work

I used to believe that boys had to go to school all their lives whereas girls could stay at home and play. I thought that was really unfair. It was a long time before I realised my father went to school because he was a schoolteacher and my mother stayed at home and played with me because she was a housewife.

Francis M

Once I used to believe that a engineer is a person who drives railway engine.

Gaurav Jain

I used to believe that 'call girl' was another word for a female telephone operator. It used to come up in episodes of 'Columbo' that such-and such, a call girl, was murdered on....

pickle

I used to believe that once you got out of Pre-school you instantly went to work and worked in the same profession as your father. On the day we had a little pre-school graduation thing I went up to my father and started crying telling him I was a failer and would have to be homeless because I didn't know how to be an accountant.

Nick

I used to think that being a bird watcher or a scoutmaster were professional paid occupations.
At one time I wanted to be a bird watcher or scoutmaster because they seemed to be easy jobs.

Anon

When I was little I, for some reason, thought that my mother only made five dollars on every paycheck. I was always happy on the days that she got paid, but always wondered how we could afford things with only five dollars every other week.

Ariel

I used to love spelling words because I was really great at it. So I thought I could be a "speller" as a job when I grew up, just like a doctor or lawyer.

Diana K.

i used to think that the "graveyard shift" meant that they actually had to go out and dig graves.

Anon

I often heard my Dad talking about his "credit." I knew that having "credit" allowed him to buy things, but I only knew the definition of "credit" as defined by Saturday morning cartoons... You know, getting "credit" for stopping the bad guy, or saving people from burning buildings. I assumed that my Dad was a superhero, and that he got paid based on what kind of heroic deeds he had performed that day.

Anon

I used to think that if you met your parents' boss, your parents would be fired!! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

Spoot

When I first heard the word "lumberjack", I thought it was "Numberjack" like the TV show The Numberjacks. When I was corrected, I thought a lumberjack was a dude named Jack who lumbered around.

Anon

My grandparents used to take me to the horse races. Often, my grandmother would tell me "your grandfather's horse just won!" I knew my grandfather did not own any horses so I assumed he rode them and he therefore was a jockey, which is amusing because my grandfather was a rather large man with a huge stomach.

Anon

My daughter thought I was a janitor at the university. It wasn't until she was an adult that she figured out I had my degree. After all, what else would a freshman do but "freshen up." The worst of it was she thought I specialized in the bathrooms because I was constantly freshening up the bathroom at home.

Cindy

When I'd ask my dad what he did at work, he'd say he "made money." So for a long time, I thought he carved out Lincoln's head on the pennies and used a machine to cut up the dollar bills.

Heidi

I used to believe that my dad also had a summer vacation like we kids did. I remember the moment I found out my dad had to work all summer long. I've never felt so much empathy and sympathy in my life....

Steve Mulder

When I was young, my dad kept getting better job offers from employers and that kept us moving. The new employer would always pay for the move, so I used to think that anytime someone moved to a new house, a big truck would pull up and lots of men would pack everything up and move it for you. I wish I had been right.

Brian W

I spent ages wondering what a bart ender was as a child without realising that it was actually bar tender.

Heather

When I was a little girl in Kindergarten the teacher asked everyone, "what they wanted to be when they grew up"? I answered, a monkey! Because monkey's don't work and they just hang around all day and have fun at the zoo and at the circus.

anon

When I was a little girl my father worked the graveyard and swing shifts. I used to think he would either work on swings or at the graveyard. I can't remember if I thought anything when he worked "days."

amy

When I was little I thought that people who worked in grocery stores spent their entire lives living inside the stores and that they didn't have families nor even knew about the outside world.

Anon