The best job in America is apparently being an actuary

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_BESTJOBS2010_20100105.html

Photojournalist at 189, just 11 about Roustabout.

Where are you ranked?

uh is #11 really philosopher

Number 46 isn't so bad.

#7 is insanely high

hahahahahaha #2!

xp to jjjusten: i think it's nice work if you can get it

#11, but I'm also trained as #2 and #6, and I interned in college as #1 and #42. #11 is better in all ways save the cash.

The "top-level salaries" they list are way low, from what I know of these fields.

The best job in America is apparently being an actuary

true if you are willing to be bored to tears every day.

paralegal assistant? doesn't that pay like $10/hr :(

i know like 3 actuaries and i believe they don't think their work is boring at all!

roustabout doesn't sound too bad. why is it at 200

paralegal assistant? doesn't that pay like $10/hr :(

no? i think they mean paralegals/legal assistants, not "assistant to a paralegal"

Complicated system to numerate these:
http://www.careercast.com/jobs/content/jobs-rated-methodology-2010

also, no publicist at all? so i should be a roustabout maybe?

reorganize by $$$

in my experience, that top level paralegal salary is way low

and that's just hourly base i'd imagine... most paralegals make a ton of money on overtime

says ex-paralegal "jeff"

estoppel the insanity

where is hooker?

where did you leave her?

oh i missed the salary columns duh

hookers don't pay taxes, we can't account for them

where is Todd P?

closest thing for me puts me at #62

I thought ppl were kidding about "Roustabout"

200th best job: CARNEY

havent actuaries topped this list for like ever? i remember that being noted as the best job back in the mid nineties as well

wait roustabout is real?

to clarify, 1990's. in the 1890's roustabout was number one iirc xpost

two way tie with "guy who works in the coal mine, but above ground."

http://www.epgold.com/bootlegvcdanddvd/Elvis_Roustabout-front.jpg

I guess the modern usage of "roustabout" really refers to the oil rig guys who can't be trusted with specialized equipment (who are called "roughnecks")

English is amazing sometimes

"Actuary" has always been my #1 mental example of the most sensible job in the world, for anyone with the appropriate skills -- high pay, high demand, secure employment, just an unimpeachably solid thing to do for a living. Plus you're not competing with anyone else who decided that when she grew up she wanted to be an actuary.

roustabouts are the worst job because people keep drinking their milkshakes

Yeah, I fell for the actuary thing and did a year-long internship as one in college. I love math and like getting paid but it was boring, mostly b/c my bosses didn't give me enough to do. Basically I played with spreadsheets all the time (the company even wiped solitaire and minesweeper off the computers, and it was just barely pre-internet), learning to program simulations of card games in Lotus 1-2-3 macros.

I feel similarly about pharmacists, which this totally bears out. I was really envious of the one pharmacist I knew when I was younger -- I mean, you can come out of your schooling in your still-early twenties, get a first job at a chain drugstore, and make like $80k to start? Now I always see young developing-world immigrant pharmacists in local stores and think, you know, you really did this right, you have SO efficiently secured yourself a comfortable first-world middle-class lifestyle, along a wise, short path.

xpost - ha, yes, the problem with "most sensible job" categories is that they sort of assume all other things are equal, and all other things are never equal, interest-wise. It would be pretty sweet, though, to come to the point very young where you'd decided none of the things you really cared about in life were strictly job-related, so you might as well be like a happy Zen Actuary and live a real life completely unconnected with your mere employment

pharm.d. takes like forever iirc

I thought you could do it in like 3 years? Which, you know, compare to getting a masters in the humanities or something -- out by 25 with an average start of $77k?

can i just say that with rare exceptions duane reade pharmacists are horrible human beings

well there may admittedly be personal issues involved with being the world's highest-paid professionals to work cash registers at places that sell toilet paper and socks

My mother did actuarial work briefly between graduating and teacher training and reports being bored to tears. However, my mother excluded, fuck an actuary tbh. Making a living off compiling tables to wring more money out of people who had x or y medical test/procedure on the grounds that they might be more likely to die, or might not, hell maybe the test came back clear but the fact that they had it means there's $$$ to demand, no time for specifics, it's all just correlation

(guess who is pissed off about their life insurance premium being like 6x my flatmate's because of some totally not life threatening things)

i looked it up and i guess pharm.d. takes 4 years, not forever

only *some* actuaries calculate the chance of someone dying. one of my friends does pension-related work, another does something to do with payrolls. sounds boring to me but they like it and aren't evil people.

I'm #3. Not bad!

#80, which if you ask me, is pretty high.

Some paralegals make mad, mad bank. I know paralegals who make $25k above what I make as an attorney (I work for the government, though, so after more than two years of working here, I actually make less than the listed starting salary lolsob). When I was a paralegal, I made about $15/hour, which was low.

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/autaux?b=M%5ea11f09b8576e606bcb5038dfdb92fb821&u=http%3A%2F%2Fachewood.com%2Fcomic.php%3Fdate%3D10292003

I've been contemplating becoming an actuary for a while now. I have already purchased the study materials for the first 2 exams and an actuarial calculator. However, the first time I tried to study for an exam I realized I didn't give myself enough time.

I don't have a job or health insurance. I might have to look into some of the actuarial internships this summer. I know there is one in Tennessee which is kind of far for me... and I would be paying for the living expenses. If I decided to follow the actuary career path I'm going to have to decide before the end of this month because that's when the deadline is for most summer internships I believe.

But, fucking A that I have applied to over 50 government jobs since I graduated with a bachelors in statistics from UGA back in may 08, and I still haven't been able to get a job. The census bureau who is supposedly constantly hiring statisticians seems to be ignoring me.

you're not competing with anyone else who decided that when she grew up she wanted to be an actuary.

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Wednesday, January 6, 2010 9:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

went to school with someone who said this at about age 16. :/

I personally have made mad mad bank as a paralegal, but it was in exchange for like 1000 hours of my life one year spent working overtime.

184th on this list. is that ilx's worst job?

i love actuaries thanks to the x-files episode with the actuary who could predict the future--clive or clyde something. if u are a certain kind of writer or filmmaker there is a lot of metaphorical potential in actuaries.

also i believe we have a young pharmaceutical student on ilx

tweakers don't count btw

Haha, I remember when I was a young jaymc.xls, my dad told me I should become an actuary.

I think it was because sometimes I looked at this when we went to the library:
http://www.netmagazines.com/images/4887L.jpg

i think i'm not even on there? where are the media hack jobs?

media hack = pr? in w/ a bullet at 79 anyway.

i question the "executive" part of that

I thought a roustabout was something to do with shearing sheep, and tended to fuck up your back

i question the "shearing" part of that

I would be an actuary for a professional sports organization

my mom is an accountant (9) and apparently it is a potent form of slow death. job security, yeah, but it depresses me to know she has 10 years to go before she can retire.

another tough year for CRACK WHORE

hopefully I'll be making a 65 position jump within the next month or so

this list is borked as celebrity bikini waxer is nowhere to be found :|

136 SURGEON <-- SO NOT ME
137 BUS DRIVER <-- ME

way back when i graduated undergrad (1997), i DID interview for a "paralegal assistant" job -- and it was just what it said it was, an assistant to paralegals. i always thought that it was this particular odd law firm (a mid-sized one in south jersey, FWIW), and their criteria for being a "regular" paralegal was to have a paralegal degree. (i turned the job down, BTW, b/c i thought that the distinction was bullshit -- and FWIW, i dunno any NYC firm that has "paralegal assistants" per se). then again, i think that the job in the list above really is "paralegal" or "legal assistant" (more or less the same thing at some firms).

and FWIW, i made more money during my last year as a para than i did during my first year as a lawyer. that's what you get for not going to a Gabbneb-caliber law school. ;_;

my mom is an accountant (9) and apparently it is a potent form of slow death. job security, yeah, but it depresses me to know she has 10 years to go before she can retire.

mad layoffs @ Big4 and Big4 also-rans (like BDO) this past Great Recession, though. i know that that's just one subset of accountants, but the past year at such places was almost as holocaust-like as it was for law firms.

holy shit im number 3.

clearly these people havent worked that job

i was going to whinge about my job not being there but i suppose it is #3.

qa is not exactly like it is portrayed in leisuretown

sociologists can make $122,000????

I was in school to become #5, but then threw it away for the opportunity to become #136 or #128 (Probably not #98, but I could also potentially do that). Best decision I've ever made.

Jim: ya but we work in Aus where we're ripped the fuck off for tech jobs compared to the US ;_;

xxpost w/tenure sure

really trayce? maybe it depends on the position but i started here in the US on exactly what i was making in AUS.

gone is the heyday of the lumberjack.

i was #79 (pr exec) and now im learning stuff in order to be sort of #4 (biologist)

i think being an actuary wld be pretty interesting maybe - i enjoy quantifying things

What sort of 'sort of #4' are you looking at?

im in my 1st year of an immunology & microbiology phd program atm

That is badass!