Every workplace has gone through a questionable set of employees. Perhaps it's a case of "they are who they are," and they portray the same personality outside of their professional life, or maybe assets like power and money are to blame – who knows?

This netizen, however, took to Reddit and posed this question: "Which profession attracts the worst kinds of people?" The thread has garnered over 34K upvotes and almost 30K comments establishing what careers do, in fact, attract a greater number of jerks.

More info: Reddit

#1

Politicians.

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Bored Panda was lucky to get through to the author of the thread, and we posed them a couple of questions.

First, we asked what inspired them to make the post: "I keep in touch with my college friends. Inevitably, some of our peers are brought up in conversation, and not all of them in a good way. Some of the latter were political science majors who seemed more concerned with basking in their proximity to power than anything else."

We then invited the author to answer their own question: "I don't have an objective answer to this. I can only speak to what tends to get into my head the most, personally. And the response above answers this question in not so many words. (I also disdain certain movie and TV directors who appeal to an audience's most shallow, nihilistic impulses for easy views, attention, and money.)"

Last but certainly not least, the OP added: "I'm an extremely flawed person. I'm judgmental, self-centered, and a touch petty. It's possible that had I the skill and drive, I would have done something in politics myself, because a part of me is attracted to power. The bottom line is that while I have opinions and a right to express them, I claim no absolute moral high ground. And I think that should be the same for everyone."

#2

Unpopular opinion but nurses. There is a lot, A LOT, of toxic abusive high-school girl drama type behavior among nurses.

It's such an important job and about half the people doing it shouldn't be responsible for a yogurt, let alone a human being's life.

I've seen some s**t, man.

Image credits: nursingabuseproblem

#3

Law enforcement seems to have some problems

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#4

Paparazzi

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#5

“Reality” TV

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#6

I'm probably gonna get some hate for this... the military (The US Army to be precise). Probably 99% of the Soldiers are good, honest people. The nature of the job just simply attracts some sickos. The Army does what it can, but It takes a long time to kick someone out of the Army. Source: 6 years Active Duty

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#7

The executives that run MLMs.

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#8

Academia.

Intelligent people in very niche areas, with no consideration for the real world and social interaction, whilst simultaneously being told they are the best in the world at certain specific subject areas (which is true, but just not as many people care as academics think they do). You end up with an unnecessarily toxic environment of people trying to intellectually one up each other and throw anyone off the ladder on their way up.

It's a cruel, nasty, petty, and poisonous environment.

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#9

Hollywood producer it seems.

Over and over and over.

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#10

My mum worked in a prison. She said that a lot of the men in there for sex offences against children had/were looking for jobs like driving ice cream vans, dressing as Santa at shopping centres etc as they liked kids sitting on their laps etc. Apparently it's way more common than people would think

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#11

Police

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#12

Youth Pastor

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#13

Human resources

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#14

Investment banking. Not all of them are terrible but to be successful its benefical to be a complete c**t

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#15

Stockbrokers. I have some friends who are stockbrokers. I love them, but man, they are some b******t artists. And not like, "Oh, they're a good salesman, and could sell you anything," No, it's like they make s**t up as they go along and try to sound confident in what they say.

Image credits: LawnGuyLand94

#16

Psychology. There are lots of great people in that field, but it also attracted the most manipulate and destructive a*****e I've ever known. He's a licensed therapist now, and I feel sorry for anyone who crosses his path.

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#17

Sales, estate agents, recruiters

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#18

I thought I wanted to be an architect… but then I met a bunch of architects. And architecture students. And architecture professors. And they were pretty much all A******s. It was weird. I mean… how could it be so consistent? But there ya have it.

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#19

Sales.

Ironically i am also getting into sales ?

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#20

Ok so not really a profession but… there is a certain subset of musicians who are also wannabe influencers… particular people who are very on twitter. so back-stabby and clout hungry

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#21

Russian mercenary

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#22

Substance abuse mental health professionals seem to fall into one of the following categories: a) wonderful, angelic and highly competent souls who truly want to help drug addicts/alcoholics (they're maybe 20% of the counselors, optimistically); b) burnt-out incompetent/lazy/don't-care types (another 60%); or c) absolute personality-disordered, narcissistic/ Machiavellian sadistic types who really get off on the enormous power/control they have over the lives and fates of the people under their care (maybe another 20%). YMMV. The last group can do a LOT of damage.

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#23

Elementary School Front Desk Administrator.

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#24

Modelling photographers

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#25

Tow truck drivers. At least 80% of all the tow truck drivers I've met have been felons, and about 98% have been shady d**kheads.

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#26

Insofar as psychopaths tend to be dangerous kinds of people, heres a [list of the professions that seem to attract a disproportionate number of psychopaths]:

* Civil servant

* Chef

* Clergy

* Police

* Journalist

* Surgeon

* Salesperson

* Media

* Lawyer

* CEO

Personally, I'd go with sales because there's simply a lot more salespeople than CEOs or police, so it's a lot more likely that you're going to encounter a terrible person who's in sales. My anecdotal experience would also tend to confirm this.