12 most overrated jobs. (article)

[obgyn65]

Not sure why physician and surgeon made the list. I am not convinced by the explanation given in the article.

The list is:

Physician
Surgeon

 

[Lsbcal]

Not sure why physician and surgeon made the list. I am not convinced by the explanation given in the article.

Here are the downsides of that profession:

While the level of stress that a physician encounters may be slightly less than that encountered by a brain surgeon, that doesn't mean the job is easy by any means. CareerCast.com cites "increased regulations, lower compensation, and the required need to stay abreast of medical developments" as factors that make the job overrated.

Increased regulations: that will sort out, may have to reduce pay a bit to reduce hassles
Lower compensation: coming down a bit from $192K would still be a dream for most Americans
Staying abreast: sounds like it could be a challenging positive
Stress: accept a bit lower pay (lower caseloads) to reduce stress

Sometimes one wonders how much real research has been done before penning these articles.

 

[FinanceDude]

The list is:

Advertising Account Executive
Flight Attendant
Photojournalist
Real-Estate Agent
Stockbroker
Architect
Attorney
Commercial Airline Pilot
Psychiatrist
Physician
Surgeon
Senior Corporate Executive

The reasons these jobs are overrated are pretty ambiguous. Declining job prospects and stress are mentioned frequently.

I didn't think there were any stockbrokers left, what do they do?

 

[Gone4Good]

I didn't think there were any stockbrokers left, what do they do?

Charge people $150 to execute trades through e-trade.

I worked for a broker dealer and we had to execute all of our trades through the company (presumably to monitor insider trading). We also got awarded company stock that I never wanted as part of our compensation. So every year I had to pay my broker hundreds of dollars to pick up the phone and execute a sell order to turn part of my annual compensation into cash. Nice racket.

 

[Redbugdave]

How come the top two in my book were not listed? Rock Superstar and Dictator? I would be satisfied with being either...

W2R...I work for NOAA and they occasionally ask for people to sign on for a working trip to Bermuda and back. A couple of my friends have gone, but said they had to work taking seawater samples, and it was not a luxury cruise. What? No lounging around? I can't remember the name of the ship, just now. I may volunteer next year...

 

[W2R]

How come the top two in my book were not listed? Rock Superstar and Dictator? I would be satisfied with being either...

W2R...I work for NOAA and they occasionally ask for people to sign on for a working trip to Bermuda and back. A couple of my friends have gone, but said they had to work taking seawater samples, and it was not a luxury cruise. What? No lounging around? I can't remember the name of the ship, just now. I may volunteer next year...

Well, as you saw from the photos I got to go on an occasional cruise but not very often. You should go! They're so much fun, and you really get a much more realistic viewpoint on the data and what they really mean. Most of the work IS pretty menial and the hours are long (well, duh? it's a working cruise, not a vacation. I still loved going). I guess it is considered to be overkill and hard to justify, to send a high dollar scientist on these working cruises very often. Even for government oceanographers it seems to be harder to get time away for even one cruise a year at higher GS levels, much less spending most of our time on cruises - - I guess our time is too expensive. My agency did send me on a few but as someone with your experiences surely would never argue, that is far from the daily lifestyle of most physical oceanographers.

 

[TromboneAl]

W2R, can you explain how signal processing is involved in oceanography? Do the dolphins send you signals?

 

[W2R]

Popular delusions seem to be that most/all oceanographers spend a lot of time on ships helping out Cousteau and such, or swimming with killer whales at Sea World.

W2R, can you explain how signal processing is involved in oceanography? Do the dolphins send you signals?

Yes, Al, during my daily routine workdays as I swam with the dolphins at Sea World, they sent me signals.... (just kidding! As I know you were, too)

Physical oceanographic data (current speed and direction, temperature and salinity measurements, and such, from surface to seafloor) are very expensive to gather - - - the ocean depths are less well explored than the moon, as you have probably heard. As a result, we are often trying to make sense of a dataset that is relatively sparse and scant, in both time and in space. Some very sophisticated signal processing techniques have been developed for doing this, and if applied with some understanding and assumptions from applicable known physics, they actually work. Coming from an electrical engineering background, I was familiar with basic signal processing in a data-rich situation but the information these modern procedures can [-]milk[/-] extract from a sparse dataset is mind-blowing. My idea of fun...

 

[martyp]

For comparison, a list of "best" jobs:News Headlines

dental hygenist
audiologist
historian
biologist
meteorologist
computer systems analyst
statistician
actuary (seriously)
mathematician
software engineer

I would take issue with Biologist being a "best" job. I was an engineer at a DOE DNA sequencing facility. The pay for biologists was way below every other scientific discipline. Sort of like the pay ghetto teachers used to be in. The work was repetitive if you don't have an advanced degree.

 

[Redbugdave]

Just thought of the ship, W2R. It's the Oleander.

 

[Spanky]

Here are the downsides of that profession:
Increased regulations: that will sort out, may have to reduce pay a bit to reduce hassles
Lower compensation: coming down a bit from $192K would still be a dream for most Americans
Staying abreast: sounds like it could be a challenging positive
Stress: accept a bit lower pay (lower caseloads) to reduce stress

Sometimes one wonders how much real research has been done before penning these articles.

Despite its downside, the profession of physician remains highly pursued by highly motivated kids.

 

[Spanky]

Just thought of the ship, W2R. It's the Oleander.

I thought she was an electrical engineer. Anyway, she may have started as one and then changed.

 

[haha]

I didn't think there were any stockbrokers left, what do they do?

I assume you are kidding. Brokers at places like Merrill gather assets from and hold hands with wealthy people, just like you do with somewhat less wealthy people.

A middle aged guy I met at one of my Happy Hour spots does just that, and makes an excellent living. These guys are funny. Their clients are always making money, no matter what the markets are doing. At least according to the brokers.

Ha

 

[Walt34]

... signal processing in a data-rich situation but the information these modern procedures can [-]milk[/-] extract from a sparse dataset is mind-blowing. My idea of fun...

I'm glad to hear somebody likes doing that sort of thing.

I'd have been suicidal if tasked with it.

Of course, I was going to have a career fighting crime, corruption and the forces of evil and instead spent far too much time processing shoplifters, writing tickets for expired registration plates, chasing beer-swilling teenagers off shopping center parking lots and writing reports on fender-benders.

But two or three times a year "the stuff hit the fan" and that was the fun part.

 

[FinanceDude]

I assume you are kidding. Brokers at places like Merrill gather assets from and hold hands with wealthy people, just like you do with somewhat less wealthy people.

I get a lot of clients from Merrill Lynch. About 8 years ago, they decided that anyone who has under $100,000 was not worth it to them so they took their advisor away and gave them an 800 number. While that looks good on paper, it cost them a lot of assets, as it tuned out most of those people had much more than $100K, but it was not at Merrill. I should probably send the local Merrill Lynch branch a gift basket for X-mas.

A middle aged guy I met at one of my Happy Hour spots does just that, and makes an excellent living. These guys are funny. Their clients are always making money, no matter what the markets are doing. At least according to the brokers.Ha

All the true "stockbrokers" I knew are out of the business, the expansion of Etrade and Ameritrade and Fido drove them out. Most investors are not going to pay $150 or more to trade a stock they can trade on those other sites for $7 or $9 or $29. Our firm is a discount broker, and most of our trades are $29, more than Etrade but not obnoxious.......

 

[W2R]

Of course, I was going to have a career fighting crime, corruption and the forces of evil and instead spent far too much time processing shoplifters, writing tickets for expired registration plates, chasing beer-swilling teenagers off shopping center parking lots and writing reports on fender-benders.

But two or three times a year "the stuff hit the fan" and that was the fun part.

Now the thought of that "stuff hitting the fan" makes me cringe! I love watching that sort of thing on TV, but in real life? Way too scary. Glad it is fun at times for some folks, since we really do need law enforcement to keep those bad guys in check. That is especially true here in New Orleans where the crime situation is so bad.

 

[MichaelB]

Of course, I was going to have a career fighting crime, corruption and the forces of evil and instead spent far too much time processing shoplifters, writing tickets for expired registration plates, chasing beer-swilling teenagers off shopping center parking lots and writing reports on fender-benders.

But two or three times a year "the stuff hit the fan" and that was the fun part.

I had a minor car accident at Ft Lauderdale airport and needed towing at 1 am. A policecar parked behind mine as a safety measure and waited an hour for the tow truck to arrive. As we were talking he listened to reports of a high speed chase on I-95. I asked about it and he said he really wanted to be there, in the chase, rather than here, just blocking traffic. He wasn't being critical or complaining, just truthful, and said most police felt the same.

 

[check6]

I was exaggerating, of course, but flying a commercial airliner seems like it would be kind of like driving a bus compared a more nimble aircraft.

I was fortunate to do both.

Flying a fighter was rewarding until military BS outweighed it.

Flying an airliner was rewarding until pay cuts/fatigue/TSA BS outweighed it.

Both had comparable levels of stress.

 

[travelover]

I was fortunate to do both.

Flying a fighter was rewarding until military BS outweighed it.

Flying an airliner was rewarding until pay cuts/fatigue/TSA BS outweighed it.

Both had comparable levels of stress.

Thanks for the insight.

 

[Gearhead Jim]

I started paying for my own flying lessons when I was 16, and hit then-mandatory retirement from United at age 60 in 2005. I loved the flying, the people I worked with, and the travel. Had my own airplane for fun flying for several years. In 2000 we were on a layover in Buenos Aires and one of the copilots asked if I would continue flying past age 60 if the rules changed. My reply: "I won't need the money, but the job is so much fun I'll do it forever." That was then.

After 9-11, the TSA, bankruptcy, etc; I couldn't wait to get out. Even though my pension was only about 22% of what i was supposed to receive.

 

[Dog]

Gearhead Jim. We never know what's coming. A good friend of mine is an airline attendant with United and had to put off retirement due to changes after 9/11.