
The Best and Worst Jobs in the U.S. (2009) - ColinWright
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123119236117055127.html?mod=yhoofront
======
jandy
3\. Software Engineer

18\. Computer Programmer

What's the difference? We can barely decide what to call ourselves. Is there a
correlation between job satisfaction and a disposition towards calling
yourself an engineer?

~~~
sophacles
I don't know about title and how it factors in - but It is noteworthy that
these two entries - seemingly the same profession, are so disparately placed.
This industry has a huge variation in working conditions/environments.

There are the people who work at large corporations - think insurance, banks,
major enterprise apps etc. They work on "boring" problems, but they also get
paid well, and probably don't have a ton of stress.

There are startup people who get paid OK, plus owernship packages who work
long hours, regularly have some heavy stress, but they "live the dream" \-
many are truly happy with their work situation.

There are folks like game programmers who are always on a death march, have
80hr weeks, but don't get paid very well to chase some dream. By many
accounts, the end up burnt out/used up fast.

With such widely varying roles - it makes sense that there are multiple
rankings in fairly different places on the list.

------
jonnathanson
Apropos of nothing: I had no idea "roustabout" was an actual job title. I'd
always assumed it was just some sort of archaic insult that you'd occasionally
hear from the likes of Monty Burns.

The dictionary has any number of definitions for the term, but the most common
seems to be "An unskilled laborer who lives by odd jobs."

If that's indeed the intended description, then we need to take a deeper dive
into this issue. I suspect that we have quite a few "roustabouts" getting
stuck at the bottom rungs of our labor force, and I'm not talking about
illegal immigrants. There are large swaths of the country (particularly in the
South and rural Midwest) where people are simply not keeping up with the
education or "skills" necessary to remain relevant to the modern workforce.

In large part, this is where I hope services like Khan Academy, Udemy, etc.,
can start to make a serious impact. It's all well and good for highly
educated, well compensated, relatively comfortable folks in the Bay Area to
teach themselves a course or two in their spare time. That's awesome. But I'd
love to see someone really tackle the training and education of those in our
country being left behind.

~~~
VLM
google for oil field roustabout.

It boils down to being a maintenance man / janitor at an oil drill site. All
the weather, some of the danger, cruddy locale, but the pay isn't much better
than working plant maint in a factory.

Probably a negative stereotype but roustabouts don't seem to sweat as much as
the drill crew. Then again losing life and limb is kind of business as usual
for the drill crew (well, its improved over the years...) but its moderately
unusual to kill/maim a roustabout.

If you think about it, someone has to be stuck doing minor onsite maintenance.
I mean, you're not going to pay the toolpusher $175K/yr to paint over rust,
are you?

I had to LOL at the claim you need to live in the Bay Area to learn how to
program, or somehow Khan Academy does IP blocking so only bay area folks can
watch.

If you need 50K roustabouts to keep the oil flowing, and you teach them to be
"CSS developers", then all you're going to do is crash "CSS development" into
poverty and not get any oil. I'm not sure there's as much "force" or lack of
choice as you think, and selecting a job you don't personally want doesn't
make someone less of a person anyway.

~~~
jonnathanson
_" I had to LOL at the claim you need to live in the Bay Area to learn how to
program, or somehow Khan Academy does IP blocking so only bay area folks can
watch."_

I didn't say or imply either of those things, so I apologize if I wasn't
clear. Rather, I'm suggesting that such sites have a lot of potential to make
a serious impact in areas where people are most in need of skills.

I did come across oil field roustabouts in my Googling, and if that's the
primary definition of the term as implied in this article, I stand corrected.

 _" selecting a job you don't personally want doesn't make someone less of a
person anyway."_

Again, I'm not sure where you're reading this into what I wrote. In no way
whatsoever did I say, or even suggest that.

My personal policy is that, if someone's misinterpreting me, it's probably my
bad. I probably wasn't clear enough. But honestly, I think you're reading a
lot into my post that simply wasn't intended and/or wasn't there.

~~~
VLM
Come on man, "archaic insult" "getting stuck" "bottom rungs" "not keeping up"
"remain relevant" "those in our country being left behind". Yeah, I'm sure
you're talking about techies working at internet startups there LOL.

You may not like being called out, but it doesn't mean I was misinterpreting
or reading into.

"I'd love to see someone really tackle the training and education"

Basically how can a plant maint / building super move up. Although, why
exactly do they need to?

One logical upgrade path is trades, like electrician / plumber but that runs
into license and union issues, and they mostly do OTJ anyway. I don't have the
figures, but some roustabouts get killed OTJ trying to upgrade themselves
without actually knowing as much as they think they do, aka I know I'm not an
electrician but I'll "help" with that damaged wiring or whatever. An effective
way to get killed is to think you're a rigger or think you're an ironworker,
but not really know how to do it. This career field given actual training and
OTJ supervision is a logical upgrade path for roustabouts.

Sticking in the oil field business you pretty much have to trade risk for
money and promotion opportunity so you'll easily go into manual labor
roughneck work on the drilling crew, but that's primarily OTJ and what non-OTJ
exists seems to do pretty well. All the way up to petroleum engineer from a
university.

Really the only gain you'll get from online would be transfer out of the biz
entirely, go into "CSS web developer" or whatever. And you're not doing online
from the middle of nowhere on land, or a offshore platform 250 miles from the
nearest wifi... maybe satellite link or something you could download? Even if
a roughneck decided to become a Scala coder in his spare time, now you've got
a Scala coder in the center of north dakota with no job prospects within
hundreds of miles... Because of this, I don't think online classes would have
any impact at all?

Finally if you succeed, and "trap" a guy who likes to work outdoors and walk
around eight hours/day and do hardware work into writing source code in a cube
for 12 hours a day in the downtown of a city, you might have won by some
popular societal standard of human worth, but has the guy who was trapped won?
It can be a difficult perspective problem, but there are a lot of people who
genuinely like working outdoors, or genuinely like working with their hands.
Forcing them not to do that, is not exactly "fixing" them.

~~~
jonnathanson
_" Come on man, "archaic insult" "getting stuck" "bottom rungs" "not keeping
up" "remain relevant" "those in our country being left behind". Yeah, I'm sure
you're talking about techies working at internet startups there LOL."_

First: "Archaic insult" was in reference to the word itself, which, as I was
saying, is something I've only ever heard as such. (Hence, the Monty Burns
example). That was not a value statement; that was basically my saying this:
"I've only ever heard the word used as X, therefore, I was surprised to hear
it used as Y."

Second, in reference to "getting stuck," "left behind," etc., those are
economic facts, not value judgments. Unemployment and underemployment are
serious issues in our country. You seem to think I am looking down on the
unemployed or underemployed, for whatever reason, and _that_ is where the
misinterpretation seems to begin.

My intent is just the opposite, in fact. I am suggesting that we have some
interesting technologies capable of providing skills and training to those
having a hard time finding steady or reliable work. (FWIW - I am not talking
specifically, or even necessarily, about computer skills -- though that seems
to be the strawman you're making of my post here). I am _not_ making value
judgments about blue collar workers, about oil field roustabouts, or about any
of the categories of workers you're talking about. I am specifically talking
about the underemployed, which is what I originally thought the word
"roustabout" was being used to reference in this case. As mentioned, I stood
corrected on "roustabout."

Somehow you're reading condescension or insult into what I'm saying, and once
again, all I can say is that that was not the intent. I am not sure what more
I can say. You're reading something into my posts that simply isn't there.

 _" You may not like being called out, but it doesn't mean I was
misinterpreting or reading into."_

Now you're just being dickish for no particular reason. I've gone to great
lengths to explain my intent, and you seem insistent on misreading me. If I'm
saying something you find stupid, great, that's life. I'm bound to say things
others find wrong, and every now and then, I'm bound to say things others
like. I'd like to think most of us here are like that. On the balance, I like
to give people the benefit of the doubt. Evidently you don't. Fine.

Nevertheless, I would suggest this: not everything is an argument. Not
everything is a matter of "getting called out," or "winning," etc. I am
honestly scratching my head at where you're getting all this from what I've
been saying. But I'll give up on trying to explain myself further.

------
humanfromearth
Guess the country game:

14th best job: Parole Officer

------
VLM
I assume the pay figures are based on IRS figures rather than anonymous true
responses, because a large number of the "low rated" occupations are cash
businesses, notorious for under reporting income. So the IRS could prove on
paper that I made $30K, so I guess I "made" $35K and call it good. Which
probably doesn't even cover his bar tab, but whatever.

The other problem with the low rated occupations is the author doesn't want to
work outdoors, therefore surely no one wants to, but part of the reason pay is
so low to work outdoors is because so many people want to work outdoors
(despite supposedly no one wants to do it). So that's how you end up with
biology grads as foresters at $20K/yr (oh wait the article claims bio is 4th
best job, now I'm confused)

The final distortion is several of the high ranking jobs are "winner takes
all" much like professional sports. Yes a pro football quarterback is a great
job; of course most people who want that job will never be able to get it.
Lets see... I know a degreed mathematician working in a call center, an
ageism-fired actuary not working at all, a biologist working at a retail food
store deli, a sociologist working as a call center supervisor, a PHD
philosopher working as an electrician, an astronomy grad working at a
bookstore as a clerk. IF you are one of the small fraction of grads who get a
job in the field, its great, but you'll probably be working retail. Of course
accountants and parole officers DO always seem to be in demand.

This also happens in computers. Yes the top 1% of grads works at GOOG for
$150K/yr, but the bottom half is unemployed or at best works a call center
resetting passwords.

------
jonrx
I would be pleased to see the addition of the « fun » factor.

In the article, they're comparing the job security, high pay, etc. of a
mathematician with the « it's not much, but I like it» of the lumberjack.
Working as an actuary, I am impressed by how many of my coworkers got there
because « hey! It pays » and are in fact (not so) secretly dreaming of
changing jobs.

~~~
bornhuetter
I am an actuary, and next week is hopefully my last in the industry; I am
going off to do an MBA and then hopefully become a semi-technical founder. I
got here for exactly the reason you said, I'm good at maths and it pays well.
I'm leaving because it's no fun. I sometimes wonder if I would have been
better off sticking to my original plan and becoming a software engineer.

~~~
beachstartup
> I sometimes wonder if I would have been better off sticking to my original
> plan and becoming a software engineer.

depends on the job. a software engineer could be stuck writing business forms.

conversely, you could be Nate Silver, the world's most famous and exciting
actuary. in this case meaning "well paid guy who does stats and math".

~~~
bornhuetter
I don't think Nate Silver is an actuary, he's a statistician - completely
different jobs.

When I went to university (late 90's), the web was still one big geo-cities,
there was no such thing as smartphones. I lived in Australia, and unless you
were extremely talented you would probably end up working a fairly low paid
job doing fairly boring work. The world seems to be a far more exciting and
potentially lucrative place for software engineers now.

------
skittles
I notice a pattern. "Good" jobs pay well and are not likely to kill or maim.
"Bad" jobs aren't necessarily low paying. They are just dangerous. I'm not
sure this is a valid way to separate the good from the bad. Some people hate
boring office jobs. Take "seaman" for example. My understanding is that some
of those jobs are seasonal. The pay is enough to live on for the entire year
due to the risk involved. That has to appeal to a certain type of person.

------
johnobrien1010
The article is 4 years old... Not that the ranking has changed much in that
time, but might be worth it to have a date originally published somewhere in
the title, as I read it four years ago, and assumed that this was a different
article.

------
snake_plissken
But seriously, being a "Nuclear Decontamination Technician" sounds awesome.

------
unz
The sociologist is making way too much money for a government job, our tax
dollars at work.

The low-paying dangerous occupations are only that way because there's so many
foolish men to take them up.

And you can blame the education system for turning out those foolish men - so
a lot of that can be directly blamed on the corrupt teaching unions - whose
main interest is in increasing pay and lowering work requirements.

This is where edu startups can come in and help society while earning money.

\- Retrain the low pay workers into web designers and app developers. Gamify
the education system and make profits by selling high-scoring students to
corps that need them.

\- Disrupt the teachers union with apps and websites that allow people to form
ad-hoc schools outside the system - homeschooling 2.0.

As PG says - kill hollywood and kill government education.

~~~
sophacles
This rant really confuses me....

* All sociologist jobs are government jobs? Citation needed.

* Dangerous low pay jobs are the result of public education system? This model lacks explanatory power. There have always been low-pay dangerous jobs. These occur in times and places where there is no public education system. They occur in times and places where there is a public education system. They occur in proportions (as related to other available jobs) that seem unrelated to the existence of teacher unions. Rather they seem to be a function of economic development level, with a healthy mix of labor law based restrictions.

Essentially, this rant seems to be off topic soap boxing. Given the "green"
username - probably some form of sock-puppetry.

~~~
unz
Wow, that's pretty rude.

The sociologist in the article - getting paid over 120k. Read the article
before jumping with rage.

Basic economics - the low pay is a result of oversupply of people willing to
do the work. The oversupply is because many uneducated men being churned out
from k12. k12 is run by teachers.

I'm quite sure you're a teacher or your parents were teacher, that explains
the rage (By the way, one of my parents was a teacher, but I'm not going to
use that to excuse the system).

~~~
sophacles
Disagreement is not rage. Questioning your position is not rage. Questioning
how a comment is topical is not rage.

The model you are proposing has great post-hoc explanatory powers within the
united states - however it does not appear to have predictive powers over what
we will find in other places and times. Therefore I question it's validity,
until you can show how the same model applies to other situations, and can
show exigent factors that are relevant when it doesn't apply. Again, this is
not rage - this is merely not accepting an insufficiently explained model at
face value.

FWIW (not that it matters): I am a software engineer/programmer, my parents
are in sales and HR, my other family members are not in education either. I
just think overly simple explanations should always be questioned.

As for the salary of a government worker - that depends on the job they do,
the value they create etc. I don't know the details to make blanket
statements. I think there is a tradeoff - good people doing the job requires
competitive salary, paying bad salaries is generally more expensive as it
requires more workers to do the same job.

~~~
unz
You said 'rant' twice, not exactly polite disagreement.

The models are pretty simple - they are called supply and demand. They work
for everything else in economics. Low pay for dangerous work is not so
exceptional situation.

In poorer countries, there is even less pay for even more dangerous work,
because education is even worse there. There's a few data points there.

And there's quite a lot of literature on the education system and teacher
unions. To start off with their's Waiting For Superman (2010).

~~~
sophacles
Until there is data, not talking points or vague references to other models,
it is in face just a rant. What is the actual supply? What is the actual
demand? What is the curve function for the supply and demand lines for
education and workers? What factors of those functions are accounting for
teacher unions and what is the source data that you used to fit those
functions in your model. I don't mean a handful of words - I mean actual data
with numbers, or at least a citation to a work that has that available.
Waiting for Superman may include those - I haven't read it.

As for the attempt to derail over "politeness concerns" because I used the
word rant - I won't bite.

~~~
unz
Looking at your posting history you appear to be a professional forum
arguer/troll and would be in full agreement if you hadn't started off with the
opposite stance, so I'll end it there.

By the way, very few of your comments have data backing them up, and often are
just simple 'models' with some variables you wrote down mixed in with rudeness
to other commenters.

~~~
sophacles
Wait what? This is a full move into ad hominem. Just because you don't like my
request for more information and a better explanation, or don't like my past
involvement with trolls, doesn't mean my point is invalid.

I am merely requesting more information on your claims.

