Today's Most Unpopular Jobs

msn.com ^ | 3-6-06 | Laura Morsch

[Billthedrill]

You know how when you unpack a rectal thermometer the little piece of paper says "each unit individually tested"? Makes for a long day, Iwannatellya...

[BudgieRamone]

Its part of the instant gratification idea that many of these "shops" have. Sure machining parts is a great way to make money, but many of these owners have no idea how a shop works so they buy machines and bring in "machinists" to run them. They pay nearly nothing for the skill which they don't correlate with not being able to find good help. When they actually find a decent machinist, they down play your qualifications or refuse to let you work to your capacity--yes it happens--as justification for paying squat.

I am a machinist--with much to learn admittedly--but I do know how to setup many different makes of CNC (they are all pretty much the same once the control is figured out) and have considerable skills with manual machines. I relocated to Michigan in August and can tell you from experience, this place is bad for machinists--lots of 10.00/hr jobs and a few better paying jobs that go to people willing to deal with the line of BS that the union sells.

Personally I'll be glad when there is a machinist shortage, by that time I'll have my own shop up and running.

[Hank Rearden]

I think the drones at the BLS should go out, get real jobs, and get off the taxpayer's back.

[dljordan]

"According to the Princeton Review, the average starting salary for a machinist is $22,500. The median salary for machinists is just over $34,000, according to the BLS."

Gee, someone who actually knows how to make something gets $34,000 a year but if you have a degree in Womyn's Studies or Government you can land a job here in Boulder County as a "Diversity Coordinator" for $80,000 +. Go figure.

[Revolting cat!]

Michael Jackson's nose repairman.

[Betis70]

My mom just retired. She worked as a school nurse for 30 years, middle schools, universities and her favorite--elementary school. One of the things she liked best about it was the autonomy.

It took the administration 8 months to find a replacement for her, partially because it was such a big school and they only had one position. Potential candidates saw the workload and found greener pastures.

[Angus MacGregor]

Michael Jackson's nose repairman.

Big money in that my friend.

[Military family member]

No, Michael Moore's Proctologist

[Netheron]

Worse than Windows? I understand Unix, but cannot make head nor tails of Windows.

[Erasmus]

Shortage, Shortage, Schmortage. I've been reading articles like this since Greenspan was a Randian. Have any of these authors heard of the law of supply and demand?

Sure, there's a shortage--at the wages employers want to pay!

I suppose these articles are simply trying to move the supply curve upward, so that more applicants for job X will be found at any given wage--such as the one employers want to pay.

[Netheron]

I would think that a being a GOOD librarian (University library, for instance) would easily be comparable to a machinist.

At the local library, you have to deal with the portion of the public that has time on their hands and also can't figure things out without a librarian. Insert your own joke here.

[VOA]

bump

[Erasmus]

Well said, for a non-rant.

< ]B^)

[IamConservative]

Registered Nurses make over $30K less than Pharmacist? Is putting the right drugs in a bottle really worth almost $90K?M

How much longer do we need Pharmacists? The technology certainly exists today to automate pill dispensing. I suppose there are some ointments and suspensions that get mixed at the point of sale, but I am not sure that really requires 6 years of Education.

[Psycho_Bunny]

A "Librarian" is a customer service position where all of your product is perfectly arranged via a tried and true categorization system requiring almost zero thought.

A machinist builds parts for....planes....ships......trains......nuclear weapons................hell, just about everything that keeps the world spinning.

If all the librarians in the country up and disappeared one day, the nation wouldn't miss a step.

If all the machinists disappeared, society as we know it would collapse.

So, why do librarians make more than machinists?

 

[Always Right]

If all the librarians in the country up and disappeared one day, the nation wouldn't miss a step.

How would kids get access to porn if all the librarians were not there fighting for their rights?

[subterfuge]

And every parts machining business in the U.S. is backed up for months.

[Beagle8U]

"The problem today with being a machinist is that you must master a wide variety of skills that take years to master, have an error rate below .1%,take responsbility for computerized machines worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, generate thousands of dollars per hour worth of goods, and accept a rate of pay slightly higher than the stock clerk at walmart."

That statement is true only because the classification "Machinist" has been used to describe machine operators that run production machines.

Wages for a true machinist are much higher, closer to what good tool and die makers earn....50-100K.

[subterfuge]

I am studying to be a nurse. I want to help people, especially children.

Go for it brwn! My daughter is a RN and she loves it. It was her lifes dream to work with children and she is doing so at ARnold Palmer's Childrens' Hospital.

She works three, 12 hour shifts per week and they give you 4 weeks vacation when you're hired. hard to beat that as a young person.

[Netheron]

Having gone through Graduate School and made extensive use of the Engineering Library, I wouldn't say that.

There are plenty of librarians that shelve the books, etc. These are the people that you are thinking of. It is necessary, but as you described, appropriate for a lower paid position.

The ones I am thinking of are the "Librarians", the real ones. These are the people that understand what is in the stacks, make recommendations on new acquisitions, set library 'strategy' and budgets, and consult with Professors and patrons to determine what is needed. Walk in to one of these places with a question on any obscure topic, and they can tell you the top five books in the fields, whether they have it, and if they don't who does, all from memory.

I mean the people who know what the cutting edge researchers in a field need before the researchers themselves know it.