Prison guard: better job than journalist, according to "worst US jobs" list

Prison guards have it better than newspaper reporters or photojournalists, according to a list of the 20 worst jobs in the US, based on criteria including "environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress." But what I love the most: also included at the bottom of the list are the job titles "roustabout" and "stevedore," which I admit I had to Google.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Jinglefritz

Nice job swallowing some careercast.com PR Hack’s bait, wsj. If they had not ranked journalists so low, and used this to push the button of some JOURNALIST who assumes that of course, we all must be SHOCKED by this ranking – therefore it must be NEWS – this never would have made anyone’s rss feed.
A stevedore helped bring me my dinner last night. Journalists spent the past two months telling me that I had to know all about Tiger Woods’ marital difficulties. Don’t be suprised that some of us value journalists about as highly as we value the gossipy old ladies at the hair parlour, and aren’t suprised that they are paid commensurately.
Perhaps if Rupert Murdoch’s journalists were smart enough to realize they were being played by careercast, and thus should be charging for the advertising they just gave away for free, they wouldn’t have to make the journal a pay site.
Moriarty

Srsly, though, actuaries do have all the fun.
Anonymous

I work at #183, too. Not only is the pay significantly higher than what the list shows, you spend almost nothing while you’re working! I might go off and make $30k in 3-4 months. When I get home, I have most of that in the bank when I get home. If I work 6 months out of the year, the other 6 months I have about $60k to play around with while on vacation. It’s not a bad job AT ALL.
Locobot

Magicbeans-
totally agree with the point about the pro-indoor bias, but you are aware that farming is always ranked as one of the 3 most dangerous jobs right? Obviously there is a huge amount of variation in that job though.
Anonymous

I went from a mid-range #3 to a low-end #196 after the previous recession. At least I now enjoy my work, and even the occasional meal!
sarahmayscott

roughneck – yep, oil driller. there will be blood.

personally, I’d go with plumber as the best job. I know a guy who gets paid $120 an hour (just to show up), works four days a week, and golfs the remaining three. a lot of his work is in new construction. best of all, there is always, always work. if only I could go back in time…
Xopher

Ah, see, my name saint is the patron of stevedores and travelers, so I knew that one. Helps to live near a port, too. Stevedores have crappy jobs, but they get the best beer.

I only learned what a roustabout was when I started watching Carnivále.
Anonymous

Firefighter is ranked 188 on that list. I seriously doubt many firefighters would agree with that. Now, EMT at #186- the job where EVERYONE is above you from patient to physician- THAT is a miserable job.
Anonymous

Is “grad student” a job? I think it might be worse than any of these. Just sayin’.
Anonymous

I call shenanigans. Teacher one blip above sewage plant operator? I’d throw the whole thing out just for that.
Anonymous

I know very little about the cost of living differences between the U.S and Canada, but the starting salaries for several of those jobs seems low; some very very low.
TheCrawNotTheCraw

There is no difference between being a Software Engineer and a Computer Programmer, so this list is nonsense.

And the work is very stressful, as projects are *always* late, poorly defined, and insufficient time is budgeted and devoted to design and testing.
nanuq

“I only learned what a roustabout was when I started watching CarnivÃ¡le.”

So you’re not into bad Elvis Presley movies? Consider yourself blessed.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058534/
- Xopher
  
  Isn’t the phrase ‘bad Elvis Presley movies’ redundant?
snorkybluefog

looks like my decision not to pursue the lumberjack trade was a good decision
Anonymous

This list seems a bit elitist, there is honor in all work.

P.S. Why isn’t working at CareerCast.com on the list?
Patrick Austin

Wow, that doesn’t correlate very well to reality.
Anonymous

The list seems a bit arbitrary. Do they really believe a janitor has it better than an architect? Some comparisons don’t seem to add up, either. How can you compare the career of a protestant minister to a dentist?

Any kind of study like this; best and worst jobs, best and worst places to live and so on, all seem to neglect the human variable. It’s like they just assume nobody really prefers to live one way or another, or do one thing or another. Because of that disregard, the information, as empirical as it is, ends up useless.
- Anonymous
  
  @6 – if you go through and read the methodology, then yeah, being an architect is worse – in theory – than being a janitor. Architects = high stress, relatively low pay (particularly when you take into account the #years of training required), putting others’ lives at risk through your work, # of hours worked per week, lots of factors that, most likely, janitors don’t score high on.
Neon Tooth

re: stevedores.

Somebody needs The Wire season two stat!
- Moriarty
  
  I was going to say the same thing. The Wire is one of great modern American “novels,” and teaches what a stevedore is in addition to exactly how and why we’re screwed generally. Recommended!
MrJM

“I’m just a roustabout
driftin’ from town to town
no job can hold me down
I’m just a knock-around guy
‘Till I find my place
there’s no doubt
I’ll be a roving
roustabout.”

– Elvis Presley’s “Roustabout”

p.s. From memory.

p.p.s. Thanks a lot, mom.
sarahmayscott

absolutely, prison jobs are highly coveted where I live in rural PA. so much so that the community is lobbying the state for more prisoners.

now, do you know what a roughneck is?
- Xopher
  
  It’s not just for the jobs. Prisoners count toward the population numbers that determine how many House of Reps seats a state gets, but can’t vote.
  
  I used to know what a roughneck was, but can’t remember. A guy who works on an oil rig, maybe? (Not Googling because that’s cheating.)
magicbean

That list is pretty….hmmm…geez, how do I express it?

I’m employed as number 161 and you couldn’t pay me enough to be at 2 ever again. Ick. I’d say my 10 acre work environment is pretty amazing, compared to any 3×3 cubicle with awful carpeting. And who decided that “physical demands” is a bad thing? How about some other job qualities, like creative independence? Intellectual challenge?

Also, I have no idea what survey on earth says that starting salary for a farmer is $31,000 a year, but that is pretty laughable too. Wonder what else in there is not really any portrait of reality…
dragonfrog

Interesting that “mail carrier” is one of the lowest-ranked jobs – but, at least in the Canadian cities I’m familiar with – nobody can get directly into a job as a mail carrier, it’s one of those jobs you have to work your way up to within the postal service.

It makes sense to me, too – you basically go for a long walk every day, for your job. Maybe I just have an unrealistically optimistic view of what a mail carrier does (or what set of actual jobs go into their classification of “mail carrier”).
Moriarty

Thoughts:

1) Where are they getting their “philosopher” numbers from?

2) Judging by the rankings, “environment” would seem to be entirely synonymous with “avoidance of physical discomfort.” So a cubicle would be a more desirable environment than, say, a tropical beach (where there are jellyfish!).

3) Whether a job is interesting or fulfilling might be harder to quantify than the data they use, but surely those things play at least as big a role in whether people like their jobs. Also, how about “prestige?” Or “independence?” People like those things.
crnk

I think there is a reason for most of these ratings makes a lot of sense. Sure, a job in mail delivery is tough to get and fairly low stress, but it involves an outdoor working environment, doesn’t pay the highest on the list, and it can be physically demanding (with a potential for a lot of reaching and/or carrying a potentially heavy bag).
To address a little less obvious of a comparison that was made above–the janitor vs architect (#6). First, janitors almost always work indoors, have a low stress job, and have a positive outlook w/r/t the profession (that is, despite roomba sales, most buildings don’t clean themselves). Meanwhile, architects generally make a fair amount of site visits (and not always on pleasant days), the stress can be fairly high since wrong decisions can cost lots of money and many big projects are sued over at some point, and it is a very cyclical industry with a very erratic outlook. Sure, we get paid more than a few professions, but I know undergraduates with co-ops/summer internships that pay fairly close (80%+) to what I’m making with 6 years of school and ~3 years experience. With that said, it is very enjoyable and rewarding…but I guess that wasn’t part of the criteria.
magicbean

cmk, there’s nothing objectively wrong with being outside / physically demanding – that doesn’t make a job “better” or “worse”, it’s just a strange bias on the part of the survey.

Some bland, mindless job like “Medical Records Technician” somehow ranks as a job far, far preferable to something that requires some intelligence and skill and independence like “Car mechanic” because you “get to” stay inside on a rainy day and don’t have to lift more than 10 pounds? That’s just effin’ weird. In fact, I just noticed that “dishwasher” ranks higher than “farmer”. After briefly perusing the methodology, I officially pronounce this survey pretty stupid!
Nelson.C

The Wire? Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but the first mass media reference I thought of for “stevedore” was On the Waterfront. Has no-one seen that recently?
Jardine

I don’t see Assistant Crack Whore or Assistant Crack Whore Trainee on the list. Norm Macdonald will be sad.
Anonymous

I am a social worker (admittedly a licensed clincal social worker with a post graduate degree), but I started at 40k and now make 80k less than ten years into my profession. If I were to move over to a better state for social work (California, for instance) and get work at a think tank as well as on call consultancy, I could fairly easily make six figures. We also have one of the best job outlooks for the next ten years of all government jobs. A lot of stress, but unreasonably rewarding.

I don’t know where they get that $27k number from, to be even be a regular social worker with a license you need a MSW in my state, and you will certainly make in the 30′s the day you pass your exams.

No offense, but I certainly can’t see a paralegal being that much of a “better” job than a social worker in many regards.
Anonymous

I have to agree with magicbean and jinglefritz. This study is BS I work at 183 and the salary range is more like $30k to $200k with even the dullest individual making about $40-50k and that’s for a job that doesn’t require a college education and (at least when the economy is good) usually has employer paid training. Furthermore as has been noted above there is a bias against jobs that require large amounts of time outside or with some heavy lifting or strenuous work. I don’t know about most of you but I prefer to get paid for my work out and getting outside to work is way better than being trapped in a cube farm. I can remember when I worked in accounting and let me tell you sitting inside on a Saturday night in tax season watching the sun go down is no fun.