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Yes we make more money, but we also take our work with us and the stress that comes along with mentally taxing work.

It's 11pm and I might be thinking of a problem at work I've been tangling for for the past 4 days.

A gardner or a construction worker leaves work and _leaves work_, you feel me?



REALLY!?

Software engineering is one of the lowest stress jobs out there. I've worked some stressful jobs, and software engineering doesn't even compare. For example try getting yelled at and sworn at and personally attacked regularly. You really have it good if you find your job to be so stressful.

Believe it or not a LOT of people take work home with them, and its something you gotta work on not doing. Not job specific.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870472310...

http://careers.unc.edu/blogs/career-exploration/top-10-most-...

http://www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-jobs-for-people-w...


And your'e stacking that up against the stress the gardener or construction worker has of losing their job and not having a million other options, or not being able to support medical insurance for their family because of what they earn?

Even excluding that, having worked in a fairly brain dead job I found the stress of 9 hours a day doing something that dull WAY more stressful than being able to use my mind but being under some pressure to do so.


I'm not saying "we have problems, 'they' don't". I'm illustrating the fact that EVERYBODY has problems. Software development isn't all peachy 100% of the time. [Let's call it 80% of the time ;)]


Sounds nice


As opposed to the nurse who lost a patient, the social worker who has to remove a child from their home, a teacher that gets to see all of problems kids bring from homes, many aspects of being a police officer, etc?


Talking to a one time girlfriend who is an obstetrician while she was at work one day she said "better go, I need to deliver this woman's baby".

"Hope it goes well", I replied.

"It won't" she said, "the baby is already dead".

That put every shitty day I've ever had at work in context.

Not saying we don't have bad days, we do, just there are some things that thankfully we'll never come face to face with.


My girlfriend is a social worker and works at a primary school. These are some responses I have had to "how was your day":

"Today a girl was raped by his grandfather. We suspect he's also his father."

"A 10-year-old boy commited suicide. I went to his family's home and they still had the body lying down on the living room."

"A boy has told us that her mother every night gets money from men to 'spend time' with her sisters. Today I went to court to try to take the girls away from her, but the judge allowed her to keep them."

I don't allow myself to think I have bad days at work.


> "Today a girl was raped by his grandfather."

You either meant s/girl/boy or s/his/her.


s/his/her, and s/her/his in the third story.




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