Report ranks depressing occupations

[LunaSea]

(AP) -- People who tend to the elderly, change diapers and serve up food and drinks have the highest rates of depression among U.S. workers.


Women were more likely than men to have had a major bout of depression, and younger workers had higher rates of depression than their older colleagues.

Almost 11 percent of personal care workers - which includes child care and helping the elderly and severely disabled with their daily needs - reported depression lasting two weeks or longer.

...

Workers who prepare and serve food - cooks, bartenders, waiters and waitresses - had the second highest rate of depression among full-time employees at 10.3 percent.

In a tie for third were health care workers and social workers at 9.6 percent.

The lowest rate of depression, 4.3 percent, occurred in the job category that covers engineers, architects and surveyors.
http://www.physorg.com/news111566913.html

[angstlessk]

1. Hell, I was thinking 'occupations' as in the French in Algeria, USA in Iraq

etc...my bad!

[Fridays Child]

2. Western Europeans in the Americas (pretty depressing, if you're a native American).

[TahitiNut]

3. Pressed into caregiving, I can agree with the article.

As winter looms, it's increasingly necessary to be diligent in finding emotionally sustaining activities.

[MedleyMisty]

4. I nearly killed myself when I worked at Arby's

[Fridays Child]

5. Here's the graphic.

[OzarkDem]

6. I'm in the top 3

Maybe I need to go into construction work...

[Fridays Child]

7. Without analylizing it too much, it seems that there might be a higher tendency toward depression...

...among jobs where you either have to deal with other people's problems or you have too much time to dwell on your own.

[cliss]

9. You know what's strange about these figures,

The biggest growing job groups are the top "bad" jobs, like personal care, food service, waitressing and so on.

That's the secret behind Bush's bragging about lots of jobs, job growth and so on. It's all low-end service jobs. Also a big factor in "depressing" work, has got to be the pay. If you're not paid a decent wage, you'll be depressed when you get your pay check.

:smoke:

[alarimer]

16. Not coincidently those are usually the lowest paying jobs

Combining the two worst parts of any job: having to deal with people and not getting paid nearly enough to do it.

[jmowreader]

10. I see a pattern here

All the jobs where you get to use hammers have a very low depression rate.

All the jobs where you have to take shit off customers all day long have a very high depression rate.

Don't ask me why "sales and related" has such a low rate--perhaps the people who sell bulldozers, high explosives and machine tools balance out the people who work retail.

[SheilaT]

11. Interesting observation about using hammers

vs. taking shit off customers all day.

I used to have a job that was essentially taking shit off customers all day. However, I frequently got to pound a metal stamp as hard as I wanted, and I tell you, it relieved a LOT of the frustration and tension of the job.

[TlalocW]

8. I can't believe that

Phone tech support isn't on there as a separate category. I can understand depression in the other categories, but I felt the stint that I served in phone support after being laid off from programming to be the most soul-crushing time of my life. I don't know - maybe I'm just soft, but forced to take call after call from idiots who just want to know how to download ringers to their phones, getting marks against you if you have to go use the bathroom during a non-designated break, and asshole managers who act like gods because they no longer have to work on the phone... it just got to me pretty quickly.

TlalocW

[backscatter712]

13. Tech support is certainly up there.

Along with any other customer service type job.

I used to work in the dreaded call center, talking to angry idiots all day. Soul-crushing is right, not just because of the customers, but because call centers feel it necessary to micromanage the hell out of their workers, threatening to fire you right and left for ridiculously petty crap.

Though I can see changing old-people diapers in a nursing home being even worse - when offered, I flat refused to take such work.

At least now I'm in software engineering, which is on the low end of the depressing scale.

[SmokingJacket]

12. They should have weighted it for pay.

I worked as an aide in a nursing home, and damn right it's depressing, but most depressing is working your ass off for minimum wage.

Hard for for low pay = depression. Easy, enjoyable work for megabucks = mania!

[backscatter712]

14. Make a job bad enough,

and it won't matter how much they pay you. Trust me on this. And it's not just the occupation - get stuck working for a bad job, and even if you're making seven figures, you'll be silently screaming for a way out. (though making seven-figures makes it easier to arrange early retirement for yourself...)

[SmokingJacket]

15. If you're making seven figures, you have chosen to be there.

It's when you're working a horrible job and can't afford to stop is what makes it truly soul-crushing.

Being paid really well to take care of old people would be a whole different thing, imho.

[Swamp Rat]

17. If I was employed I'd be in the bottom two categories.

I bet the unemployed are a lot more depressed than any of those categories.