troubles go away."
"Nothing happens in god's world by mistake." "God never gives you more than you can handle." Etc etc.
When 1 in 6 women has been sexually assaulted in their lives (and many men and NB folks), that's a really fucked up thing to say. You never know what someone's been through, and I've personally been through a lot of awful things. I guess it helps some people to tell themselves this kind of shit, but it is impossible to me to think of any kind of meaning that would make being a victim of violent crime "positive" or "worth it" or "a learning experience" blah blah blah. I think the term for that is "toxic positivity."
So either "everything happens for a reason" is utter bullshit, or god is a sadistic fucking asshole.
“Just have one or two and then stop” when telling a friend I’m an alcoholic. Well shit, thanks! That never even crossed my mind!
That since I was pregnant it was time to let my career go.
My career is critical to my family’s ability to live a middle class life (and it’s critical to my sanity and happiness, but the person who gave me this “advice“ wasn’t really one for acknowledging or valuing mental health).
The usual acne related ones, like washing my face more or using tooth paste on my spots. Turns out clearasil won't fix your hormones.
Use olive oil instead of sun screen because it works better than SPF and isn't full of chemicals.
When taking a taxi on a short stop over in Dubai, the taxi driver told me not to have blue hair (which I had) or no man will ever want me, while my then boyfriend was also sitting in the taxi, masquerading as my husband (we were wearing rings and just letting people assume we were married, which everyone did. Including the taxi driver!)
Work related: don't make my code too "complicated" or my one coworker can't understand it (read: my coworker doesn't know what async means, and instead of him learning, I'm just not ever meant to do anything async... When processing huge amounts of data... Also, error handling is too hard, don't do that either) yes, I will forever be salty about this. He deleted weeks worth of work while I had covid because he didn't even try to understand it - his reasoning being "it doesn't work anyway, so there's no point in understanding or learning what I'm doing"
"sleep when the baby sleeps"
Yeah because there's absolutely nothing that needs to be done once I finally get my daughter down. No washing and sterilising, for prep for us or for her, general chores around the house which you can never do effectively one handed. And fuck me if I wanted to try and relax and have an actual evening after they're down too.
"Sleeping like a baby" had also never seemed like such a juxtaposition!
I feel like the phrase "sleeping like a baby" was not created by someone who was a primary caretaker for a baby.
“Everything happens for a reason”
“God doesn’t give you more than you can handle”
"You just have to work through the pain." I've injured myself multiple times in the past exercising by following this idiotic advice.
It's one thing to push through discomfort, that's how your body gets stronger. But If you're in actual pain, stop and listen to the alarm bells your body is giving you.
When talking to someone about mental illness: "You know it's all in your head right?"
"Damn, I thought mental illness was in the knees"
When I used to make notes because I don't retain information instantly my boss said "Just don't forget" I exclaimed: "Thanks, I'm cured!" The office got a laugh but it still bothers me that he thought it was a choice
For me it's the opposite, at school I was forced to take notes. Teacher would give me bad grades if they saw me not talking notes. But notes are completely useless for me, and if I take notes I don't understand the lecture. So I started the habit to sketch on notebooks pretending to take notes. Schools can be pretty stupid
What is the most unhelpful advice you have received?
My mother once told us to get "a male realtor; the woman realtors don't care as much because they're just doing it as a hobby - the men are doing it as their full time job."
She's a real gem.
On dating and relationships: "Just be confident."
It's not wrong, but spectacularly unhelpful. I mean, a brain surgeon has to be confident to go cutting into somebody's head, but clearly that's not enough, right? Confidence as a romantically-attractive quality is a very particular (and peculiar) performance. Going to a party 110% certain of one's own value, sitting in a corner with a confident set of one's jaw, and silently waiting for the ladies to form a queue is...
...sufficient, apparently, because you just to be confident.
"Why are you making mistakes? Just don't make them!" - my German teacher
Like... yeah, thanks, that's very helpful! Why didn't I think of that?!
"Think harder." You are already thinking, trying to come up with an answer and aren't able to. What does "think harder" even mean?
Student loans are an investment in your future.
I'd have been better off becoming an electrician.
Me: *Suffers from severe depression and anxiety as a teen*
My family: You're just gonna have to deal with it!
They've since gotten my brother treatment for the exact same thing. Meanwhile, I'm still severely depressed and totally untreated because I can't fucking afford it.
When I was a teen I worked as a waiter at a dirty smokehouse/bbq place.
One of the kitchen staff there would make sexual comments about me. Say things like "You're lucky you look good because you're so stupid." And would ask what kind of underwear I was wearing.
I told my parents about it, and the advice they gave me was "Deal with it. You need a job."
Within a month that kitchen staff member had started to grab me and sexually assaulted me.
I don't talk to my parents anymore.
Back as a young fella, striking out in the dating market a bunch ...
"Just be yourself!"
No, honestly, that was the problem last time - I was looking for something a little more granular and actionable.
This is one of those helpful and encouraging things that people say without necessarily really thinking it through. Deep down in intent, they're right - you can't fake your way to healthy relationships, being insincere or putting on a performance of being someone you're not isn't going anywhere genuine down the road. Absolutely correct, absolutely great advice - but it's never given in sufficient complexity and depth to be useful.
None of those grown-ups were like "Ah yes, definitely be sincere about who you are - but also don't spend a whole date monologuing about the book you just read or your favourite video game."
That you can be genuine and sincere about who you are, while still using your social skills and putting your best foot forward socially just ... didn't occur. At the time, my understanding was that it was a hard binary - either I was 100% me at 100% volume and whatever came out of my mouth was definitely the best thing I could say, or I was stifling myself and being 'fake' in order to build an equally-fake relationship.
It took a friend's brother taking me aside to make it 'click' - he was holding a can or a bottle and was like "So the whole object is all 'real you' yeah? But any time you're talking to someone is like right now - you can only see the side that's facing you. It's all you, it's all honest, but you still want to show them the best side, the best angle, of the whole thing. Don't sprint straight to showing them all of your worst angle just because that's what's on your mind that day."
I mean, recently? "Just use the official app, it's the same thing", lmao.
But overall, the worst of all time was someone telling me how to cope with a lack of friends by suggesting some stupid, isolating hobbies.
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