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Is your job on this list? Should
it be?
By BOB MIMS
Salt Lake Tribune
OK, so your job sucks.
Your boss is the Peter Principle
incarnate, elevated to mind-numbing
incompetence; co-workers are
backstabbing scavengers of spoiled
dreams; and your workload has
doubled as health and retirement
benefits fall under the corporate
budget ax.
You can whine. You can quit. You
can even get fired in a fit of
momentarily satisfying, yet
ultimately impoverishing, and
perhaps imprisoning, rage.
Or, you can point your Internet
browser and do what more than a
1,000 do every day — head to
http://www.worst-jobs.com to
indulge one of the oldest of human
traits, delighting in the deeper
misery of others.
A banner headline offers
workplace-weary visitors immediate
solace: “So, you think you have the
worst job in the world. Think
again!”
Stuart Macfarlane, a Glasgow,
Scotland, information technology
consultant who launched the site in
February 2006, then promises that, “There
are many jobs out there that are
much, much worse.”
For those convinced otherwise, he
invites brief entries for his “Worst
Jobs Trophy.” With the caveat that
he cannot verify any of the e-mailed
contributions by a global village of
disgruntled, usually anonymous
employees, you are invited to
consider the curious case of one
“Hans.”
So far, Hans is Macfarlane’s
inside favorite for the trophy. The
Swedish toilet attendant writes that
he works at a Stockholm clinic that
treats constipation. Hans complains
that when patients are cured, the
facilities are often overwhelmed —
leaving him the subsequent cleanup
and plumbing repairs.
“What do I get paid for this
disgusting job? Eighty-thousand
Swedish krona (about $11,000 a
year). Not a lot for all the crap I
take,” Hans wrote.
The therapeutic value of
worst-jobs.com and other such sites
should not be dismissed, says
Janiece Pompa, president of the Utah
Psychological Association.
“I love sites like this,” she
says. “If we read about someone in
worse condition than we are, we seem
to feel better. It’s a human thing,
they way we are built.”
Cheri S. Reynolds, a University
of Utah educational psychology
professor, agrees that an occasional
quick fix from such sites can help
stressed employees cope.
“Misery loves company is a phrase
that has endured forever. Misery is
a lot like a wound that won’t heal
without fresh air; this is one way
to bring it out into the light, to
share it,” she says. “It can also be
inspirational, finding out about
people like (Hans), who are there
for us when we need them.”
The site breaks down horrible
employment by various categories.
The Worst Jobs for Men, as might be
expected, leans toward the
scatological. No. 1 is “flatulence
analyst.” While exaggerated for
comic effect, it actually has roots
in a recent published study by a
Minnesota gastrointestinalologist
exploring diagnoses by nose, as it
were.
Other male worst jobs regale site
visitors with the downsides of
mosquito research (multiple bites),
sensory deprivation test subject
(hallucinations), zoo keepers
(dismemberment, cage cleanup duty)
and roofer (low pay, danger, searing
heat from tar).
Site visitors’ entries for Worst
Jobs for Women are not lacking in
disgusting characteristics, either.
Poultry processors need stomachs of
iron to pull long shifts plucking,
cutting and gutting various fowl;
bikini waxers, day-care workers; and
high school counselors seem secretly
inclined toward sado-masochism.
The No. 1 worst job nominated by
female surfers: Blue Cheese Factory
Laborer. It might make a tasty salad
dressing, but this pungent cheese
elicits a decidedly negative
response from those on the
production lines.
Consider that the characteristic
aroma of blue cheese, and its color,
both come from letting the dairy
by-product decay into mold. Workers
complain of the smell sticking to
clothing and hair, and because odors
are carried by microscopic molecules
of cheesy mold, guess what’s in your
lungs and all over your body after a
day at work?
Feel better about your own daily
grind? Web editor Macfarlane says
that’s the idea. But he stresses his
site’s primary purpose is to
entertain.
“Certainly from the feedback I
have received, some people are
getting a laugh, and that is all I
want,” he says.
More bad job Web sites:
http://www.marry-an-ugly-millionaire-online-dating-agency.com/
http://www.mockery.org/notmensa/ |
