Would you agree with this list of the most stressful jobs?

[Earlybird]

A List of the most stressful jobs was released today. The thinktank that compiled the lists had this to say:

"Probably the single overriding factor regarding stress is the amount of control you have. People who have the least amount of control have the most amount of stress ? they?re reacting to whatever is happening around them."

Many of the most stressful jobs involved peril and significant hazard, whether it?s coming into contact with hazardous materials or having other people?s lives in your hands.

There were 11 criteria used to compile the list: travel, income outlook/growth potential, deadlines, working in the public eye, competitiveness, physical demands, environmental conditions, hazards encountered, own life at risk, life of another at risk, and meeting the public.

Here is the list:

*Taxi driver - long hours, low pay, unpredictable and difficult passengers
*Photojournalist - deadline pressure, competitiveness to 'get the shot' before rivals, dealing with crisis in dangerous circumstances
*Senior corporate executive - responsible for large group of employees, accountable to shareholders/owners, market conditions beyond their control which affect results
*Public Relations executive - difficult, demanding clients with situations that often play out in the public eye
*Event Coordinator - demanding clients, coordination of thousands of big/small details, big responsibility with little control
*Police officer - harrowing scenes, split-second decision making with potentially far-reaching consequences, sometimes dangerous conditions
*Military General - responsible for lives of others, tough decisions
*Airline pilot - long hours, multiple risks (bad weather, terrorism, difficult passengers) with big responsibility of keeping passengers safe
*Firefighter - dangerous often hazardous conditions, faced with daily life-or-death situations
*Enlisted Military Soldier - faced with dangerous and hostile conditions daily, little ability to relax/take time off, limited access to friends/family

Your thoughts on the list?

What is the most stressful job you've ever had? Why? Stories?

Event Coordinator - demanding clients........big responsibility with little control

I would have thought that description fitted teaching quite nicely.l

Doctors and paramedics every time.

I teach and when I worked in a very difficult school it was immensely stressful, in an easier school it is positively pedestrian .

Does not compare to someone who puts their life on the line though.

Surgeons would be at the top of my list.

Stress for one is a burst of adrenalin for another though - some people are 'stressed' by things that are water off a duck's back to others.

I'm surprised at the omission of the wider emergency services (lifeboat crew, anyone? Or firefighter?) and acute care, front line medical staff. And that they didn't single out bomb disposal experts - there are enlisted service personnel, so are partly covered in the last tiret but are also put in harms way when bombs are planted by terrorists any where, or when workmen unearth something dangerous from the WW2.

No paramedics?
I would put paramedics on the list and remove event co-ordinators.
I think social worker could be incredibly stressful.

Firefighters are in the list!

I meant on the list, not necessarily top.

paramedics and social workers

Oops - yes: I meant RNLI as well as firefighters - it's still a deliberate altruistic risk of death, at a timing out if one's control; and in addition to a main job which may be stressful in itself; physically hard; and with others' lives depending on you.

Where are the carers? Psychiatric nurses? Nurses in general? teachers? shop workers? Social workers?

Public Relations executive - difficult, demanding clients with situations that often play out in the public eye Seriously? Seriously?! More stressful than watching someone die and being unable to help them or trying to make life bearable for those who are suffering?

Emergency services
Caring services (hospital/carers)
Teaching
Social work

What about air traffic controllers?

YY to social workers.

Looking at that list, it's mainly acute bursts of stress (I'm thinking particularly of 'event coordinator'), which I thrive on.
What I'm crap at is ongoing chronic stress and conflict between personalities.

I'd be OK in most of those jobs and have done a bunch of similar ones, but give me a typical office job, restructure the organisation, and withhold the bases of appraisal and provide a couple two-faced smarmy managers, and I can't handle it.

Care work or similar where I felt I was fighting the system as well as to get the job done would be somewhere in between.