Ask most people to name a job, any job, and the likelihood is that they will go with one of the classics. A doctor, a teacher, a waiter—one of those roles that we all know and recognize the use of (well, we should do, anyway). 

However, the fact is that the world of work is far more varied than this stock list of identifiable positions. There are thousands of different jobs out there, and while it’s true that some of them are firmly on the BS end of the scale, there are many others that we might not know exist, but actually do something important.

This was the premise for a fascinating thread that listed numerous different types of jobs that sound kind of fake but are in fact good or useful. Spoilers: a lot of of these are related to safety and regulation. We can’t downplay what goes on behind the scenes.