Worst or best job ever?

I picked this up off of A Photo Editor. The Wall Street Journal Online has a story about the best and worst jobs in 2010. He's obviously interested in things like "photojournalist" at 189th out of 200.

I had to check where us medical science kind of people fall.

8th Statistician
41st Physiologist
54th Chemist
128th Physician
136th Surgeon

Biologist was fourth, but it was meant for green biologists, not the lab kind. According to this I guess I should be happiest when doing statistics, and the least happy when doing surgery. That doesn't sound right. Honestly, physiologist at place 41 doesn't seem too bad. But what does it mean?

Luckily there is a methods section. Each job out of the two hundred were scored in five different categories. Most are pretty straight forward.

• Environment: Is it hazardous, confined, etc.
• Income: Is it high?
• Outlook: Can you get a job?

Then the problem starts.

• Physical Demands: sedentary = best??? heavy lifting = worst.

I can agree that heavy lifting isn't good in too large amounts, but is sedentary work good? It is bad for people to sit still, that much we know. Do people want work where they don't have to move at all? I don't think so, most people I know would probably want some moderate level of physical work.

The real problem is the category:

• Stress

It is made up of a number of things that I can agree causes stress (risk of dying anyone?), but then we get to: "Initiative required" and "Outdoor work". Can those really be bad things? I don't think so.

In conclusion, it's nice that they try to investigate this kind of thing, but it makes no sense to rank them in order of a composite of these different categories. It might make sense from a publicists perspective, but certainly not from any job seekers perspective.

Michael