1. Software Engineer
2. College Professor
3. Financial Adviser
4. Human Resources Manager
5. Physician's Assistant
6. Market Research Analyst
7. Computer IT analyst
8. Real Estate Appraiser
9. Pharmacist
10. Psychologist
Money grades occupations on four factors: Stress, Flexibility, Creativity, and Difficulty (which means difficulty in "breaking in"/actually getting a job. College Profs get a B for stress, A's for creativity and flexibility, and a C for difficulty. Of course the fine capitalists over at Money offer no critique of the over-reliance on exploited part-time labor, simply referring to the fact that the category includes "moonlighting adjuncts."
I'm interested in the categories, particularly the flexibility and creativity criteria, both of which are consistent with Michael Zweig's conception of social class as an indiciation of power and agency in the workplace. Zweig's thesis is that in the U.S., the majority of workers are "working class," due to this issue of agency. A line worker may make a boatload of money, but has little quantitative (mandatory overtime, etc.) or qualitative (routizined tasks, etc.) control. Money Magazine seems tuned in to the degree to which power/agency affect lifestyle, and "creativity" and "flexibility" both get at such issues.
The piece goes on:
What's cool Professors have near-total flexibility in their schedules. Creative
thinking is the coin of the realm. No dress code!What's not The tick-tick-tick of the tenure clock; grading papers; salaries at the low end are indeed low.
Interesting representation of the job: "Yeeah, I can wear jeans. Boo, I have to grade all these papers." This could have been written by somedbody over at the Chronicle of Higher Ed!
1 comment:
It's interesting that Money Magazine doesn't actually use "money" as a category for assessing jobs. (Which also connects to that small oversight you mention: is it really the second best job if you're on a year-to-year contract and have no benefits?)
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