College football coaches
Most doctor I know are generally nice human beings. But they work under a lot of stress and it can bring out assholish behavior. That said, the biggest dickhead I ever worked with was a cardiologist. Surgeons usually just aren’t great with people. They prefer their patients unconscious and silent.
I think it’s most useful to look at how people act while NOT on the job. Doctors and lawyers are stereotyped as assholes, but that’s understandable since they’re dealing with life-or-debt situations. I know tons of them where I work (bank) though–they’re with exceptions absolute sweethearts.
So what’s an asshole? An asshole is a person with malignant entitlement. An asshole is a Somebody’s nephew. Not the impatient, or the self-considering, or the uncordial. The’re the “WhaddayaMEAN I got to lift a finger?” people.
The only profession/asshole correlation that comes immediately to mind is nurses. The nurse personality is one that can deal with anything except a vacation. Even their vacations are stressful because they require them to be: nurses abhor a problem-vacuum. That’s why they have one child too many, work 12 hours too many, still go to brunch with friends they hate… they’re addicted to their solutions, which are right in front of everybody else’s nose.
Politicians, cops, and university professors, for a three way tie!
Each a numerous group, together a large segment of society. And each group lives in an insulated and rarified atmosphere. And each has power to wield! That seems to be the recipe to me.
(I once had a judge tell me the lowest form of life was criminals, next was cops, because they deal with so many criminals. Next was lawyers who deal with many cops and criminals both. And the last was judges! Because they deal with all three; criminals, cops, lawyers!)
Bridge inspectors. One tenth the knowledge of a bridge design engineer and ten times the arrogance. This from 35 years of bitter experience.
Auditors. What fun to explain your business to them so that they can find ways to make you look bad.
Televangelists and right wing talk radio hosts.
I would say that “politicians” and “teachers” are both in the same position of having a certain percent of completely twisted, horrible people, and a certain percent of young, idealistic ones. They balance each other out, so neither scores very high on the asshole meter.
I nominate modern artists.
Which is why my first thought when reading the thread title was ‘wait - that’s anatomically impossible!’
Somebody once mad ethe mistake of asking Franz Kline to look after their dog. Kine ignored it until it died after eating a box of soap flakes in desperation. Kline waxed philosophical: “this shows that artists can survive where animals can’t”
Italian civil servants, particularly those in charge of giving information to the public.
You may be onto something…
Coaches in general
You think cops live in a “rarefied atmosphere”? I’m not sure I’d call the atmosphere that surrounds belligerent drunks and schizophrenic homeless people off their meds while you try and wrestle them into the back of a cop car “rarefied”.
And the average university professors power extends to being able to control the class grades of a few undergrads. I’m not sure they’re exactly drunk with the possibilities.
So, I guess the answer to the OP is “Every profession, with the possible exception of beauticians.”
U.S. Postal Service workers. I’ve dealt with some very nice people there, but more than a few assholes - sullen, unhelpful, purposefully slow, gleefully rule-quoting, etc. - more than in any other profession I can think of.
My experience is pretty much the opposite. I’ve encountered very few rude assholes among all the postal folks I’ve interacted with.
Top level sports writers and broadcasters. Have absolutely no time, nothing but contempt, for people beneath their back-slapping league. Vin Scully a notable exception.
University professors don’t have power per se, but they certainly do have high social status, and if they’re tenured then they have an enviable degree of job security and intellectual freedom.
You know what I’d really love to see? I wish somebody would go around and interview the make-up artists, who do celebrities before they appear on TV shows or performances. Ask them who are the celebrities who treat the working grunts beneath them with grace and dignity. What a wonderful eye-opening book that would be.
I once knew a guy who worked on a Hollywood camera crew. He said Broderick Crawford was the nicest star he ever worked with. Elizabeth Taylor was the worst, but I doubt if that would surprise anybody.
A lot of people around here seem to automatically hate him for his beliefs but I have heard from multiple sources that Tom Cruise is just about the nicest person to work with. In fact several who said they went to him for career advice said that the first thing he tells people is to go out of your way to treat the crew well and with respect.
Gonna paint a bullseye on myself, but Bus Drivers.
Bus drivers have to deal with people at their very worst. Few people ride the bus as a personal choice around here, so the people on the bus are often those that either can’t afford to drive or can’t physically or mentally. While many of these folks are just people on hard times or mentally ill there is definitely a subset of people with learned helplessness. Dealing with people like this day in and day out makes it harder to give them the benefit of the doubt. Part of the reason I can’t stand lacy people is because I have to deal with them at work.
My first thought was general contractor. I have never had one that has behaved in an honest and direct way with me. I have never had one do what he said he was going to do, in the time he said he was going to do it for the price he quoted. That’s an asshole in my book.