7th Best Job in the Country?

Today, I was turned onto this article because it had been posted on Slashdot

Apparently, according to a recent study/poll by “money.cnn.com” – I have the 7th best occupation in this country.
Here is a link that basically gives “the top 50 jobs in the country”: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/top50/index.html

#1 is “Software Engineer” – which almost immediately made me believe that the study had been horribly skewed and misconstrued. As it is my belief that “Software Engineer” would be one of the worst possible jobs on this earth. I pretty much despise everything related to writing/architecting/documenting/testing any sort of software. Java, C++, C, VB, COBOL – I hate everything about every computer language, and nobody will ever be able to convince me otherwise. I guess some scripting languages (bash, html, teh php) are tolerable.

Back to the point –
#7: Computer/IT Analyst – Career description:
Analysts – Analyze science, engineering, business, and all other data processing problems for application to electronic data processing systems. Analyze user requirements, procedures, and problems to automate or improve existing systems and review computer system capabilities, workflow, and scheduling limitations. May analyze or recommend commercially available software. May supervise computer programmers. Managers – Plan, direct, or coordinate activities in such fields as electronic data processing, information systems, systems analysis, and computer programming. Administrators – Coordinate changes to computer databases, test and implement the database applying knowledge of database management systems. May plan, coordinate, and implement security measures to safeguard computer databases. Install, configure, and support an organization’s local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), and Internet system or a segment of a network system. Maintain network hardware and software. Monitor network to ensure network availability to all system users and perform necessary maintenance to support network availability. May supervise other network support and client server specialists and plan, coordinate, and implement network security measures.

Although that is not my exact title, i am responsible for many of the things that are described in that “career description”. So basically, reading this list made me good about my position. ๐Ÿ™‚

Although, i’d like to know how they got those average salaries. ๐Ÿ™

8 thoughts on “7th Best Job in the Country?

  1. vanlandw

    almost anybody in IT in GR is underpaid…mostly due to cost of living…so i’m sure a similar position almost anywhere else in the country would yield more pay

    also i can’t imagine anything in IT being the best job in the country…i would imagine most health care workers teachers professors have a much higher job satisfaction. but most IT workers do get paid well for sitting on their asses half the time. thus I’m sure that is a big factor

    but this is coming from somebody who pretty much loathes IT but gg regardless. i’m glad you are happy about your position :-*

  2. Jeff

    Yeah, it should probably say “Senior Software Engineer” because they are the ones that get to do all the fun stuff. The Junior Software Engineers are the ones that are stuck fixing bugs in code, and doing quality testing.

  3. vanberge

    Vanlandw – if you loathe IT, then what is your ultimate ‘dream job’ ?? and why did you go to school for IT? ๐Ÿ˜›

    jjafuller – even senior software engineering would make me want to ingest toxic agents. Even if it were as high a level as diagramming flo charts of modules… then passing my chart off to some other team that writes the modules.

    i really just hate the process of creating software. I suppose the one plus side is that it allows you to be somewhat creative in how you do things… it’s hard to get creative doing access lists on cisco firewalls ๐Ÿ™

  4. Kramer

    I’m not sure how lawyer even makes the list, when the job has one of the lowest rates of job satisfaction and highest rates of drug and alcohol abuse.

    However, I like that average salary.

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