Well, that’s always a bummer...

I’m talking about when you put all kinds of work into something and one day you realize that it wasn’t worth it and the whole thing was POINTLESS.

It’s sad!

But it happens to all of us in some way, shape, or form…

Take a look at these stories from AskReddit users.

Darn…

“At the end of the ’90s, I decided to digitize my entire DVD collection into MP4s.

I had more than a 1000 titles. I had a computer specially dedicated to this task, at the rate of one dvd every night i remembered to do it.

I burned through 3 different disk drives.

It took me 4 years to finish.

Now, everything is streaming in HD or 4K, on your phone.

Anybody interested in a 720p interlaced copy of Octopussy?

Didn’t think so.”

Pointless.

“I built a customer service team from the ground up to support a client’s new product.

Became the highest rated customer service group in the entire business.

One day our phones went ****, called to test the line, was routed to a different customer service team.

We’d been outsourced and they didn’t have the heart to tell us in advance.”

Old school.

“I studied graphic design at a time when the industry was just adopting Illustrator and Photoshop. The schools, however, weren’t.

I learned so much about paste up and how to use a copy machine to get the very, very most out of it and calculating percentages for enlarging/reducing and inking with French curves and waxing a block of text to lead it by hand and …. oh god, so much pain in the *** hand drawn, hand cut elements that were immediately rendered useless as soon as I got my first job.

Sometimes I miss it. Then I remember pasting up whole paragraphs of text and remember that I don’t, actually. I have really good crafting skills though.”

A whole lotta time.

“Minecraft.

From 2011 to probably 2018-2019 it was like, my go-to depression game. When my depression got bad, some days I’d play for 12 hours.

Built a whole huge city with districts, multiple tall buildings, rail system, a mob zoo, etc.

I kinda miss it sometimes.”

Back in the day…

“When I was a kid, CDs were king.

This was also back when a typical CD was like $16 at Sam goody etc.

I’d mow lawns in my neighborhood – 4 houses on a weekend, and get $10 each, which was good for about a dozen albums a month.

My parents also gave me lunch money for school – $2 a day – which I pocketed for another album a week.

So basically I sacrificed nutrition and my weekends for the entirety of my middle school / early high school years to build up a massive album collection that was the envy of all my musician friends. It was glorious.

I thought for sure this would be the crown jewel of my adulthood and that I would pass them on to my kids someday.

….and then when the iPod / iTunes came out it was all pointless.”

That sucks.

“Indigenous knotting.

I used to be able to make the most beautiful dresses, armors, and regalia using traditional knotting and beading techniques.

Broke my arm about a decade ago, got fat, and got arthritis. Now my hands don’t even work well enough to teach the next generation how to do it.”

Too bad.

“I got an aviation degree because it used to be the only way you could qualify to become and air traffic controller.

The age cut-off is 30 and I graduated when I was 29. Well, they decided to “restructure” the hiring process mere months after I graduated and cancelled all hiring panels for 2 years.

I aged-out and now have a useless degree that I still pay students loans on.”

Man…

“I studied and trained to be a professional opera singer for 12 years, ended up not being the right path for me after a diagnosis of bipolar disorder this year.

In my early thirties and never imagined I’d be in this position.”

Doh!

“I managed to accidentally wipe the drive that held all my work.

I’m a semi-professional game dev, there was 10 years worth of meshes, materials and code.

It’s been 10 days, I’ve just been in a sort of state of shock, having tried and failed to recover the lost files.”

Disappointed.

“I spent over a decade learning how to draw, studying design techniques, etc.

Tried to work as a professional designer and illustrator and it was terrible and made no money.

Now I’m a software developer.

Every once in a blue moon it’s useful for making graphics, but really just pointless.”

Rough stuff.

“A bachelor’s degree in Interior design…but I graduated in 2008 and there weren’t any jobs in my field because the recession had wiped them out.

The industry has recovered, but by the time it had, I’d gone back to school for massage therapy, and the thought of leaving a low-stress career for a high-stress career just didn’t seem like a great plan.

I’ve now owned my massage business for 13 years and I have a great work/life balance, but paying student loans on something you’ll never really use is ROUGH.”

That’s life!

“My PhD.

It’s worthless and I’m done with academia.

Now I work in a corporation mindlessly filling excel spreadsheets for twice the money I was paid and I’ve never been happier in my entire life.”

Done!

“I was a Jehovah’s witness for 30 years, average of 15 hours a month knocking on doors, preaching Armageddon that never will come.

Free for 23 years now!”

Welp… better luck next time!

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.