What job title holds the biggest wow factor

[pancakeontoast]

Just for sat night chat, what job do you think holds the biggest kudos? I think probably a medical consultant or barrister... what do you think...

Doctor

‘Zero need to mention it’. I was making a point about the term ‘human rights lawyer’, my views on which have been informed by my profession. That’s a very far cry from ‘all barristers are keen to tell you they’re a barrister when socialising with non barristers’.

Tbh if you simply hadn’t said ‘all’ I would have left it. The ‘all’ was a gross, unreasonable exaggeration which you’re clearly not going to admit. I’m drawing a line under that nonsense now.

all barristers are keen to tell you they are barristers if they are socialising with non-barristers.

All barristers of the type who want to tell you they're barristers will tell you they're barristers. You can't tell how many unassuming stealth barristers you may have unknowingly socialised with.

Foster carer

I've seen both those films.

Imagine that your "job" is to "gamble" the bank's money (share capital, client investments, borrowed money, etc.) and you can have pretty much carte blanche on what you do, how you do it and so forth then that would be the (now theoretically banned) proprietary trading desk, the sexiest part of the pointy end of the investment banking trading floor.

This is not merchant banking or hedge funds (the successors to proprietary trading effectively) or deal making etc. this is pure out and out trading for profit.

So yeah, when the Big Short comes in and starts talking about mortgage backed securities, collateralised debt obligations, various put and call options and all the other derivatives on the back of synthetic and non synthetic derivatives then yes, it is right and yes, it did happen, and it happened in much the same way as you see in the film (though over a longer period of time and then very fast, which was depicted).

Margin Call should have been so much better but I forget that the target audience has no idea what we are talking about or the language we use or the size of numbers we discuss. A bar is a million, a yard is a billion, etc. but yeah, the theory is right as is the execution and the culling of people did happen. One old timer said to me that you shouldn't worry about getting canned as that is how people paid off their mortgages, with the compensation 😆

In certain quarters, the public would be horrified and shocked beyond comprehension and if they knew that the people in government making decisions knew so little then they would be scared even more.

Unless you are right in the eye of th storm, you cannot know what it is like. For me, that first came with the overhang of the UK listing of Billiton by Kleinwort Benson where we were losing up to £100,000,000 a day at one point.

That is pretty focussing !

Years ago, studying British and American politics I think, the responses of children and what jobs they wanted to do was used in a comparative exercise.

The kids were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up.

The American kids said things like President of the United States, astronaut, fighter pilot, surgeon, President of XYZ company, etc.

The UK kids said things like train driver, bus driver, work in a shop, nurse, factory worker etc.

It never left me that the contrast was so stark, that USA kids believed that they could do these things, despite their background but Uk kids desires, beliefs and futures were almost mapped out to lower levels of achievement from birth, from their parents, from their teachers, from everyone.

It may be a closer gap today but I bet it it is still very pronounced.

I think the answer these days varies according to background. Many will say footballer or influencer and a few will say astronaut, brain surgeon.

I know a few barristers and professors - not that impressed by either as I know what they’re like!

I know a brain surgeon … and I’m still in total awe at that. He doesn’t even get paid that well in the NHS, pretty crap working conditions, but every day a life or death situation. I don’t know how his nerves can take it!

I’m generally impressed by medics I think. Including ambulance paramedics.

space pirate

A teacher.

There needs to be a balance between aspiration and realism though.
Quite a lot of Americans seem to have been unhelpfully impacted by an excessive focus on 'self esteem' in the last few decades.

And 'astronaut' or 'President' are actually pretty unimaginative, I doubt many of the kids trotting that out have a clue what those jobs really entail.

I certainly think that child development and nurturing children in all their aspects - creative, social, early literacy, maths etc whether done by parents at home or by wonderful early childcare workers is very, very under valued.

Without their input, imagine what Reception would look like! Mayhem.
I know some children sadly don't get all the nurture they need, but most children arrive potty trained, able to speak, play, move around in different ways, listen, eat their dinner and are more/less ready for early learning.

Ditto @Imastroppycow2 on foster carers and adoptive parents.

They do amazing jobs which are likewise not as lauded as they should be.