A thread titled “Jobs I genuinely look down on” popped up on 5ch’s Live News board. Posters piled in with specific professions — septic tank pump-out workers, temp staffers, food delivery couriers — while plenty of replies turned the joke back on the OP: “The people looking down on these jobs are probably only a little better off themselves.”
I never meant to look down on him, but it made me wonder how many times people had said that kind of thing to him before.
These days it's a rarity since sewer systems are everywhere now, but I heard from a waste collector that back in the day, doing house-to-house pump-outs used to get you juice and tips all the time.
Apparently they could live off the tips alone and pocket their whole salary.
Honestly, isn't it really about pride in the end? These jobs just don't look like they come with much pride, that's the thing.
Nothing but social misfits doing that
Sex work doesn't even count as a profession since it's illegal — that's just antisocial types making money off a violation
Sex work's been around since before the Common Era, though
If anything, it's basically the default of human society
Why don't they have any drive to improve themselves? No wonder they can't become full employees
Six years at pharmacy school just to end up doing this? That's what I think
It's basically no-degree-required work, but if you play it smart even as a plain door-to-door salesperson you can apparently pull in around ¥350,000 a month
Seriously, they're way too pushy
If there's ever a job that's literally about scamming people out of money, though, I'll start looking down on that one
People who think they understand someone else's whole job just from the sliver they can see are creepy and arrogant as hell
Even with the shadiest-looking jobs, I end up thinking "huh, I never would've thought of doing that"
People selling get-rich-quick info products
YouTubers
That's not really why they get looked down on — it's more that they drift into whatever pays decently without any real career plan
It's like telemarketing — the smooth talkers land contracts and make good money, but to everyone else it's just a job that hassles people wherever they go
We all end up relying on them eventually
I'm a caregiver myself, and honestly I can tell the visiting families look down on us
By that logic you'd have to look down on anyone single without a partner, especially ones still living with their parents, regardless of gender — but that's off-topic here
Stay unemployed forever
Just keep sinking down there
Zero productivity, wish they'd just get banned
But I'm genuinely grateful for them
Septic tanks? What countryside are you even living in
Background and Key Points
For readers outside Japan, a few of the jobs named need context. Septic-tank “pump-out” workers (the guy in post 15, driving what’s called a *bakyūmu-kā* or vacuum truck) were essential in Japan for decades because public sewer lines didn’t reach most households until quite recently — Japan’s nationwide sewerage penetration rate only passed 80% in the 2000s, and rural areas still rely on septic tanks today, which is why the tipping culture posters describe in #39 existed. Pharmacy in Japan was reformed in 2006 into a mandatory six-year university program, which is the basis for #46’s complaint that drugstore clerks are “wasting” that training. And post 32’s claim that sex work is “illegal” in Japan is technically half-true: Japan’s 1956 Anti-Prostitution Law bans only vaginal intercourse for pay, leaving a large legal gray-zone industry (fashion health, soaplands, delivery health) that operates openly — which is likely why #45 pushed back.
The thread didn’t really split over which jobs deserve contempt; nearly everyone agreed on the same handful (temp staff, delivery drivers, YouTubers, telemarketers). The actual fault line was whether looking down on any job is legitimate at all — a vocal minority (#53, #56, #73) argued that contempt says more about the poster’s own insecurity or ignorance than about the job itself, essentially rejecting the thread’s premise.
What outside readers might miss: posts like #95, from an actual caregiver saying families look down on caregiving staff, point to a real and persistent status/pay problem in Japan’s elder-care sector, a policy issue distinct from the thread’s joking tone.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Live News board) thread “Jobs I genuinely look down on lolololololololol.”
