I always believed that garbage men only worked on Mondays because that was the day they came to my house. I couldn't figure out what they did the rest of the week.

K Wright

When I was 5 or 6 years old, one of my favorite TV shows was the 1970's series 'Emergency'. A few times I saw the paramedic guys on there go to a call where a woman was 'in labor' and I always wondered why they took an ambulance for a woman going to work! I figured since they had uniforms like cops and there was a siren and flashing lights it was illegal for women to go to work.

Anon

When I was little my dad had a funny sign in his workshop that said "Warning: BARE AREA cover your eyes". I thought it really meant BEARS were in the area and I was terrified to death to go in his workshop for fear the bears would eat me.

Kit

I used to believe that when mum and dad went to work to 'make money', they went to a building full of construction paper and crayons, and literally, made money!

Liz

Somehow I got it in my head that it's actually illegal to drink during your lunch hour at work. (I'm in the U.S.) The sad thing is, this belief wasn't corrected until I was 21! A few coworkers and I were getting lunch out at a new job I had and one of them suggested we get sandwiches and beer at a local pub.

"We can't do THAT!" I whispered. "It's against the law." They explained it wasn't and I was never sure if they thought I was kidding. I wasn't!

Jen

I used to believe that what my dad did at work was what every other dad did at work: turned a handle on a machine and then money came out.

Andre

I used to think that when my mom talked about her salary, she really said celery. Whenever she got paid, I asked her if she was going to share her salad.

veggie wages

I always believed that a radio station was the best place to work.... afterall, all those musical stars there all day, everyday, just stopping by to sing one of their songs! What job could be greater?!

Brandy

When I was about 5 my mother had an evening job packing biscuits at Peek Freans factory in South London. She told me one day that the supervisor used to come round regularly to tell the workers to whistle to make sure they weren't eating any of this biscuits. I believed her and told people the story for the next 20 years or so. Then she told me she'd been joking.

Harry

when I was little my mom told me my father was an engineer. I though that we must leave the house in the morning in a suit and change into his train-driving outfit when he got to the station...

Elizabeth

Every morning before my dad would leave for work he would tell me that he was off to make some money. I really thought that he spents his days at a machine creating pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.

Al

When i was young i used to believe that a person had a job where they but blue food coloring into the ocean to make it blue. Since the water that came out of the sink was always clear i thought they were trying to make the ocean more interesting so more people would come.

Amy Burch

Growing up on a farm, just outseide of a small farming town, I never knew that that science could be boring until I got into highschool (grade 7 for our town's highschool). Prior to that, I actually believed that scientists were all crazy inventors and mad-scientist types, as these were the only types of scientists that were ever shown on TV and in movies. Because of that, I always wanted to be a scientist, so's I could create monsters and time machines and cool laser guns and take over the world. It was a big disappointment when I learned that that wasn't what real scientists were like. My school guidance counceler and many of my family members still don't understand why I suddenly gave up on the idea of being a scientist.

F.B.

When my mother said the Venetian blind factory would be built in Fresno, I marveled that blind Venetians could construct anything.

Cambria Consuelo

At the age of 4 & 5 I remember how very proud I was of my father who worked "graveyard" at the nearby underground mine. My impression that made me so proud was that every night he went to the graveyard and watched over and kept the dead safe. I was also somewhat concerned that something bad might happen to him because of the a scarry job he had.

Sherm

I used to beleive that when people got sacked from work the boss would put them in a sack and throw them into the rubbish and then they would eventually die frm rubbish fumes and get eaten by rats
i was distraught when my brother told me tinkie winkie from teletubbies got sacked
but now i know he was safe =]

LuIzA

From the ages of 2-8 my Dad worked away In Saudi Arabia.
I lived in a small village in Wales, UK, and my house overlooked a mountain that had a small coal mine on it.My mum told me was Saudia was that mountain and my dad was drining teh lorry that i could se etehlights of. Every night i waved goodnight to my dad working on the mountain!

Lisa

When I was very young (about 4 or 5) my Dad used to go to work and I would stay home with my mom since she didn't work. He would leave everyday and I would ask "where is Daddy going?", my mom would tell me "he is going to make some money"... I think until I was like 12 I used to really think he was "making money", I would picture him standing at a huge assembly line type of machine producing brand new pennies. I had no concept of work, I really thought that all the money we had was determined by how much he was able to "make" when he went out everyday.

Shannon

When I was little, I owned a Cinderella book in which Cinderella was referred to as a "maid." I asked my mom about that, and she said that "maid" was a shortened way to say "maiden." So, the next time we went on vacation, I referred to the woman who cleaned the hotel room as a maiden.

Barbara F.

I once asked my parents to buy me something, and they said they couldnt afford it and they showed me how much money they had (a little pocket change)

I went to bed that night and cried myself to sleep, thinking that soon we'd be poor and living in the streets becuase we had no more money. It never occured to me that my dad going to work meant we'd get more.

Anon