Inspired by this thread about lawyers and cops.
This thread is about all the other professions.
For me, the most accurate movie I’ve seen about retail is “Clerks”. The retailers don’t pay attention to customers at all, unless they ask a question or do something really weird. They just talk amongst themselves as if the customers don’t exist. Most of the customers ask stupid questions and a handful of them are insanely weird. Weird in ways most non-retail people can’t imagine.
Unfortunately, The Librarian: Quest For the Spear isn’t much like what I do.
Boston Public was just the stupidest show highlighting what must be the worst school in America. I watched it with mouth agape; teaching has PLENTY of drama in it…why do we need soap opera-level melodrama every week?
The show that was the closest representation of teaching that I can remember was a short-lived sitcom from 2 years ago called, I think, just Teachers…or, The Faculty…meh, I don’t remember. But I was impressed they showed how much teachers do indeed crack jokes about their kids in the teacher’s lounge and whatnot. One scene I remember, they were placing bets on which girl would turn up pregnant first, and when they found out who one girl’s boyfriend was, everyone changed their bets to put her first.
That’s a bit extreme and insensitive to the degree unlikely to be seen in most schools, but we have to keep our senses of humor somehow. I love my kids–but maaaaan, sometimes they are just idiots. Lovable, affable, idiots, in the most affectionate sense of the word–but idiots.
I’ve never seen a movie or TV show (other than a documentary) that was even remotely accurate about what I do - hardware / software / product development.
Don’t get me started about Oz.
MAS*H, Maj Sidney Theodore Freedman was about as accurate description of what my job was like as any TV or movie could make someone out to be. He was doing Combat Stress Control before CSC was invented.
SSG Schwartz
Well, I thought that Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade were both quite accurate but Temple of Doom was just ridiculous. Although, to be perfectly honest, the time travel depicted in Timeline was probably the most down-to-earth and realistic depiction of archaeology.
I second the Clerks nomination for retail workers. On the other hand, Employee of the Month seemed to have been written by someone who’s never worked at retail. Damn near 100% of the plot points involving the retail store itself were incorrect. Selling the car? Couldn’t happen, it simply wouldn’t exist in the system. That info in Jessica Simpson’s character’s personnel file? Wouldn’t be there. Separate breakrooms for cashiers? No. And so on. I will admit, though, the secret poker room hidden in the bins was wish-fulfillment of many a retail worker.
For low-level food service, Waiting… is top-notch. I could do without the “self-improvement” angle, but the backroom antics, the high-strung screaming employee who’s all smiles on the floor, the revenge against petty customers… Yup, all accurate. In contrast with Clerks above, Clerks II (while funny) is pretty inaccurate. (A fast food franchise with only three employees and a single manager? Uhh… no.)
I had to keep from rolling my eyes every time my ex-g/f would begin explaining to me how accurately Office Space reflected her job; I’m sure it did, but I’ve found that Office Space is pretty universal. No matter where you work, Office Space will remind you of your job.
Office Space is the most accurate depiction of what it’s like to work for a large software company that I have ever seen. It could almost be a documentary.
As a stay at home mom, my life often feels a lot like Michael Keaton’s in Mr. Mom. (Dayum, I’m showin’ my age there, ain’t I?) Both the chaos and the eventual control he gains over his environment.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything approaching a real massage therapist on film or television. It’s a real point of contention in my living room. They don’t like it when I shout, “Damnit, woman! What kind of body mechanics do you call that?” or “Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, call that tissue engagement? Stop smooshing her skin around and get in there, soldier!”
For my social circle (which isn’t what the OP asked, but it’s one that’s usually portrayed so badly in…well…everything), the most accurate portrayal I’ve seen is the Moon Calf Collective in the Veronica Mars episode “Drinking the Kool-Aid”.
Ditto. It’s flawless. You can just go through the ranks of the people you work with and say That’s Peter, that’s Michael, that’s Samir, that’s Drew, etc. At heart, I’m a combination of Peter and Dom, although I have to admit I’ve got more on the ball than they do. Even the drab, depressing restaurant they go to is identical to the drab, depressing suburban chain restaurants that cluster around “hi-tech corridors”. How many goddamn lunches have I gone to at places like Chotchkie’s, or whatever the hell it’s called?
I’m a Park Ranger, and lemme tell ya we don’t spend nearly as much time worrying about bears and pic-a-nic baskets as Yogi Bear would have you believe.
The latest Die Hard movie got so much info security and infrastructure stuff so wrong it turned into a comedy in the eyes of anyone who knows what a SCADA system is.
Logging into a master server (It’s always a Master Server, isn’t it?) to reprogram every traffic signal in the city? <giggle> You’d be lucky to find a string of four intersections’ worth of signals controlled by the same curbside box, and “remote control” is telling the new guy on the crew to scrape off the stickers and gum so the thing can be opened.
In looking at lists of cinematic bean-counters, Milton does come the closest. Don’t fuck with my stapler.
Nothing beats the classics in portraying the day-to-day reality of an archaeologist’s life. How many archaeologists were sitting in the audience watching The Mummy and thinking back on their own battles against undead tomb avengers re-animated by a 5000 year old curse?
I worked in IT for 20 years and no show or movie is anything close to reality. In the media, computers are magical boxes that can do anything you tell them to do and are connected to everything on the planet. And they’re so simple and open that a five year old can walk up to them and figure out how to disable half a city. They’re always the Unthinking Script Writer’s Deus Ex Machina.
“We need the impossible to happen. Have the child/terrorist/hero access a computer!”
I’ve also worked in Security for three years. TV/Movie Security Guards are always either Baton Wielding Buff Morons who throwdown at the first sign of trouble but always get beat up, and/or they’re completely incompetent. Whereas in real life, Security Guards are more likely to be Gary Coleman or Wilford Brimley. 
The biggest thing to me is the throwdown aspect. Real Security Guards are not going to assault you for anything short of you assaulting them first. They are held to the same standards of Assault as you are, with the added bonus of losing their jobs going along with the Criminal Charges and Lawsuits attendant to physically assaulting someone.
I haven’t seen anyone get lab work right on TV. CSI is insanely exaggerated - nobody gets results from the sorts of tests they’re doing within an hour or two.
And as for the medical shows… For the love of God, Dr. House, could you please order a CBC and Chem7 before you start with the brain biopsies?
I’ve never worked in TV or at a daily newspaper, so I can’t think of a journalism show or movie that even resembles the places I’ve worked.
Well Armageddon is completely wrong starting with the blowout in the beginning all the way to the drilling machine they used at the end. The only thing they got right is the number of my colleagues that would love to hit golf balls at green peace. On the other hand Ghost Rig is perfect I have haunting at almost all of my locations.
In an episode of 24, a bad guy evades some super-duper IT security system by sending data offsite through … wait for it … the wall outlet. Yup, you can just route packets right over the 110 lines. Works like a charm.
I added that to my list of reasons not to watch that show. Like Chimera, I’ve never seen a decent representation of IT. Alas, people quietly sitting on their asses and typing makes for pretty lousy entertainment.