toll collectors, fear of being set on fire, and other things we believed about work when we were kids

by Alison Green on August 21, 2024

Last week we talked about weird things we believed about work as kids. Here are 12 of the funniest misunderstandings you shared.

1. Firings

When I was 4 or 5, I tended to take most things literally. So I thought getting fired meant that if you were bad at your job, you were taken out of the building and set on fire as a punishment.

2. The talk show guest

I always assumed I would be interviewed by Johnny Carson as a guest on The Tonight Show (U.S. late night TV talk show). I watched other interviewees and tried to figure out what I would wear, the best way to sit, how best to be gracious to Ed McMahon sitting on my other side, how much to laugh vs. be serious, etc.

I never thought about what professional accomplishment I was being interviewed FOR, I just assumed that any job would eventually lead to a Tonight Show appearance.

3. The toll booth

When people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I always said I wanted to work in a toll booth. My parents finally got tired of that and investigated why that was my dream job. I thought they kept the money.

4. The 401(K)

I thought a 401K had something to do with $401,000 (and not a tax code). Like, when you retire that’s the amount you get in your retirement account.

5. Meetings

I thought being someone who was constantly in meetings was the gold standard and would be really cool/impressive.

6. The geometry professor

My dad was a college professor in a field related to geometry. This should have been a really easy thing for a child to understand: I had teachers, I knew what shapes were, he was a teacher who worked with shapes.

Except I never saw him actually teach, just office hours (when I was waiting for him to pack up and a student or professor would engage him in a last-minute question). So he would talk with them while drawing something on the whiteboard, then they’d mark something on his picture, then he’d add something else.

So I grew up with the vague idea that my dad played really fancy games of tic-tac-toe for a living.

7. Language confusion

Mine were mostly language confusion: believing that “blue collar” and “white collar” referred to actual shirt colors you were required to wear, and confidently saying my dad was “blue collar” on days when he wore a blue shirt. Likewise, believing that work done without wearing a shirt with a (white or blue) collar was…still work, but somehow different (like maybe not taxed)?
Also that “working under the table” meant scrubbing the floor under furniture.

8. The rings

My dad would sometimes take client calls at home and end the call by telling them that he’d “give you a ring” later. I thought he meant an actual, physical ring that you’d wear on your finger. I didn’t even associate this with proposals or marriage – I just thought that giving each other rings was just something that adults did as part of business.

9. Day-to-night

When I was in my teens/early 20s, it felt like all the magazines ever routinely had a spread on “day-to-night” outfits. How to turn your boring office garb into something fashionable and fun for a night on the town. Usually consisted of swapping pants for a skirt and changing from high heels to higher heels. It was the ultimate grown ass woman goal to be the office-to-happy hour chameleon with the right outfit for every occasion all in one day.

I must say, even when I was a younger person who attended regular happy hours, this vital wardrobe transition period was… not a thing.

10. The entrepreneur

Coming from a family of small business owners, I was under the impression that the *only* work was starting a business. I distinctly remember telling a cousin “Doing anything else is just to stay busy until you start your business.”

11. Sack races

I thought having company picnics with family sack races was going to be a much bigger part of working life than it is. I blame all those 80s/90s shows where somehow the outcome of the family sack race would determine who got promoted.

12. The bike

When my daughter was three, she saw me go off on my bike every morning and arrive home on my bike, and she was shocked one day when I took her to the office where I worked. We did a little bit of investigation and it turned out she assumed I was just cycling around all day whilst she was at nursery.

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  1. WantonSeedStitch*

    I remember that I, like most kids, had a very Richard Scarry “Busy Town” understanding of what kinds of jobs existed. I feel like it took me a very long time to understand what my father did (he was a computer programmer working in the payroll department of a large store chain) because it didn’t fit into that model.

    1. ManagerNoMore*

      a) LOVE a seed stitch! and b) I feel this as my dad was a nuclear waste management engineer (manager actually) and all I knew was “my dad is an engineer who doesn’t drive a train” (very disappointing for a pre-schooler)

      1. Massive Dynamic*

        Love this! I also had that frame of reference and was also disappointed that my engineer dad did not drive trains.

        1. JustaTech*

          Weirdly, my dad is not an engineer, but has always worked adjacent to engineers, so when he was some kind of manager at CSX he was able to pull a few strings and get my cousin and I to drive *both* a train and a big-rig (in a yard, with a real adult actually driving).
          We were about 5 and it was incredibly exciting!

      2. WFHomer Simpson*

        I graduated college and got my first real job when my nephew was about 5. He was so stoked when he found out I was an engineer, right up until he figured out I didn’t drive a train. He posed a great question to me: “What’s the point of being an engineer if they don’t let you drive a train?” It became a bit of an inside joke used among some other young engineer coworkers of mine during frustrating and train-less days at work.

        1. BikeWalkBarb*

          I’m taking this one to work since I work in transportation with tons of non-train-driving engineers.

      3. many bells down*

        haha I must have missed this when I was posting because SAME about the engineer thing.

      4. OtterB*

        I had a coworker on a project related to software for a nuclear power plant. He had two young kids and he had carefully explained to them that the steam rising from the big cooling towers at the plant was not smoke, not air pollution, it was water, like clouds. So they thought dad’s job was making clouds.

        2. JSPA*

          Chabon’s Mysteries of Pittsburgh gave the name “cloud factory” to the bellefield boiler plant in Junction Hollow.

        3. amoeba*

          I mean… I definitely still consider nuclear power plants cloud factories, and I’m well into my thirties!

      5. Train Daughter*

        My dad was actually a train engineer (who drove a freight train)–and I knew it as a stressful and dangerous job that he didn’t really enjoy. So I was always surprised when kids would be very excited to learn what an awesome job my dad had. Even now when I tell other adults, the response is usually “Wow! That’s so cool!”

        Side note on being a train engineer: They feel a huge emotional weight when the train they are driving kills someone. There’s nothing they can do about it–it takes far too long for a train to stop–but I saw many get out of the field completely/spiral downward because a tragic accident they weren’t responsible for broke them. Respect the tracks!

    2. Bananapants*

      Haha, this reminds me of when I was in grade 1 or 2 and our teacher had us all share our parents’ jobs with the class (I think before Career Day) and I said my dad was a systems analyst at Ambiguously Named Tech Company (it was something like Veridian), so the teacher couldn’t even guess what industry he was in.

      1. Rock Prof*

        Is it even considered a job if you don’t drive a car that is a physical representation of what you do or your interests?

          1. The Prettiest Curse*

            Today I discovered that there are several vehicles shaped like LL Bean boots and there are staff who drive them around to promote the brand. If any of them have kids, they must have interesting stories to tell at school!

            1. Clisby*

              Like if you drove the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile! Which, by the way, once parked outside the grocery store I most often frequent. I was one of 6 fans out in the parking lot taking pictures.

              1. Nor'easter*

                I once saw both the LL Bean boot and the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile on the same drive down I-95 from Maine to Boston. It was the highlight of my week!

                1. BlueSwimmer*

                  The Oscar Mayer weinermobile was often parked in front of a chain hotel (in Virginia outside of DC) on my commute to an old job that was a horrible, stressful workplace. Many days seeing that weinermobile was the bright spot of my day.

                3. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

                  So did I! They were at the next tollbooth, and I was absurdly disappointed to see that the person driving it was totally boring-looking (and if there was a hot-dog-man uniform, he had his coat on over it). I’d like to say I was 8 or something at the time, but I was more like 28.

              2. BikeWalkBarb*

                My oldest brother worked for Armour’s for years and the existence of that Wienermobile made for some childhood disappointment on my part. “You DON’T work for the hot dog company with the cool car thing??”

                He probably thought he made up for it with gifts of Armour’s brand balloons. Not an equivalent.

            2. Electric sheep*

              The Tour de France has a promotional caravan of thematic cars that roll through before the riders, it’s well worth googling for some strong Busy Town vibes

            3. Princess Sparklepony*

              Saw that as well.

              I have been in a Weinermobile!

              Turns out there is a Lindt bunny truck as well.

              I want all the -mobiles to be in the same place at the same time for photos and fun!

    3. Sleepiest Girl Out Here*

      My girlfriend and I refer to certain jobs as “Busy Town jobs,” as in jobs where people generally understand what you do. She has a Busy Town Job, teacher, and I do not, digital project manager.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        At least, people *think* they understand what you do, which can be extremely annoying.

      2. Prairie Dawn*

        I call these people in your neighbourhood jobs after the These are the People in Your Neighbourhood song on Sesame Street back in the day.

    4. Daisy-dog*

      My dad was a sales manager for a company that made specialized computer parts and my mom was a SAHM. With Girl Scouts, we had to do a presentation on one of our parent’s jobs. One girl had a dad who was a car salesman and another who was a fire fighter – definitely “Busy Town” type jobs. When it was my turn, I read the script that my mom wrote and my troop leader asked if I understood it. Nope, not at all. We did go visit him at work a couple times each year and it was just a generic office, no clues!

    5. Somewhere in Texas*

      I’m distracted by the fact that I now miss Busy Town and want to play it really bad.

    6. Meow*

      Omg, I had a Busy Town PC game as a kid and after I played it, my dream was to be a construction worker because building roads was the most fun mini game. Baker was my second choice.

    7. Two-Faced Big-Haired Food Critic*

      My father was in research and development for about 10 years. When he first got the job, I thought that meant that he stood alone at a lab table, mixing and distilling and what not, until he came up with a new product. It was a few years before I learned about teams and testing and just how long it takes, and how many people have to be involved, to create a new product.

      1. Nebula*

        There was a DT teacher at my school (Design and Technology – what used to be known as Woodworking and what have you) who was reputed to have “invented the Solero” (an ice cream) when he had worked in the food industry before becoming a teacher. Eventually I came to realise it was actually plausible that he had been part of a team that did indeed invent the Solero, but he wouldn’t have done it solo. The journey of believing the rumour and then not believing and then realising it wasn’t impossible was actually quite a good example of how the understanding of what work is changes when you’re a tween/teen. To this day have no idea if there was any truth in it at all though.

  2. Ms. Murchison*

    #9 reminds me of watching the movie Working Girl (looooong after it came out) and there’s a scene where she crashes an after-work launch party in a cocktail dress while all the other women are in their 1988 loose skirt suits with ugly floppy blouses, having come straight from the office. As a kid, I couldn’t see why the main character would be embarrassed, because I couldn’t understand why the other women would go to a *party* in such hideous outfits. To the office, sure, since that’s what was required at the time, but not a party.

    1. Ms. Murchison*

      Also #2 makes me chuckle because my sister wanted to be an actress, so we used to plan how her appearance on the Muppet Show would go.
      Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure the Muppet Show was already off the air when we were watching it, but no one told us that.

    2. Lizbot ATL*

      #9 is so relatable. I had a Day-to-Night Barbie with a hot-pink suit that you could remove the jacket and expose a sequiny tank shell and add a sparkly peplum or some such to the skirt.

      Many of the better magazines (looking at you, 1990s-2000s In Style) did have excellent minor adjustments, like just strip down to your LBD, change shoes and jewelry, add a scarf, etc.

      Nowadays, though, the mere idea of a day that long without a stop home first gives me hives. Where does my big-purse, laptop, etc. go? Where are we going that’s so fancy? It would only work at like a client cocktail hour in the same building, and I’m ducking out before everybody else goes to dinner.

      1. umami*

        I did think that sequins would factor into my after-hours work events much more than they have in reality lol

      2. Miette*

        OMG same. Who would have the energy? How am I schlepping my backpack with a laptop, iPad, two phones and extra shoes around with that kicky scarf/higher heels combo?

      3. different seudonym*

        Barbie’s skirt actually TURNED INSIDE OUT to reveal a vaguely Christian Lacroix crinoline thingy. I felt somewhat betrayed that this did not make it into the movie.

        3. allathian*

          99% for me when I go to the office. It has to be something really special for me to want to leave the house again after work. That said, I usually WFH, and generally schedule my in-office days (about once or twice a month) for when I don’t have anything else to do after work. I really don’t want to carry my computer backpack any more than I absolutely have to.

        4. amoeba*

          At the very least! And I do actually do loads of things after work – but never go home first. If I try, I’ll just remain glued to the sofa.

          I don’t, however, generally do any outfit changes for that,

      5. Honey cocoa*

        We were in Tokyo recently and there is a clear fashion trend of adult women wearing a very basic first layer – dark slacks, plain white knit top- with a very festive top layer – like a sequined camisole, or a tank top covered in ruffles along with sparkly shoes and purse. These are 40 year olds ( I think) mid weekday on the subway. They absolutely looked like they were going to the office, and then removing the white crew neck and going clubbing. I saw at least a dozen women like this in a week, it was mysterious.

      6. Ama*

        When I worked in nonprofit on the day of our big fundraising gala a few times I kind of did day to night looks (like bring fancier shoes and bolder lipstick and take off a cardigan), but eventually I just brought a change of clothes because wearing a gala appropriate dress for 14 hours straight is uncomfortable even if you can dress it down for part of the day.

      7. North American Couch Wizard Society Member*

        I also grew up on those day-to-night articles and found them super puzzling until I moved to Manhattan for a while and realized that 1) even now, people dress up quite a bit to go out to restaurants and bars in NY, especially wealthy or poor but stylish young things, (as opposed to the vibes in my current Western city, where the tech sportswear never comes off except to sleep) and 2) it’s hard to go from your Midtown job to your apartment in Brooklyn and then back to SoHo by subway in a reasonable amount of time. Since all those publishing companies were based in Midtown I assume they were just reflecting the lived experience of the actual young style editors who were writing the articles–and of course literally no one else in the entire country.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          Yeah, I think these articles are written by people who live in New York or London, and getting home is difficult. That said, I’ve worked in party hard cultures where it’s expected to go out straight from work in Northern England and chameleon outfits came in handy sometimes. I do think more casual outfits are more appropriate for both work and play nowadays, than they used to be and the lines much more blurred.

      8. BikeWalkBarb*

        And if the building is anything like most of the ones I’m in, especially at conferences, it’s quite likely freezing so you put that work jacket right back on.

      9. Unions Are Good, Actually*

        I feel like that whole concept is a) a relic of a time before we office drones had to lug around our work laptops and work phones, and b) specific to a very particular kind of financial district-y job where people wear Business Attire and buy all their food out during the day, not like those of us sensible shoe types who carry all our empty tupperware home at the end of the day ;)

    3. Lizbot ATL*

      Also, let’s not forget that it wasn’t unusual to wear that kind of floppy-blouse attire to stuff like the OSCARS at the time (Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton come to mind). There are some hair-raising slideshows about it out there.

    5. aunttora*

      I covet every single thing Sigourney Weaver wore in that movie.
      I just boxed up all my “work” clothes to take to a consignment store or something, because for the remaining months of my working life, remote, I’ll continue to wear sweats I got at Costco, one of the Orvis flannels I got at Costco, and a variety of novelty tshirts. I’m a little sorry about it…although no appetite for going back to the office!
      But if I could have that green suit she wore with the gold metal belt, I might reconsider.

    6. GammaGirl1908*

      I loved that sparkly black cocktail dress and would wear it tomorrow to the right event!

  3. The Other Lois*

    My partner is a forensic psychologist and our child recently went through this phase where they thought the phrase “being committed” meant a human being is euthanised. (I blame Lois Lowry.) They thought my partner was authorising legally-mandated killings.

    That night was a long conversation.

    1. MsM*

      On the plus side, you know you can count on your kid to be an active part of the resistance if we ever do wind up in a YA dystopia. (Or maybe that’s not so good news, considering how parents tend to fare in those.)

      1. The Other Lois*

        Overall I think it’s a sign Child has been raised right so far: they listened, thought critically, trusted their own judgment, and reached out to a teacher with concerns. But it really was a mess to untangle (and would have been worse if they had been a just a few years older). If they get married one day, it will be a wedding story as payback for the call from the school.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          I’m sorry it was a mess, and I hope it becomes a funny story soon.

          When I was six I told the D.A.R.E. program’s Officer Friendly that I wouldn’t sign his “Zero Tolerance for Drugs” pledge because my parents gave me drugs. I’m not sure if that resulted in a call home from the school.

          Then went home I accused my mom of being an alcoholic because I’d seen her drink wine a month before. She told me that her level of drinking was normal, and I screamed, “That’s what an alcoholic would say!”

          …The D.A.R.E. program lacked a certain amount of nuance.

          1. constant_craving*

            I remember being a kid and feeling very worried watching my mom sip a soda while driving. I’d heard a lot about how bad drinking and driving was.

            1. OtterB*

              Yep, my daughter who was 3 at the time told me I shouldn’t drink and drive as I put my diet Coke in the cup holder of the minivan.

                1. Katherine*

                  I heard someone on TV say “I don’t drink” and i was like…what? how? I’ll never have that much self-control! I truly thought the person never ingested any liquids.

              3. MigraineMonth*

                Could be worse. She could have said you’d been drinking and driving when a police officer had pulled you over!

            2. Pennyworth*

              That makes sense to me – my parents would not allow any food and drink in the family car ! I still never drink when driving.

            3. HardToKill*

              I had the same experience… not helped by the fact my mom was an emotional driver even without any undue influence. On the plus side, I always wore my seatbelt!
              I also saw something on NOVA that said drunks don’t get as serious injuries because they don’t tense up before the crash. So I sat back there listening to her Alice Cooper, trying to relax all my muscles … just in case that Pepsi resulted in an accident.
              Oh to be young again.

              1. MigraineMonth*

                I don’t understand why people are so nostalgic for childhood “innocence” and “freedom”. It was a very confusing time and I couldn’t just do what I wanted most of the time.

          2. Turquoisecow*

            My aunt had a glass of wine probably about once a month and every time her kids would call her an “alkie.” I’m not sure how old they were at the time so I don’t know if they had a serious concern or were joking, it may have started as the first and devolved into the second.

            1. Artemesia*

              My mother was from a very fundy family — she had a glass of sherry or cocktail maybe 6 or 7 times a year. When she had an ulcer (which we now know are caused by bacteria but then were thought to be from stress) family members would whisper ‘is it because of her drinking?’ I found it hilarious.

          3. Beka Cooper*

            Omg I vaguely remember my mom getting so mad at me because after DARE I went home and found her cigarettes and hid them behind my dresser or something. My memory of this is not clear, so I’m not sure if she was mad because she couldn’t find them, or if she thought I took them for myself. Luckily for her health, though, she has managed to quit smoking in the intervening 30 or so years.

            1. Reb*

              I was in tears one day because I’d overheard my Nan’s friend mentioned smoking pot or something, and I thought that it would make her “bad” and I couldn’t stand the thought of someone I liked being a “bad” person.

              To convince me everything was fine I was told “daddy did drugs, and he’s not a bad person.” I was convinced she was lying. My dad had come over and tell me, that yes he did used to do drugs and used to deal drugs, and it’s not a bad thing but don’t tell anyone. Also if you wanna try any, let me know and I’ll get you some because it’s safer than you get involved with some potentially suspicious people.

              I got a lot of conflicting messages growing up.

          4. run mad; don't faint*

            One of my kids had that same line of thinking about alcohol. My having a glass or two of wine per week worried him horribly. And he took a lot of convincing that it was an okay level of alcohol to have. Maybe he had a DARE presentation at an impressionable age too!

          5. Just Another Cog*

            Yes it did! My son’s D.A.R.E. Officer told his fourth grade class that COFFEE was a gateway drug! I kid you not. We lived in a community that was heavily Mormon.

          6. BikeWalkBarb*

            Yeah, I did counterprogramming of my children when they had DARE in their schools. Yes, if you have concerns you should talk to someone. No, it should not be a police officer. Yes, drugs and alcohol can affect how your brain works. No, pot isn’t the same kind of bad-for-you as heroin.

            And all of that education didn’t help any of us recognize their father was an alcoholic. I figured that out on my own after a while.

          7. Theon, Theon, it rhymes with neon*

            In first grade, also during the D.A.R.E. heyday of the 90s, I insisted that it was okay to give kids beer *once in a while*, because that’s what my mom did. I was disabused of that notion in no uncertain terms.

            Then I came home in tears. “Mom, the teacher says you should never let us drink root beer.”

            Mom: “No, you shouldn’t let kids drink it all the time, but it’s okay once in a while, as a treat.”

            Me: “No, I tried saying that, and the teacher said never, EVER give kids beer!”

            Mom: “…Wait. Beer, or root beer?”

            Me: “…Root beer is a kind of beer?”

            Mom: “OMG, I need to call the school, the teacher thinks I give my kids beer!”

            Of course, by then everyone had gone home, and of course this happened on a Friday, so my poor, overly anxious, uptight mom had to spend the whole weekend living with the knowledge that a teacher thought she gave her kids beer “once in a while.”

            Monday morning, first thing, on the phone:

            Mom: “So about Theon saying it’s okay to let kids have beer once in a while-”

            Teacher: “No, it’s okay, I didn’t mean to cause offense. I know some cultures believe in letting children drink wine supervised-”

            Mom: “No, you don’t understand! We don’t drink alcohol in this family! Theon doesn’t know what beer IS! The only kind of beer Theon knows about is root beer. Which I don’t believe in giving kids too often, because of the sugar content.”

            Teacher: “Ohhhh! Well, thank you for clarifying. If Theon misunderstood, I’m sure some other kids did too and just didn’t speak up.” (I was the most speaking up kid ever.) “I’ll be sure to explain the difference to the class today.”

            And that is the story of how my mother and I inadvertently traumatized each other that one time.

          8. Missa Brevis*

            I remember being petrified after a DARE presentation in I think 3rd grade because I knew my dad used ‘dope’! There was a little bottle on his desk that said it and everything! Did that mean he was a (gasp) dope fiend!? (Please note that this was the early two thousands and I don’t think anyone was seriously using that term except, apparently, our local DARE officer)

            I came home and tearily confronted him, and he had to very gently explain that ‘eze dope’ is a special glue he used on his model airplanes and that he definitely was not on any drugs.

          9. Katherine*

            YES. I remember first learning about alcoholism and thinking being drunk was cumulative, like the alcohol just stayed in your system permanently. And then I started to get real worried about my mom, who drank a glass of wine every time we went out to dinner.

          10. Irish Teacher.*

            Meanwhile in Ireland…I was a kid in the ’80s and ’90s and we got a booklet about “drinking sensibly” when I was in 6th class (11 and 12 year olds) and it was like “you can choose: to drink, not to drink or to put off the decision until you are older.” And advised that if you choose not to drink, don’t be a jerk about it and recognise that most people who drink do do so sensibly.

            It was good advice in general, but there was a tone about it that suggested those were decisions we were at an age to be making and could make responsibly for ourselves. Like “you can drink now, you can wait until you are legally allowed to or you can remain teetotal and all those choices are equally valid.” The legal age to drink was 18.

            1. Teapot Wrangler*

              You know though, as a pretty large majority of kids (in the UK) up until recently started drinking with friends in year 8 or 9 (12-13, 13-14) that is kind of the perfect time to do it. I don’t know if the timings are v. different in Ireland but for us by the time we had much on alcohol at school, most of us had already hit those Bacardi Breezers…

          11. NotJane*

            I told my parents they were addicts because caffeine is an addictive substance and they couldn’t give it up, lol.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              You weren’t wrong! Caffeine is an addictive drug that I have a physical dependency on.

              My sister isn’t a coffee drinker, so when I visit my niblings I have to make sure we go to a drive-thru or similar so I don’t get withdrawal headaches. I’ve explained to the eight-year-old that I’m addicted to caffeine. I want them to grow up with a more nuanced understanding of drugs than “JUST SAY NO OR YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING BAD THAT HAPPENS TO YOU.”

    2. Anne of Green Gables*

      As a fan of Lois Lowry’s since childhood, I adore this! I also know exactly why your child thought that.

    3. A Simple Narwhal*

      Oh man, glad to hear your partner is not actually in charge of “releasing” people!

      Great The Giver shout out though, love that book.

  4. 1 Non Blonde*

    My mom used to always call people in the morning and say “are you up and at ’em?!!” and I thought she was saying “are you up? and Adam?” and I thought it was weird that she knew so many people named Adam.

    1. cuddleshark*

      Hah, I also definitely thought the phrase was “up and Adam” but I NEVER questioned it.

        1. cuddleshark*

          Apparently (I’m 39), but you just unlocked my memory banks and my mom definitely would include that most mornings. (“Up and at ’em, Atom Ant,” I guess was the full phrase?)

    2. A Simple Narwhal*

      Ha that’s so funny! I used to think “lactose intolerant” was actually “lack, tose, and tolerant” for waaaay too long. Tim Allen in the Santa Clause was the first time I had ever heard of it so I think his enunciation – pausing in between each syllable for emphasis – really shaped my mental picture of what the words were.

      Similarly I thought “prima donna” was actually “pre-Madonna” – I knew who Madonna was so I thought they were saying someone was acting like they were about to be a big star like her.

      I’m so grateful I learned the truth before I ever had to write either of these things down!

      1. Phlox*

        I was convinced that “whobody” was a word – which given “nobody” “somebody” seemed like a logical conclusion.

        1. GammaGirl1908*

          In your defense, there are a bunch of people right now who think “anyhoo” and “anywho” are words and not jokes.

        2. littlehope*

          Oh, my sister did that when she was little. “Whobody did that?” It was adorable. And very smart, actually, excellent use of applied linguistics- it’s not your fault English is inconsistent!

      3. Nebula*

        I also thought ‘prima donna’ had something to do with Madonna. On top of that, I was raised Catholic and heard ‘Madonna’ in relation to Mary, of course, but because I knew about the pop star, I thought Madonna was just a name and that Mary’s full name was like, Virgin (which I thought was a title like Miss or Mrs or Dr) Mary Madonna Christ. Because ‘Christ’ was obviously Jesus’ surname.

    1. I guess my entire company was the real work wife the whole time.*

      I hate meetings but I still have this feeling that if I were a person who was in a job with even MORE meetings that would definitely mean I was more important and somehow I would like it better (definitely not true, on either count, I know logically).

    2. one of the annas*

      I was just thinking that suddenly some people at my work are making more sense haha

    4. Anonymouse*

      In my field getting *invited* to external meetings is the prestigious thing despite the disruption and inconvenience it causes. I talked to someone who had two meetings a week almost every week for the next two years. Meetings that were all over the country and occasionally international. That was when I realized there was such a thing as too successful.

  6. Spencer Hastings*

    #8 would have fit right in at the royal court of Vintas.

    (Wise Man’s Fear reference)

    2. Resume please*

      Oh wow, memory unlocked of those “day-to-night” outfit magazine articles. Tease hair, hike up skirt, put on higher heels, replace button-up shirt with something snazzy, smear on red lipstick – voila! Ready for a night out! So glad this doesn’t actually exist

  7. Business Factory*

    #5, many of my coworkers (and especially previous managers!) still think this, to my dismay

  8. DCBreadBox*

    I have to admit I kind of thought #5 was true until, well, until I had one of those jobs.

    1. umami*

      LOL exactly! I didn’t realize how much time was actually wasted with meetings. Yes, some are important, and it’s nice to be thought of as an important contributor, but I’m more likely to assign someone else to attend a meeting for me unless the topic absolutely needs my expertise.

  9. Seven If You Count Bad John*

    “When I was 4 or 5, I tended to take most things literally. So I thought getting fired meant that if you were bad at your job, you were taken out of the building and set on fire as a punishment.”

    Now I’m seriously wondering where the phrase “getting fired” comes from. Fired out of a cannon? TO THE GOOGLES

    1. curly sue*

      I looked it up – there’s an etymology website called etymonline which is one of my favourite things ever!

      It turns out it’s a 19th century pun, playing on the two meanings of the word ‘discharge,’ as in, ‘to discharge an obligation’ and ‘to discharge a gun.’

      “The sense of “sack, dismiss from employment” is recorded by 1877 (with out; 1879 alone) in American English. This probably is a play on the two meanings of discharge (v.): “to dismiss from a position,” and “to fire a gun,” influenced by the earlier general sense “throw (someone) out” of some place (1871).”

      I’ll stick the link in the next comment, if anyone’s interested!

    2. SoftFundedAcademic*

      I also went to the Googles. Found this in a NYT article from 2013: “The term ‘you’re fired’ probably dates back to the 19th century,” said Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Information. “It is a pun on ‘discharged’: you fired a gun, you discharged a gun. ‘I got discharged, I got fired.’”

      1. Two-Faced Big-Haired Food Critic*

        There was a MASH episode where Colonel Potter ordered Hawkeye to fire a gun. Hawkeye didn’t want to; eventually did, but his first act was to glare at the gun and snap, “You’re fired!” To Potter, “I did it as aggressively as I could!”

    3. Ganymede II*

      In the LEGO Movie, getting fired means you’re fired out of a volcano… so that’s probbaly not helping the confusion for many children!

  10. many bells down*

    Everyone kept SAYING my dad was an engineer, but I didn’t understand why they would say that. I finally asked where his train was.

    I was a very literal child. I did not understand that there were a lot of different engineers and most of them do not drive trains.

    1. e electricus*

      I had a college roommate who thought the same thing! Early in our time living together, she asked me “do you really need a four year degree to drive a train?” I was a chemical engineering major, at the time….

    2. Alan*

      A friend told me that she couldn’t understand why her father wasn’t dirty at the end of the day because he was an engineer and “trains are dirty”…

  11. Jeanius*

    #3-same reason I thought people who worked at banks were SOOOO rich; surrounded by all that money. Never dawned on me that it wasn’t theirs!

    1. Turquoisecow*

      My old boss told me as a kid he wanted to be the person working at a gas station (in NJ where people pump your gas for you), because his dad would give the person cash and they would take a was of bills out of their pocket to make change. “Wow,” thought boss as a kid, “look at all that money! I want that job.” He did not know that the employee did not get to keep that wad of bills.

      3. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

        Ditto aunttora,

        I took a trip a month ago (Massachusetts to Pennsylvania and back) and remembered that in New Jersey – THEY pump the gas. AND gas is cheaper in New Jersey as well, in spite of the attendant.

        1. GammaGirl1908*

          A couple of years ago, I was driving through New Jersey and thought nothing of hopping out of my car at Costco to fill my tank. I wondered why the attendant came over and leaned on the pump and made small talk with me while I pumped my gas. I eventually realized that he had noted that my car had Washington DC plates, and therefore I was not a local and knew how to pump gas, but it was still his job to oversee the task, however it got done.

  12. Seahorse Girl*

    #3 made my day! Someone else besides me wanted to work in a toll booth! I feel so much more normal now.

    1. saskia*

      I did too! But only because I found it lonely and romantic, in your own bubble word, on an island amongst the sea of cars.

        1. brilliant but canceled*

          There was this cute little show called That’s Life in the early 2000s where the main character’s father was a New Jersey toll collector. Also starring Heather Dubrow before she was Heather Dubrow. Unfortunately it was never released on dvd or streaming as far as I can tell.

    2. 1 Non Blonde*

      same! I thought it’d be exciting to see all the cars all day (I was very into cars in my teens, and, well, still am!)!

  13. HannahS*

    #9, I remember that! I recall with fondness Chatelaine magazine (Canadian), which was always good for a day-to-night fashion spread. Lots of “add a fun scarf!” and “cinch it in with a belt!”

    I have only twice in my life gone from work to dinner. On one occasion, I niftily changed my clothes in an empty office using my special skill of undressing/redressing without allowing any part of myself or my clothes to touch the floor (hospitals are gross.) On the other occasion I kept it easy and removed my navy blue scrub top to reveal a navy t-shirt. Revolutionary stuff.

    1. Lana Kane*

      Right? “Take off the blazer and this blouse is great for evening after-work drinks!”

      And like OP, I have never once had to go “from day to evening” with my outfits. What you see at 8am is what you get at 6pm, suckers.

    2. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

      Anybody else ever see the ridiculous day-to-night transition of a *jogging suit*? Even during the fitness fads I can’t imagine anyone wearing a jogging suit to work, much less adding a sparkly belt and high heels for nightwear!

      1. Artemesia*

        I gave a relative in a nursing home one of those fancy sort of velour jogging suits for Christmas and one of his kids had a cow — ‘he can hardly walk, what were you thinking getting him a jogging suit’ — I finally said ‘Carl, another name for a jogging suit is ‘nursing home day wear’ — it is easy to put on, comfortable to sit in and yet doesn’t look like he didn’t get dressed for the day.’

        1. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

          I agree – they’re wonderfully comfortable, fancy jogging suits. But would you try to dress one up for a night on the town?

    3. Meow*

      These kinds of articles still exist all over fashion sites. Or like even when I’ve done those monthly clothing boxes, they always have advice like “Just remove the blazer and add a chunky necklace and you’re ready for a night on the town!”, and I’m glad I’m not the only one trying to figure out who does this. Maybe people in big cities where going home to change takes a significant amount of time?

      1. Wolf*

        The timing is the most puzzling part to me. Every office job I’ve had ends around 5pm or 6pm, and parties rarely start before 9 or 10pm. Besides dinner, what do people do in the 4 hours between work and party?
        If it’s dinner, then coktails, then clubbing… that sound really exhausting if you need to get up for work the next day, and also hugely expensive? For a weeknight?

        1. amoeba*

          Ehh, I’d think it was more intended for after work drinks or dinner and drinks/bar than an actual whole night of clubbing! But then who know what the young fashionable people working at those magazines were up to…

        2. Ganymede II*

          My main issue is logistics of all the stuff you have to cart around. Most office people I know bring a laptop home after work, and having to guard that thing around in various restaurants and bars sounds very stressful.

    4. mreasy*

      We were going to have so many scarves and we were going to have to learn all sorts of artful ways to tie them! I loved this one, “day to night” was SUCH A THING in women’s mags in the 90s. I was like when my time comes, how will I know what color accent accessories will best bring out my eyes? Also am I a summer or an autumn.

    5. aspirational yogurt*

      You just prompted something I’d forgotten. In the early aughts, I worked for a large international company which had a credit union office on-site. It was a windowless room inside the HR area of building B. The credit union office hours were even less than typical banker’s hours … something like 10-2, 3 days a week.
      One day I had plans after work for which I was going to change clothes. As it was end of day and the credit union was closed, I decided to shut the door and change in their “office”.
      When I came out, my friend and coworker asked, “did you just change clothes in there?”
      “I sure did”, I said, likely twirling around.
      “You know there’s a security camera in there, right?”
      No. No, I did not know I was being filmed. O_o

    6. londonedit*

      Definitely. Turns out in the industry I chose (publishing) you don’t really have a distinction between ‘work clothes’ and clothes you’d wear in your everyday life, and in the city I live in (London) no one really ‘dresses up’ to go out in the evening. Of course, I fairly regularly go out after work – but you’re going to the pub, and pubs are casual places. Or you’re going to a play, but no one dresses up for the theatre anymore, so whatever you’ve worn to work is fine. The idea of going straight from work to some kind of dressy cocktail party is something I assumed would happen a lot, thanks to those magazine articles, but I don’t think it’s ever happened in my life! Christmas parties are slightly different, but we only have one big work Christmas do and people either work from home that day and go to the party having got dressed up at home, or they bring or wear something slightly dressier to the office. It’s not a formal party, anyway – most people just go one level of smartness up from their usual work outfit, and/or add some sparkles, which are normal things to wear in December anyway!

  14. Tammy 2*

    #9 Day to Night Barbie really gave me some unrealistic expectations about what working adulthood was going to be like, I’ll tell you what.
    (But she was my favorite. The hat with the polka-dotted band! The spectator pumps! The little briefcase!)

      1. curly sue*

        That was my favourite Barbie outfit *EVER*. I still want a gown like that, even though I’m 5’3″ and I would look like I was being eaten by a chiffon blob monster.

        1. Tammy 2*

          Unique Vintage has a cocktail dress version!!!

          She was my second favorite–Day to Night had a slight edge because she had more accessories.

        2. Delta Delta*

          This was my favorite Barbie outfit too! so much so that when I was little I found a peach-ish colored bridesmaid dress at a garage sale and would wear it while I played with my Peaches and Cream Barbie.

          I’m pushing 50 and 10/10 would still wear that if I could.

    2. Katherine*

      Yes! Came here to say there was a Day-to-Night Barbie! I still remember the song in the commercial “We can work from 9 to 5, and then change in a flash for an evening with Ken! Secret turn-around skirt, fabulous hair, sparkles everywhere! We girls can do anything, right, Barbie?”

    3. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Yes! Can anyone who was working in the 80s tell us whether this was ever a thing real women did or cared about?

      I remember reading a lot of magazine tutorials on taking your makeup from day to evening too. Usually it was just putting on more eyeshadow and more blush. “Make it darker! Now you’re ready to go from the office to cocktails!”

      1. Ally McBeal*

        I was born in the 80s, but when I worked in NYC in the 2010s day-to-night was absolutely a thing. Nothing but peplum tops and editor pants as far as the eye could see! The heels I wore to the office doubled as club wear! I think this is partially a function of not wanting to shlep all the way home after work on the subway, but happy hour culture is so strong there too.

      2. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

        Well, I was a librarian, which many people say is a synonym for frumpy, so I didn’t do that back in the 80s. The doing your makeup in the office bathroom at the end of the day to make it more dramatic before going out was a real thing, though.

      3. Retired now*

        I was single and working in the late 70s and 80s. At the time, we were all wearing dresses or suits, stockings, and heels to the office. I just wore my work clothes on weeknight dates. Though I usually tried to wear a dress rather than a suit that day. And I never made my makeup more dramatic but that was never my thing.

      4. Chauncy Gardener*

        Ugh. NEVER was a thing for me, sadly, although I was in the military for most of that time period. ;)

      6. Day to Night Transitioner*

        I wasn’t working in the 80s, but a couple of decades later when I was in my 20s, day to night was definitely a big thing for me and some of my colleagues! We worked in an office block in the CBD, which also happened to be where all the clubs/pubs/restaurants/other nightlife were located. Too much hassle to go home and change, so yes, bringing chunky jewellery/different shoes/sparkly scarf etc and makeup to make the transition was definitely a thing :)

      7. Springtime*

        I always assumed the need for “day to evening” outfits was completely made up by magazines. But then (10 years or so ago) I was working at an office near an opera house, and I bought a weeknight subscription to the opera. Suddenly, the conundrum became real! Neither the office nor the opera had a strict dress code (which maybe made it even harder), but coming up with a single outfit that made me feel good and not out of place in both settings did have me thinking through every possibility in my closet. Somehow, it was much easier on days when I went straight to rock shows from work–probably because I could throw jeans and a T-shirt in a shoulder bag and not care if they were wrinkled when I put them on.

        I still laugh when remembering that 30-Rock episode were Liz attends an event in a borrowed evening dress and her down vest. She tells the coat check person, “I didn’t know I was coming here.”

    4. Turquoisecow*

      Same. My company rarely had after work cocktail parties but even when I was dating I would just wear my work clothes to the date. We were business casual so it was formal enough for a dinner date – usually dressy pants or skirt and a blouse. And usually my date was also wearing clothes from work – which in my now-husband’s case was usually khakis and a button-down shirt. Neither of us would have had time to first go home and change and then go back out.

      Of course on weekday dates we wouldn’t have been going to an especially formal restaurant anyway. And while I have dressed up to go to a restaurant, I’ve yet to eat anywhere that had a dress code.

      There’s a family story that my dad tried to take my mom to the Russian Tearoom in NYC but they wouldn’t let him in because he wasn’t wearing a tie, so they instead went to some hole-in-the-wall Italian place. Husband and I went there for dinner and he was not wearing a tie and no one cared.

      1. SpaceySteph*

        When I was dating, I brought along a tshirt to change into because I lived in the US South and I needed to take off my work clothes (long sleeves for frigid office temps) and change into something that hadn’t been sweat through from the walk from the office to the car.

  15. cuddleshark*

    When I was in kindergarten, I thought college was going to be a classroom where everyone sat on the floor in a circle and talked about what they wanted to do when they grew up.

    3. Turquoisecow*

      I took a few creative writing classes in college that were all about sharing, reading, and critiquing others’ work, and we sat in a circle, but not on the floor.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        Actually, we did once sit in a circle on the floor in a class at college ’cause for some reason all the desks and chairs had been removed from the room. We didn’t talk about what we wanted to do when we grew up though.

    4. Charlotte Lucas*

      Pretty accurate description of my dorm room on a weekend. (If you add pizza.)

      We also spent a fair amount of time watching and discussing The Young Riders and Labyrinth.

  16. FSU*

    #9… I don’t know if it was a thing in real life, but after my parents passed, I discovered they had packed up a lot of my things from childhood and I found my Day-to-Night Barbie.

  17. Alex*

    I will say that my dad’s company picnics (in the late 80s) were AWESOME. Food, bounce houses, pony rides, and even helicopter rides.

    Unfortunately the original owner of the company passed it on to his son, who was a bit of a scrooge. No more picnics. Or amazing Christmas gifts. Or raises.

    1. infopubs*

      I have very fond memories of our company picnics from the late ’80s. A guy who hit me hard with a water balloon remains on my “Not To Be Trusted” list to this day.

    2. umami*

      Maybe it was mostly an ’80s thing, because I have the same memories! We loved dad’s company picnics.

      2. allathian*

        Yes, my parents’ company picnics were cool, at least until some of the adults got too drunk. Both of them were scientists and this was at a research station, so most people there were either faculty with families, postdocs, or grad students working on their Master’s or Ph.D. thesis. The average age of those who attended the picnics, including the kids, was somewhere around 25 at a guess. My parents who were in their mid to late 30s at the time were among the oldest. The company picnics were held on a lovely hillside, and nobody had to drive anywhere. There’s a photo of me at one of these picnics wearing a summer dress and a frown, with my dad’s beer bottle right next to my hand (he took the photo so I “guarded” his bottle). I was less than 10 years old at the time and it looks as if it was my bottle! I’ve laughed at that photo so many times since it was taken.

    3. Funko Pops Day*

      I had my first lobster (and then my second) at a company-picnic type event for my dad in the early 90s.

    4. Bitte Meddler*

      I went to a lot of my dad’s company picnics in the mid-1980’s. There were always other kids in my age range and we’d become instant best friends for an afternoon.

      Eons later, when I was in a white collar job at a company large enough to hold company picnics / dinners, I had a weird “Allison through the looking glass” moment when I realized the only people in attendance at the company picnic were all employees. No families. No children.

      And, yep, the only “bring your family” company-sponsored events I’ve seen since then are company seats at a baseball game and it’s your turn to get the four tickets.

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        Yeah. I have seen very few “bring your family” work events in my professional life, and they’ve always had a lot of limitations.

    5. sacados*

      Late 90s, thought my uncle’s company was the coolest ever because every fall they would rent out one of the local amusement parks (think Knott’s Berry Farm/Six Flags type) for the day for all the employees and their families, and I always got to go along with my cousins.
      Definitely a highlight every year!

    6. WantonSeedStitch*

      I loved those company picnics in the late 80s too. Not quite as big a deal as yours, but free food to include a free snow cone truck, swimming in a lake, games, etc. And I remember that my dad also got a big Christmas gift too. Nothing fancy–in fact, today I would say it was kind of bullshit that he got that instead of a real bonus–but it was usually a large container of some kind like a cooler or suitcase or something filled with all kinds of products that the store chain he worked for sold. There was usually one “big” thing like a clock radio, a wireless phone, or a tiny TV or something, and a bunch of little crap like perfume, candies, sunglasses, etc. My sister and I loved diving into that and claiming stuff from it every year.

    7. pagooey*

      This has unlocked a core memory of going to one of my dad’s company picnics. He worked construction, so it was a pretty low-key affair–a cookout in a local park, late 70s. But I was absolutely gobsmacked because there were coolers upon coolers full of ice and sugary sodas, and NO ONE WAS KEEPING TRACK. I could just dig in there and help myself! My parents were divorced, and so my mom wasn’t there to keep me from running straight up a tree trunk after 3 root beers, 2 orange Crushes and a green river.

      Only now, 40+ years later, does it occur to me that the adults had their own coolers of beverages somewhere, contributing to their indifference to feral, sugar-frenzied children.

    8. Artemesia*

      my dad worked for Boeing in Seattle in its heyday and they had great giant corporate family parties — I remember the Christmas stockings and also the terry cloth t-shirts for kids with pictures of the B52 on them that I proudly wore.

    9. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      I remember the company picnics at my first job. Not as fancy as Alex’s (no helicopter rides) but lots of food and games. I remember we had a memo sent out before one picnic telling staff not to wear our brand new company tee shirts (bright red with the company name) because the picnic site was in Crips territory and they were afraid of drive-by shootings (another sign of the 80s). I’m not sure any gang member would go after a group of engineers and their families having a picnic.

    10. Part time lab tech*

      My Dad’s company (might have been his social club) had Christmas parties. At the time there were only two primary schools and it was the largest single employer so I’d know some of the kids. I still have the sewing box I was under impressed with from the present lucky dip.
      Another year I got lots of splinters from an old plank swing. (Anyone remember that playground equipment? They must have been too dangerous because you could really get up momentum with your friends and I haven’t seen them since the 90s)

    11. Dancing Otter*

      At my father’s company picnic – I could probably figure out the year from the eclipse records – we all made pinhole viewers out of what I remember as shoe boxes, but probably contained lab supplies originally. There were also pony rides.
      The same company, Christmas party at the research center – they had a glass blower on staff to make beakers, flasks, retorts and such, and he did demonstrations. They must have ordered coloring agents specially for the event, since even as a child I knew there wasn’t much call for jewel-toned lab-ware, but he spent most of the party making Christmas ornaments. It was fascinating, and I wanted to apprentice on the spot. (Note that I was not yet old enough to be allowed near so much as a lit candle, let alone the roughly 1200F heat required to work glass.)

    12. cleo*

      Company picnics! I learned how to windsurf at one of my dad’s company picnics in the 80s. It was at a park on a little midwestern lake – someone brought a couple of these newfangled windsurf boards and I was fascinated.

    13. Reed Weird (they/them)*

      My dad works at a four-letter federal agency, and we would go every summer to a hog roast his branch organized. It wasn’t super extravagant, I don’t know the details of how it came about (again, federal agency with taxpayer budget). I think it used to be one higher-up had a roasting pit and would host, and then everyone chipped in for the hog and potlucked the sides. I mostly remember all the running around with the other kids while our parents chatted. Great times :)

  18. Ess Ess*

    I remember my mom talking about taking days off from work as PTO days. I thought that PTO stood for Parent-Teacher days and I thought she was constantly meeting with my teachers each time she took PTO.

    1. Who knows*

      A few years ago I met someone in their 20s (possibly 30s) who didn’t know what PTO stood for. Like, I said “I’m on PTO today” and they had no idea what I meant.

      1. Nightengale*

        I am 48 and I learned the term from this site within the past decade. I had never worked somewhere that called time off specifically “PTO” until my current workplace where I have been about 5 years. People would say “I’m on vacation next week” or “I’m taking Friday off” and but I never heard or saw that specific acronym. I still think “parent-teacher organization” every time I see it written.

        1. 1 Non Blonde*

          same! I spent 17 years with the Federal Government–from straight out of college until mid-career–and everything was called “leave” so to now be at a place with “PTO” is still weird to hear/say!

  20. Brian*

    The idea that you picked a career and just went with it. Astronaut? Actor? President? Pick and it’s yours.

    1. A Significant Tree*

      When I was really little I somehow turned the expression “anyone can become President!” into a belief that everyone had to serve as President at some point and I kind of dreaded that future.

      I also thought that mad chemistry labs with all the bubbling frothy liquids would play a bigger part of my career – I lost all interest in chemistry when I found out what it would actually be like.

      1. Jane Gloriana Villanueva*

        Hope this isn’t too far a jump-off, but when I was little, my mother told me that all the people in the world are related. My immediate conclusion was that we were related to President Reagan.

    2. Tegan Jovanka*

      Yes! When I was ten I assumed that memorizing every episode of the original Star Trek would automatically qualify me to be an astronaut when I grew up. I’m still disappointed that’s not the case.

  21. umami*

    The sack races! I actually thought that too because my dad worked for AT&T way back before the breakup, and every year they would host a family day picnic or other kind of special activity. The best was when they would reserve Kings Dominion (an amusement park in VA for those not familiar) for just friends and family, and there was never a line for the rides! We could ride them over and over, it was awesome. Our favorite was the octopus (IIRC the name). I also thought that every company would do stuff like that *sigh*

    I also contributed #5 because dad was always in meetings and carried a briefcase, so that was my #lifegoal. Little did I know just how much being in meetings all the time is … not what I want to do with my life.

    1. Funko Pops Day*

      A couple of Fortune 100 employers near me do that at our local amusement park, and I’ve gotten to go as a ‘friend’ a few times– so awesome.

    2. MissEm*

      I remember that one – the Bad Apple! It was long gone by the time I worked at KD in the mid-90s.

  22. Rocket Raccoon*

    I thought that work was a place you went and they gave you money – no thought of staying there or doing something to earn the money. My idea was that you just went to this building, got in line, and when it was your turn they gave you some money.

  23. Fieldpoppy*

    Some of these made me LOL.

    My sister is a coach and consultant. (As am I). When her kid was 10, kid said “so your job is basically Hi, How are you, blah blah blah, give me 50 bucks.” We now fully refer to the less purposeful days in our work as being “it was all blah blah blah give me 50 bucks.”

    1. Relentlessly Socratic*

      Haha newly minted independent consultant here: I would respectfully like to wholly appropriate your family joke to use to describe my day.

      1. Fieldpoppy*

        Please! It’s even better if you make a fake phone with your fingers and pretend to talk into it lol

  24. The Bigger the Hair…the closer to god*

    When my oldest daughter was little, she thought that my husband worked at the airport. We would drop him off as he traveled a great deal. She was so disappointed to find out that he didn’t stay in the airport.

    1. ArcticFoxy*

      Ha, my younger (half) brothers thought this about me. My parents are divorced and I lived with my mom and flew out to visit my dad regularly. They were always either picking me up or dropping me off at the airport, so naturally…

    2. Gal Friday*

      My kid had a very similar thought that I worked at the train station, because my husband would drop me off for my commute, then drop our boy at daycare and the go to work himself. Then, he’d reverse the whole trip later in the day, picking me up from the train.

  25. Ann Onymous*

    My dad has a Ph.D. and is usually referred to as Dr. Onymous at work. When my sister was in preschool, her class was talking about jobs and the teacher asked if anybody’s parent was a doctor. My sister knew our dad wasn’t a physician, but didn’t yet understand that there were other jobs that came with the title of doctor. So my sister hesitantly raised her hand and said, “Some people call him doctor.”

    1. B*

      Your sister and younger!me were very much on a similar wave length. When I was a little kid, I knew my dad had just gotten his Ph.D. (which meant he was a doctor now) and that he worked in the poultry business so I told people that he was a chicken psychiatrist.

      (Needless to say, he is not.)

        1. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

          Not quite chicken psychiatrist, but my former chemistry teacher is a pet counsellor (she always did like animals more than children, so it’s a win-win for the kids and the pets).

      3. Irish Teacher.*

        I was recently at this improvised murder mystery thing where the audience wrote stuff that the actors would take out of a bin and read out and the play would be based on those. One of them was “I am a man-sized chicken just masquerading as a human being.”

        They also started the play by asking the audience to call out roles for each actor and one was “psychiatrist” (or maybe “psychologist”) so a plotline between the psychiatrist trying to convince the guy that no, he was not really a chicken. So…I guess you could argue she was a playing a chicken psychiatrist.

    2. alle*

      Kids are one thing, but…I was once on a date with a grown man who did not know that there are types of Doctor besides medical doctor. I told him I worked in research at the University getting my doctorate and he just gave me a blank look. He genuinely didn’t know what that meant. I tried to explain it to him and he kept asking if that meant I was a teacher.

    1. UpstateDownstate*

      I also forgot to add that when I was a child I thought I would grow up to be Cleopatra. lolzzz

      2. UKDancer*

        I wanted to be Elizabeth I so badly because she had great clothes and jewels and got to order people around. Growing up.was such a disappointment

      3. MsM*

        My mom is still horrified 3 year old me told my very feminist grandmother I wanted to be a fairy princess. (Grandma was unfazed, because three year old.)

  27. Kotow*

    LOVE to all of these! And so glad I’m not the only one who thought about “blue collar” and “white collar.”

    1. Alan*

      I don’t think you were wrong. I commented separately but many years ago I visited a company on the east coast (from CA) where that was indeed their (perhaps unspoken) dress code. All the professional staff had white collars and the non-professional staff wore blue. I realized then and there where “white collar” came from.

  29. PivotPivot*

    My daughter said she wanted to be a lifeguard.

    Why, I asked.

    Because all they do is blow whistles and take breaks. Okay then.

  30. minty*

    Re #9… I had a go-to move in my 20s which was tuck a minidress into a pencil skirt so the dress looked like a blouse. Then when the workday was over, I would take off my skirt and shove it into my bag. Voilà

    1. Funko Pops Day*

      Can I ask you where you were going, what region this was, and when? I’m so impressed that someone REALLY DID a day-to-night transformation!!!

      1. minty*

        Going from midtown to downtown in NYC, 2016/17

        Also, this is a little gross, but I kept and extra change of clothes and a toothbrush in the file cabinet next to my desk just in case I stayed out late… It was used once. Pre-pandemic me was a whole different person.

        1. different seudonym*

          I concur, wow! The silhouettes of that era would have worked so well for that, too. Was there ‘statement jewelry’ involved, or were you more downtown than that?

          1. minty*

            Haha, no big changes in jewelry or accessories. The blouse-to-dress was my only day-to-night stunt.

            I kept a blazer at my desk since, in true office fashion, the building would be freezing despite warm temperatures outside. The blazer helped ground the outfit into more business-like while at work, and I would leave it at my desk before leaving the office.

            So the ‘fit would go from a three-piece outfit into a simple dress. Now I’m feeling a little nostalgic!

    2. WantonSeedStitch*

      I inadvertently did a day-to-night transformation once. I had a wardrobe malfunction at work once where I went to zip up my skirt after using the bathroom and the zipper tab came right off, making the zipper separate and stop working entirely. I was able to sew it up with some fine yarn from my knitting bag and cover it with my shirt. On my lunch break, I went to a thrift store and found a super cute skirt with sequins on it, so when I left for the day and went out for drinks with a friend, I changed into it. Boom!

      1. Artemesia*

        YOu must have seemed so cool to those not in the know about the zipper catastrophe. This is wonderful.

    3. learnedthehardway*

      I also had day to night transition outfits – mostly involved replacing pants with a skirt and removing a jacket, adding some jewelry and makeup. I worked in a quite formal industry and had long hours. No way was I trekking back home before hitting a club!!

  31. Frankie Mermaids*

    Not me, but my younger sister. Our dad a B2B salesman in the appliance industry our whole lives. His big account, no matter where he worked, was always Whirlpool. My sister thought for quite some time that when he had to see them, he was going to some kind of lab with a big pool where they simulated whirlpools to study. I had visited his (super boring) office before she was born and harbored no such fantasies, unfortunately.

  32. Claudia*

    Re #12, my daughter knew that they dropped me off at the bus station in the morning, I got on the bus, then they picked me up from the bus station in the evening. She thought I worked on the bus, just riding the bus all day.

    Slightly younger, during the pandemic when I was working from home every day, she also knew that I worked in New York City. She thought New York City was the name for the second floor of our house (where my makeshift office was).

  33. DMLOKC*

    I thought people who worked graveyards worked in cemeteries. I didn’t realize there’s a thing called graveyard shift.

  34. hobbittoes*

    My spouse works in IT for our local school district, which means our kid sometimes sees him at work. She informed me that Daddy’s job is to “Put stickers on things and take pictures of them!” (he was doing inventory on hardware at her school)

  35. Heffalump*

    #3, the toll booth: First line of work I expressed an interest in, at age 5, was bank robbing. My mother said, “You know what they do with bank robbers? They put them in jail.”

    I’d thought you just drive off with the money, and that’s that. Lie low ’till the heat’s off–what’s that supposed to mean?

  36. Goldenrod*

    I can really relate to #2! Along the same lines of “planning” for your appearance on the Tonight Show…When I was 9 years old, I was a HUGE fan of the Muppet Show, which was in its heyday at the time (1970s). I aspired to be famous one day for the SINGLE purpose of being a guest on the Muppet Show. I really wanted to meet them and hang out with them.

    2. allathian*

      I credit my ability to read fast to The Muppet Show. It was on TV when I was in preschool/1st grade and learning to read. I thought it was the best thing ever. I’m in Finland and here pretty much only shows and movies intended for preschoolers are dubbed, kids 7 and older are expected to read fast enough to keep up with subtitles. I heard the laugh track and wanted to understand the jokes.

  37. Liz Lemon*

    I thought that “paid vacation” meant my employer would literally pay for my vacation expenses. Like, I would plan two weeks in Australia and they would cover my flight and hotel. Lol, I wish this were true.

  38. anonymous here*

    My dad was a high school counselor and then a high school administrator. Until he was promoted into a job that needed him to work all year, I thought that everybody’s dad only worked during the school year. I was astounded when I discovered that most families could not take a two-month vacation every summer.

    My dad had a second job while he was a counselor. He was a night shift desk clerk at a hotel near Disneyland. I had no idea what that involved, just that he met a lot of celebrities and that lots of people gave him leftover Disney tickets. This was back when there were different levels of rides — E tickets were the best! I asked him once, “did you have your dinner with Stevie Wonder?” (no, no he did not have dinner with the guests and in fact it was most polite and respectful if you treated them like any guest and did not make a big deal. “But dad! STEVIE WONDER!!”)

    1. pagooey*

      I, a grown ass lady, would lose my entire mind over dinner with STEVIE WONDER!! if someone offered it to me today! :)

  39. BlueCanoe*

    I thought the normal work week was Monday-Saturday with no summer holiday.
    Was relieved to learn that there are quite a few Monday-Friday jobs out there (or jobs with rotating shifts where you’re not working 6 days a week every week). Disappointed to learn that I was correct about most people not getting the summer months off.

  40. MigraineMonth*

    Oh my gosh, my story was selected for the roundup. This has never happened before! I may need to go lie down for a minute to recover.

  41. LuckyPurpleSocks*

    I remember being around 6 or so and asking my Dad if he got to take summer off from work, like us kids had summer off from school. When he told me no, he didn’t get a summer break like my sisters and I did, I remember being shocked and saying something like “You have to work ALL SUMMER?!?!?” It gave him a good laugh.

    1. Lily Rowan*

      Shoot, I work at a university, and have students surprised I’m not on break when they are!

      2. Pam Adams*

        It’s worse when the faculty are surprised that I didn’t have a relaxing summer. How do you think all those new students got in your class?

    2. Artemesia*

      I remember my daughter calling home the first week of her first job. ‘I have to get to the office at 6:30 to get this morning report done and then I don’t leave till at least 5 — can you believe that?’ uh. no. LOL

      1. Goldenrod*

        Honestly, I acclimated to that kind of schedule because I had to in order to have a job…but now that everything’s loosened up post-COVID, I’ve bounced back to thinking that is an entirely unreasonable schedule!

      2. amoeba*

        Yeah, that does seem like waaaay too much overtime though – definitely unreasonable where I work! (Also, having to start at 6.30 would be a big no from me…)

        1. allathian*

          I frequently start at 6.30, but working past 5 every day would kill me. I start early so I can stop early. (Thank goodness for flexible scheduling!)

    3. Nightengale*

      My father was a hospital administrator. One of my earliest memories as a preschooler was sorting out that when I wasn’t in school, my school was closed, but when my father wasn’t at work, the hospital was still open.

      He explained to me that the hospital never closes because there are always sick people, and so when he wasn’t at work someone else was. Or he would be “On call” (which at the time meant a pager and we could only travel so far within range of the pager when he was on call.

      Reader, this made such an impact on me I became a doctor.

  42. DiamondDogs*

    In 4th grade, my teacher asked the class what all of their fathers did for a living. I announced that my Dad was a train engineer. Teacher looks quizzingly at me and asks a follow-up question, ‘what does your Dad wear to work?’ and I reply a suit of course. Teacher tells me to go home and have a talk with my father about his job. I find out he’s a mathematical engineer and holds a bunch of patents….got a tell you the truth, I was a little disappointed:)

  43. Sadly not Xena*

    In first grade when they told us to draw what we wanted to be when we grew up, I wrote “warrior princess” and drew a picture of Xena. Seemed like a completely reasonable career goal at the time.

    1. run mad; don't faint*

      My daughter was going to be a lion when she grew up. Still not sure how she got the idea it was an occupation, but she was quite set on it.

      1. PhyllisB*

        My youngest daughter wanted to grow up to be a bathroom???!!! Of course, she was only 2 years old at the time. Her son wanted to be a dog.

      2. Wolf*

        I’m glad I’m not the only one. I wanted to become a tiger. Now I’m an engineer, which isn’t quite as awesome as a tiger.

  44. Goldenrod*

    I also LOVE #11! I think I had the same vague expectation about family sack races somehow contributing to promotion decisions.

    Also, from watching a lot of “Bewitched” and “The Jetsons,” it definitely seemed like jobs involved a lot of being promoted to Vice President, fired the next day, promoted again the day after that, and on and on..

    1. A Significant Tree*

      Also that your boss would absolutely expect to be regularly invited to a fancy multi-course home-cooked meal in your home, always with your promotion (or just continued employment) hanging in the balance.

      1. Artemesia*

        LOL oh yes this was a staple of sitcoms- the boss coming to dinner. (and also of women’s magazines — what to always have iin your pantry so you can serve this truly awful pasta dish when the boss is coming to dinner with little notice.’)

    2. londonedit*

      There was always the staple thing on TV (especially American programmes) where everyone would be gathered in a meeting room, and the big boss would announce who’d got the big promotion, and it would be a huge surprise to everyone (and would usually cause some huge drama because it’d be a massive shock when Steve got the promotion ahead of Annie, or whatever). I don’t know whether there are actually companies or industries where it does work like that, but I’ve certainly never encountered one! I can’t imagine not knowing about a promotion and then suddenly just getting thrust into a new job overnight.

  45. Jasmine Clark*

    Hahahaha… These are all funny. I love the toll booth, 401(K) and “under the table!”

  46. NitaSC*

    I used to teach a group of 4-5 year olds at church (4&5 year olds are hands-down the funniest people ever). Once in playtime a few of them were pretending to be a family – mom, dad and little girl. The mom and the dad took the little girl to daycare, said Bye! We’re going to work! We’ll be back after work! Then they went and . . . sat in the corner for awhile because they couldn’t figure out what “work” was. I’d take that job!

  47. LCH*

    i also took being paid under the table very literally when i was little. like… i knew it meant something illegal… so you had to hide out under a table to do it. where was the table? i don’t know. why couldn’t you just hide out other places? adults are weird so who knows.

    1. RM*

      I thought it meant that the boss passed you a wad of cash under the table using sleight of hand like a magician or a heist movie. It sounded weirdly stressful which probably partially had to do with the stressed tone adults would often use when discussing working under the table.

      1. Dogbythefire*

        Every time I hear that phrase, even though I know now what it means, I picture a wad of cash being passed under a table. Every time.

  48. CLM*

    My husband’s Silicon Valley tech start-up was experiencing some troubles and let a number of people go. A programmer my husband laid off from his team happened to be a little person. We were talking about the layoffs at the dinner table, and our kindergartener, who had met the fellow my husband laid off, gasped. “You cannot fire a dwarf!” She was instantly agitated. “All dwarves have axes! He will come back with his axe!” We were not able to calm her fears but the passage of uneventful time with no axe murders eventually soothed her.

  49. Cranky Old Bat*

    The evolution of meeting as lived by me:

    1. Taking messages for people in meetings
    2. Taking notes in meetings (but not participating)
    3. Attending/participating in meetings
    4. Running meetings
    5. Trying to get out of meetings

  51. RC*

    Re: #8: maybe this should wait for the weekend thread, but when I discovered the movie “The Ring” is translated in Spanish as “La Llamada” (like, the phone call, ring ring) versus “El Anillo” (like El Señor de los Anillos = LOTR) it sort of blew my mind because I just assumed it referred to the circular ring on the poster rather than the seven daysssss call.

    1. Goldenrod*

      “it sort of blew my mind because I just assumed it referred to the circular ring on the poster”

      I think it did! The translator made a mistake. The ring refers to the view from the bottom of the well (the ring of light)….right?

      1. RC*

        That’s what I had assumed (never having actually seen the film since I’m not really into horror), but surely the translation had to go through several levels of approval before it was released, right? So many someones had decided that was the more accurate translation.

        Anyway, adults giving each other rings, indeed.

    2. hispanohablante*

      That’s the Argentine title. It’s La Señal (The Sign) in Spain and El Aro (The Ring) elsewhere.
      Why it’s like that, I’unno.

  52. juliebulie*

    One day when he was on vacation, my father took me to work so that he could pick up his paycheck. It was lunchtime, and some of the guys were playing cards. This gave me the impression that going to work was just like hanging out at home. I didn’t really get the point but I figured that would work fine for me since I liked playing cards. I remember seeing a pair of queens in someone’s poker hand and loudly announced to everyone that he had fish.

  54. OtterB*

    These are hilarious.

    My dad was a US District Attorney when I was in 1st grade. We were supposed to draw pictures of what our parents did for work, and I wrote that he worked for the “goverment” and drew a picture of several men at a table in suits and wigs like the old-style British barrister wigs. I have no idea where I’d learned about those in 1st grade (and that wasn’t bad spelling for a 1st grader either).

  55. which sister*

    I always thought it was cool when I was little (before 1st grade) when my dad had to go to his bank and I got to go with him . ALL the tellers knew him and would load me up with lollipops (that I would have to share with my sister but still.)

    I thought the tellers were really nice and what a great guy my dad must be that they all knew him.

    It occurred to me a few years later the reason they all knew my dad was because he was an FBI Agent assigned to bank robberies at the time and they met him when the branch was robbed.

  56. Going to Say No Anway*

    When I was young, my dad managed a clinical chemistry laboratory. I knew his work was related to science, and I couldn’t understand why he was always talking about “instruments”; what did musical instruments have to do with science???

  57. ArcticFoxy*

    #12 reminds me of when I was in high school. My parents are divorced, and several times a year I would fly out to visit my dad and family. For the longest time, my (younger) half-brothers thought I lived at the airport.

  58. LaurCha*

    1. When I was six I wanted to be Quincy, MD when I grew up. He lived on a boat, used a microscope a lot, and solved crimes. What’s not to like?

    2. I asked my mom once what my dad did at work. She said “he makes money,” I guess because explaining his finance job for a government agency was a bit much for a kid. So I thought he literally worked at the place where money was printed. I think I knew what that looked like from Mr. Rogers’ occasional factory videos.

    1. pandop*

      My maternal grandmother actually did that, her first job when she left school back in the 1930s was at the Bank of England printing press!

  60. Holly.*

    At 5ish I told my (Jewish) Mum that I wanted to become a nun. Well, there was a convent down our road and the nuns seemed to spend their time shopping and running a charity shop which was to me a goldmine of fancydress clothes and jewelry…
    On being told that they were required to also be Christian, I revised my goal to be a bus conductor, as travelling all the time seemed an amazing job. I was very sad to hear they did the same routes every day.

    1. Nightengale*

      I (Jewish) also considered being a nun because I wasn’t interested in getting married and everyone talked as though getting married was inevitable. Being a nun seemed the most logical way out for awhile. I hope today’s kids grow up knowing that there are other non-marriage options and that asexuality/aromanticism is a thing.

  61. UKDancer*

    I desperately wanted to be Elizabeth I because she had lovely clothes and jewels and told everyone what to do. Then I read an article about the first female Lord Chief Justice and decided I wanted to do that (again I think it was the outfit with the wigs and gowns and the ability to tell people what to do). I also read a lot of Agatha Christie books as a 10 year old because my grandparents had very few other books and so I developed an interest in crime.

    So I wrote to Jim’ll Fix It (as children did in the 1980s) and asked him to fix it for me to judge a capital murder trial. This was despite the fact we didn’t have capital punishment in the UK by then and nobody would arrange for a pre-teen to judge a murder case. Needless to say I wasn’t invited on the show. I learnt later that my mother never sent the letter because she thought Jimmy Savile was very weird and didn’t want me near it (which showed good judgment on her part given later events).

    I became neither an absolute monarch nor a judge which is probably a good thing.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      Wow, I wonder how many letters they got from kids wanting to judge murder trials! 10/10 for your mum having the good instincts not to send the letter.

  62. Aguslawa*

    As a non-American I have to admit I was way into adulthood before I learned that 401k does not, in fact, refer to $401,000.

    1. Caroline*

      I’m an American, and I also didn’t figure this out until o was an adult. I remember thinking they were so dumb for naming it after the amount when inflation obviously means that the amount of money needed to retire will change as time goes on.

      1. korangeen*

        I didn’t figure it out until just now I guess! I know 401(k) is a name in the tax system, but I always figured it got that name because at some point $401,000 was a good amount of money to retire with!

  63. juliebulie*

    Most of what I knew about the working world, I learned from TV. I believed that most people who worked in offices had spacious private offices. (Except for Lou Grant, whose office was just bigger than a closet. I mean it was smaller than Otis’s cell on Andy Griffith.) I also believed that if you were an adult, any job would pay you enough to live on. And that, no matter what type of work you did, you’d be promoted every few years. Hahahahahaha.

    Some things about work I believed until I was much older. Like I assumed that any workplace would have its own parking. NOPE!

  64. ggg*

    Re: tollbooth, you had kind of the right idea; what you *really* want is to be the owner of a parking garage attached to a medical center.

  65. Dogbythefire*

    When I was about 5, I wanted to be a teacher because the thick stacks of paper! The stapled booklets! Handing them out to each child! Also writing on the board!

    I think I also just sort of assumed at some point, I’d be famous. And maybe live in a castle. Neither of these things has happened so far and now I think maybe they won’t.

    1. UKDancer*

      You could buy a castle I suppose. I mean there are some ruins around there nowadays. But you’d probably need a lot of money to restore it.

  66. Lab Snep*

    My dad was an engineer. Like, professional engineer.

    You have NO IDEA how disappointed I was to find out he did not drive trains.

    He even had a model train set!

    I still think people who drive trains are really cool.

  67. Silicon Valley Girl*

    Work-related — as a kid, I thought “carpool” was some kind of automobile maintenance that involved putting a car in a swimming pool, & that’s where the signs on the road lead to.

  68. AnotherSarah*

    My 4-year-old wants to be a nurse at a hospital. He wants his little brother to be a window washer their so they can see each other a lot. Eventually he’ll figure out contracted labor….

  69. Players only love you when they're playin'*

    I grew up watching alot of Crime shows as a child and believed that being a detective or police officer was glamourous.
    Lets just say seeing the cast of Law & Order dressed to the nines gave me unrealistic expectations.

    During my teens I dreamt of owning my own business and not working for the Man.
    But my aunts and uncles owned a few successful grocery stores and seeing them stressed almost daily and having to bring home work just didnt look so appealing anymore.
    Witnessing them bickering at the dinner table about missing accounts, late deliveries and sassy cashiers just wasnt pleasant.

    1. pandop*

      I grew up with self-employed parents, and the business was also our home (guest house). Decades later, I am on a course at work ‘Be your own career coach’ -and funnily enough, on the quiz I score really low on ‘wants to run own business’.

  70. Excels at Excel*

    My thoughts on what grown-ups did all day were more spot on than I realized, because while I had zero clue what Excel was actually used for (I suspected filling the boxes different colors when the computer you were using pre-internet didn’t even have minesweeper wasn’t it) I was absolutely certain that people in offices did spreadsheets all day. I now work in an accounting adjacent field so…I do, in fact, do spreadsheets all day. And not only that but at my last family reunion all the cousins stood around talking about our various tips and tricks for Excel, so now I’m sure the next generation *also* thinks grownups just do spreadsheets all day.

  71. Carol the happy*

    My little nephew was in kindergarten, and his teacher was out for minor foot surgery. Nephew explained this to my sister and me- she was a SAHM and I “worked at a hospital store with crutches and medicines” Neither of which he considered “Work work”.
    Sister asked her little boy if he knew when “Miss Pamela” was going to go back to work.
    He was puzzled, and said. “I don’t think Miss Pamela is ever going to work”.
    A short conversation ensued, and he was shocked and pleased that Kindergarten Teacher was Miss Pamela’s actual WORK.
    “That’s a good job. It’s almost as easy as being a Mommy!”

    1. Wolf*

      Funny, I always thought that Mommy was a hard job. All the moms around me were alway grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, or ironing laundry all evening or on the weekends, so I thought, I’d rather have another job and have more free time.
      For some reason, I didn’t consider that they were doing chores in the evening because they worked full time during the day.

  72. Zeus*

    TIL that 401K is a tax code, and (presumably) nothing to do with the number 401,000.
    The more you know…

  73. Kate-a-saurus Rex*

    Oh my gosh, I finally have one and missed the thread last week. I thought it was the “New York Sock Exchange”, and was very very very confused about why grownups would swap socks! I knew my grandma was a nurse there, sometimes, and that it involved something called “Wall Street” but I had this exceptionally vivid image of a bunch of Serious Business People in suits and briefcases without shoes or socks, sitting or standing in a circle surrounding a pile of socks as one by one they picked out new-to-them socks. We used to do similar things in gym class in early elementary – everyone would put a shoe in the middle or something and then we’d have to find our own shoes? Or something, so clearly that would be similar to the Sock Exchange…

    And I grew up outside of NYC, and was six the year the WTC was bombed – my parents were pretty conscientious about changing the radio station during news coverage, but we also listened to a lot of 1010WINS for traffic information and I remember spending one car ride asking WHY they traded socks, and getting increasingly annoyed at how confused my folks were …

  74. Katy*

    This question reminds me of a conversation I had with my 4 year old niece.

    Eliza: “What’s a hobby?”
    Me: “It’s something fun you do in your free time, when you’re not at your job.”
    Eliza: “My job is to go to school. My mommy’s job is a prosecutor. My daddy’s job is to ride his bike.”
    Me: “And what’s Bird’s job?”
    Eliza: “His job is to bark around all day long.”

    Please note: her dad’s job is not to ride his bike lol. But she’s right that it’s more than a hobby!

  76. Adds*

    #9 is for all the millennials wearing business casual and looking like realtors in the clubs in 2010/2011

    1. pope suburban*

      My immediate thought. The fashion magazines really had us all convinced that business casual could be fun with a statement necklace and those chunky Jeffrey Campbell-style heels. To this day, I abhor a peplum top; ducking them at that point was nigh impossible and they have never been a clothing item I’d want to wear.

  77. Disappointed Australien*

    One of my childhood memories is my Canadian Uncle trying to explain what a forensic criminologist does. IIRC he has meetings to talk about why people do bad things and how to help them not do bad things any more. In adult terms, he studies how government actions influence crime rates. The cliche some of you will have heard of is liberalising access to abortion in the USA reducing the crime wave a decade or so later (it doesn’t matter whether this is true, just that you’ve heard of it).

    (I have other uncles, but he lived A Very Long Way Away)

  78. AngelS.*

    I thought people lived where they worked. I even felt bad about buying all the groceries, fast food, etc. because we would leave them without! Little did I know!

  79. Sassandra*

    Regarding firings meaning setting people on fire – for a while I worked with a church related newspaper (not in the US) and I was talking at home about someone being “de-collared” (again, not in English).
    Of course it means “losing your clerical collar” = losing your right to work as a priest in this particular denomination.
    But my poor five year old was convinced it meant being decapitated, and was SHOCKED.

  80. MendraMarie*

    My dad was an accountant (eventually teaching accounting). My three-year-old brain heard this as “counting” and it made perfect sense: after all, he’d taught *me* how to count!

  81. Blackbeard*

    These are really cute! By the way, #5 is still believed by a lot of adults, apparently! ;-)

  83. Red5*

    I loved reading these! I remember as a kid in a small, midwestern town, the Hardee’s the next town over was the very first place to advertise they were open 24/7. I was really concerned with when and how the workers could sleep if they were supposed to be working 24/7, obviously not understanding that shift work exists.

  84. Bananapants Modiste*

    When I was a child, my Dad was a self employed engineering consultant, and very proud of that.

    When people asked what I wanted to be, I would proudly draw myself up to my full minuscule height and declare: “I’ll be self employed!”

    Never mind I didn’t know doing what.

  85. RoDan*

    When he was 4 or 5 or so, my nephew told me his Dad (my brother in law) job was to go to work, eat 5 donuts, then come home. His Dad was/is a private equity guy.

  86. Emily of New Moon*

    These are hilarious! When I was about 4 or 5. I had a doctor’s appointment in the same city where my dad worked. After the appointment, my mom and I met my dad in the park for lunch. We also fed the pigeons. After that, I thought that when my dad went to work, he just fed pigeons all day long!

  87. One HR Opinion*

    When I was young, back in the Reagan days, I wanted to be President because all I saw Reagan do was give speeches and go to fancy dinners. So I thought George Bush must be the one doing all the hard work and being President must be really easy.

  88. DEEngineer*

    In kindergarten, it didn’t occur to me that my teacher was a real person, with a family. I figured that she just lived at school and slept under her desk. I remember being astonished when someone was reading me a book in which the teacher went home.

  89. Elizabeth West*

    When I was very little, my dad worked for Singer Corporation (yes, the same one that makes sewing machines — in the 1960s and 1970s, they also diversified into computers). This was in the days of punch cards (yes, I’m old AF). He had a hard-sided briefcase he took to work every day. He would bring home the discarded punch cards for us to color and draw on. :)

    I thought it was so grown up to carry a briefcase. Nowadays, many people schlep their laptops and work stuff in a backpack or rolling bag, which I do/did it myself. Even so, having one is lodged in my brain as the ultimate signal of adulting at work.

    I’m not sure what happened to Dad’s briefcase; I think one of my siblings has it now that he’s passed.

  90. bookbug71*

    When I was asked what I wanted to be, I said a bookkeeper because I thought that person just kept books (which I loved). I was so disappointed when I found out it had to do with accounting and math (which I hated).

  91. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

    The dog dean (I can totally see a pug sitting imperiously in the boss’s chair) is still the best ever, but these are funny.

    Re “working under the table,” after college I worked as an admin in a university department where we had to order and clean up lunches for the professors’ meetings — there were many “working under the table” jokes because we did have to get down there and scrub. The idea that these people were doing cutting edge medical research but couldn’t keep their food off the floor was a little disconcerting, though!

  92. Alan*

    For #7, I’m not sure the blue-collar white-collar thing is wrong. I vividly remember traveling from CA to the east coast many years ago for a work trip where I was chagrined to see that all my engineer peers were wearing white dress shirts, while all the techs were wearing blue dress shirts. I mean, that was true to a person. That term doesn’t come from nowhere. It might be quaint now but at the time I was embarrassed not to be wearing a white dress shirt.

  93. Not A Stripper*

    So, this is a story about my wonderful daughter and son, who we adore. When they were young, around seven and eight, they asked us what a stripper was. Why on earth this came up? I am still not sure. But we didn’t feel like it was appropriate to go into the details so… we made up a fib. We told them that strippers strip metals from cars. We chuckled to ourselves and moved on, expecting to revisit the topic in a couple of years if necessary. Never did we expect that our daughter — who loves cars — would go around telling all of her friends she wanted to be a stripper one day. We found out she said that years later and laughed our butts off!

    And yes, I’m sure there’s better ways to go about telling your kids what difficult things are. You live and you learn.

  95. sparklefarm*

    I also had a misunderstanding about firings …. I remember hearing when I was a kid that the manager of our apartment complex had been fired, and got so surprised when I saw her walking around the complex (she lived there too) – I definitely thought a firing squad had been involved.

  96. Reluctant Mezzo*

    There is a business culture story about the employee whose desk was taken out to the parking lot and set on fire. (one hopes their personal possessions were not in it). Whatever that person did, nobody ever did again, or so I believe.

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