In post #918 of the “Polls only: No discussion” thread, @Mean_Mr.Mustard posed an interesting question that had a rather strange result so far.
Options given are office cubicle worker; social worker; high school teacher; police officer; registered nurse; and firefighter.
As of this writing, a whopping 68% of the 22 votes chose “office cubicle worker”. Social worker (my choice) is down at 14%; high school teacher at 9%; registered nurse at 4%, and firefighter at 0%.
I’m blown away by the results so far. Office cubicle worker? Really? Until retirement age? Why?
Personally, I chose social worker because I understand the need for qualified people in that position, and it’s a job that I can do with fairly minimal risk to myself and interference from the government or from protestors.
I don’t have that long until retirement. I’d just as soon do indoor grunt work until then. Take a breather.
I considered teaching high school physics, which might be fun. But, according to the premise of the poll, you have no other control over your situation. I’d hate to land in a school where no one wanted to learn physics, or all the parents think their precious children should get A’s regardless.
Same here. But Teacher and social worker is doable and i would consider them, whilst firefighter and Police officer is no longer doable do to physical limitations. Although I could still do my old Fed agent job, since that wasn’t physical.
My choice would be 'working remotely in my compliance field".
Short answer - “Office cubicle worker” isn’t an actual job description. But because most people already work in some sort of office, the would probably rather keep a job in their current profession or industry rather than take one of those other, oddly specific jobs don’t really pay very well and are not particularly interesting unless you have a specific interest in social work, teaching, nursing or firefighting.
I’d assume the “You have been magically prepared and trained overnight” part means I’ve also been physically prepared for doing the job, so yeah, suddenly being in good enough shape to be a firefighter sounds good to me at this point of my life.
Even if it’s just the kind of shape an existing firefighter 5-10 years from retirement is in, that’s still a big gain for me, I’ve met some of those guys.
My only question would be how much I’d get paid vs. what I make now. 5 years or so fighting fires sounds like fun, but I’m not sure I’d give up a lot of money to do it.
I’d pick social worker, because I like meeting a wide variety of people and I like to collect interesting stories. Also, I think I might have an extra copy of some altruism gene, because I get genuine pleasure from helping others. But that’s me. I can see how it wouldn’t appeal to introverts, people not comfortable around a lot of different types of people, people that are easily distressed by emotionally laden situations and people that are frustrated easily……in short, most everyone.
As to nurse or policeman or firefighter or high school teacher, they all seem really stressful, and half of those are actually physically dangerous -maybe three out of four, if the stories my urban high school teacher friend tells are true. While I’d probably like social work, I can easily see why most people pick office cubicle worker. It’s a low stress, head down, low interaction job.
I also don’t have that long until retirement, and all that I am waiting for is to meet the minimum age requirement.
But if I were a police officer or firefighter, I would be eligible to retire right now as these jobs have lower age requirements for retiring. So I choose firefighter.
See, and I wouldn’t choose that one specifically because I have had some social worker-type jobs- I don’ t have the degree or the license so I was never actually a social worker. I suppose I like the field in general but I also know there are very different jobs in that field. I worked as a CPS caseworker (some coworkers were actual social workers with degrees and licenses) - and I absolutely could not have done that job until retirement. I wouldn’t want to provide therapy but discharge planning and case management would have been fine. I wouldn’t want to work in a psychiatric hospital or a jail or prison.
I wouldn’t pick nurse or policeman or firefighter or high school teacher because those jobs tend to require a somewhat more rigid schedule than I am used to - I don’t have a problem with being at work on time, but I am accustomed to being able to arrange to come in an hour late/leave an hour early and use an hour of my leave time and the nurses/teachers/police officers/firefighters I know can’t really do that - they have to take a full-day off and the teachers I know get only three personal days a year outside of school holidays/vacations. And then there’s rotating shifts/weekends/getting stuck permanently on an undesirable shift which might happen in any of those jobs other than “teacher”
And that’s why I picked office/cubicle worker - because although I might not like the office worker job I ended up in , there’s less of a chance that that I would actively hate the actual work or schedule. Or at least it seems that way to me.
Depending on your definition of “office cubicle worker”, some jobs pay a lot more than that. Average starting salary for an MBA is over $100k. Some jobs pay many times that. That’s why it’s not a very interesting survey. There has to be some obvious tradeoff. Like
Would you rather be
a) the world’s most awesome fireman
b) a social worker who only works with down and out reality show celebrities
c) a successful partner in a law firm earning $7 figures…but you have the head of a chicken on a human bodu. You can still talk and think normally and it doesn’t affect your performance in court. You can decide if the chicken head is bird-sized or human sized.
I would probably choose “cubicle worker” also because, to me, it is the lesser of several evils. Social workers are underpaid, severely overworked, and the scapegoats any time something goes wrong. Teachers are shit on by parents, students, local administrations, and the state boards they work for. Fire fighter is a hazardous job performed in all kinds of inclement weather. I might consider RN, but it is also an exhausting job with 12 hour shifts.
I am relatively young for this board, but I also choose the office worker option.
Reason number one: all the other options seemed very demanding, high stress, highly social jobs. Basically retail but you get more respect, maybe.
Reason two: that option is actually the most potentially varied. It could be in an interesting field that I might end up liking. If not, at least it’s regular hours and you don’t destroy your health being on your feet all day, or damage your mental health dealing with human tragedy.
I’m an “office worker” and I make considerably more than this…without having to deal with teenagers*, fires, patients, or people’s personal problems. I’ll stick with lecture editing and online course management, thanks all the same.
I didn’t think of that. Yes, if I’d be magically physically up to being a firefighter, then I’d take that one. I’d probably have to be not only much younger but also taller and more muscular than I’ve ever been in my life, though – aren’t you supposed to be strong enough to carry a large adult human while wearing considerable weight in gear?
All the jobs listed are ones I’d be bad at. Cubicle worker would be a sort of hell; I need a great deal of natural light, and I need to spend a lot of time outdoors. I wouldn’t be fit for anything at all after a couple weeks in a cubicle, and would be in some danger of running amok. Police officer requires following a lot of rules you don’t get any say in making, plus trying to make other people follow them, plus to be any good at it a good bit of social skills. Social worker requires social skills I’m bad at, and some versions of it are probably also done in enclosed spaces with no natural light. Teacher would be risky – I can teach people who want to learn what I’m teaching, and have done that, succeeded at it, and enjoyed it. But I’ve also learned in the process that I’m terrible at trying to teach anybody who doesn’t want to learn what I’m trying to teach, and will probably only convince them that they didn’t want to learn it with a side order of convincing them that they don’t like me.
That’s not the experience of my friends who are field social workers. It involves going into rough neighbourhoods (if they weren’t rough, they wouldn’t need social workers) and into some fraught situations.
Of all the jobs listed, it’s the only one that’s nice work indoors without necessarily interacting with “the Public” - or worse, kids. Most Dopers are not social butterflies.
