To wonder if there are jobs that are reasonably paid and not stressful, and if so, what those jobs are?

[Jinsei]

Have had a shitty day at work, and have concluded that I just don't want the hassle of managing other people any more. I know that stress comes with the territory, and that's why managers earn more, but I want out. I don't mind taking a pay cut but I am the main breadwinner in our family and need to pay the mortgage.

Are there any jobs out there where you can earn a living wage without being stressed all the time? And if so, how do I get one??? The other day I was stressing about a potential redundancy situation in a few years time, but now I'm almost wishing it would happen...

I've just come home and cried. I am a lawyer AND a manager. I have 2 kids at school but feel like I have 6 children in my team at work to look after even though they are all adults over the age of 30. I feel responsible all the time for their mistakes, even though I try and anticipate problems and make sure I record all of my advice and mentoring properly. I feel like all I do is go round cleaning up everyone else's mess. I can't enjoy the parts of my job that I do like because of the responsibility of management. I am expected to do my own work, pick up everyone else's work that doesn't get done, be supportive but tough and look after the interests of the business at the same time, develop new work, meet targets, research and be a general support lawyer to the managers above me. I have too much to do all the time and am never on top of things and although the money is decent and I work 4 days a week, I often end up staying at work late and am fed up of feeling completely defeated and wiped out by the end of the working week. I worry about work a lot and that I am too nice, I over-think things and my DH tells me I'm not enough of a 'bloke' about it all.

My DH has been self-employed / stay at home dad until recently starting a full time job and I just don't know how I am going to stay sane. We have a cleaner but there is still so much to get done around the house, endless washing etc. I have told work I need to do less days / hours and have made suggestions as to a suitable role but I feel that until I say I will actually leave they won't take me seriously. Now my DH is at work too I need more time with my kids before they grow up and leave home. I need something that is satisfying, not necessarily that well paid even, and that needs some intelligence or creativity but that I can fit around school. I know!!! So does every other mum!!! I worry though that having been in a stressful job for years, I would get easily bored and frustrated if I moved down a gear. I did get pretty fed up on my mat leave. Can't win!!

Having read some of this thread, the job of a nail technician sounds very appealing though. I went to art school before studying law so maybe that kind of creative job is exactly what I need!!!

I think the problem with most professions (I am a chartered accountant) is that you train for years and gain lots of valuable experience working with clients - and then you get promoted to director /partner /whatever and suddenly you are required to manage a team of people, taking responsibility for their work as well as your own, and in most cases also responsibility for generating new business. So you no longer have the time to do the work that you trained to do and that you love doing, and instead you spend your time doing things that you never intended as a career choice. And because you were once incredibly good at your job (hence why you got promoted in the first place) you set very high standards for your staff and get frustrated when they can't meet them.

Exactly why I left practice and moved into industry, and why I later decided to sidestep into a pure technical role.

LeQueen: our admin staff were off with stress because there were only 2 part-time staff to do 6 full-time jobs. It was certainly not pleasant for them, and they were worried their role would be cut next.

Gosh I was going to say I have a managerial role with low stress but I earn £20k so way way less.

What about lecturing in your field?

Piping engineer - it's like a plumber but moreso, and correspondingly even better paid. It would take a lot of re-training if you weren't already a tecchie type. You might just die of boredom though, but definitely not stress.

It would probably be a good career choice for someone "on the spectrum", the human interaction involved is very minimal.

you need to manage your stress better and develop coping techniques xx

People underestimate the skill of actually managing PEOPLE. The personal skills that are required. because I work in accounts, I have met, by their very nature, many managers who really shouldn't be managers. Fab accountant. Awful managers.
I suggest to Op that there are ways and means, of moving into a slightly different area, still well paid, but not with the manaing PEOPLE aspect.

But you also need to look at your stress levels. And change the way you view things, and how you work.

I do accounts. I love my job and do not get stressed out by it. I am not paid a fortune, but it is fine.
You do need to find a way of managing stress Tis essential.

Agree with you LaQueen re:HE. I managed a woman who ran three medium-scale events per year, all taking place between June and Oct. She insisted that she could not do more than that even though an event planner would be out of business if that's all they did. When I asked what she was doing circa January she said she was 'busy' and when I aksed if she could do more she said no and complaints all round.

Oh the joys of being a manager!

I'd recommend IT as a profession although I was lucky to have cut my teeth back when there wasn't so many people.

Being on the technical helps a lot since if things go wrong, usually it's the project manager who carries the responsibility. I learned years ago not to manage people. It's like herding a bunch of ungrateful cats.

I've travelled pretty much all over the world and currently typing this reply now sat in my 5* hotel waiting for my room service to arrive.

Salary wise it's not the best anymore. But I earn enough to be comfortably in the HRT bracket, I don't have overall project responsibility nor man management responsibilities. So I consider myself to be extremely lucky!

Like most professions though you have to start at the bottom. And working in a helpdesk dealing with muppets each day can be soul destroying. But I would argue that given the same level of experience, IT is a much better paid career than most others.

HE has changed immensely in the past few years with the introduction of fees and now 9k fees. There have been thousands of job losses across the sector, particularly in the services.

Where I work, there is one person now doing the job of what was 6 people 4 years ago. I'm doing the job of 4. Anyone who wants to go into the services side of HE needs to be of strong nerves as its just not a walk in the park any more. Not at all.

I teach and rarely find it stressful and the holidays are great. Choose your school wisely and it is a lovely job.

I'm certain that, compared to many people's jobs, librarianship is not enormously stressful. However, it is also far from stress-free. And yes, if you want to be going for professional posts you'll need to be qualified (usually by way of a MA/MSc.).

The way the profession is going means that most professional posts are very customer-facing. Gone are the days when a librarian could hide away in a back office, drinking coffee and reading books. Now we have to be out there promoting the service and making ourselves indispensible. There is no longer a captive audience who have to come to the library to get the information they need. We have to entice them in and persuade them that our mediated service is better than what they'll stumble across on the internet. Especially difficult with budgets being squeezed and services threatened with closure. The 'traditional' librarian is a dying breed and technological developments have changed the job almost beyond recognition. Librarians have to move with the times or face extinction, so being very IT literate and innovative is an absolute must.

I'm in charge of acquisitions for a specialised research library within a university, so I select which books to buy and manage the ordering and receiving processes. But I also do so much more. I manage staff, budgets, and projects, run induction sessions and teach information skills sessions to students and researchers. And I spend an enormous amount of time sorting out IT-related problems and devising ways in which new technology can be put to use to enhance our services.

I love my job, and don't find it hugely stressful, but I don't think it is the walk-in-the-park a lot of people imagine it to be.