Stress Tests

The other day at the supermarket I heard the person in front of me complaining to the cashier about how stressful her job was. They apparently saw each other on a regular basis and depending on how long the checkout line was, their conversation was either brief or prolonged.

I never learned what this woman did for a living, but I thought to myself, if you want to experience the Webster’s unabridged definition of job-related stress, you should try and convince a CPA firm to merge. That would merit a daily dose of Prozac every time.

But I got to wondering what fields of pursuit actually did earn consideration as among the most stressful jobs? So, I did what everyone else does in this information age – I Googled it.

Some of the results my search generated were expected some were not. To wit, a policeman made most of the career stress lists, while a firefighter did not. Why I cannot explain since both are often faced with terrifying situations.

Many of the white knuckled posts were unsurprisingly in the medical field – surgeon, anesthesiologist and paramedic – as minor mistakes in any of those aforementioned capacities can easily result in tragedy.

One that caught me off guard but makes complete sense was that of an IT manager. Think about how many times a company’s computer system went down, from either a quirk or that of a cyber hacker and the pressure to bring the network back up. That’s truly spelled S-T-R-E-S-S.

How about a sales manager? When you're a sales manager, you're overseeing a team often responsible for the life and death of a company’s revenue. So, the executives in the C-suite are going to exert a lot of pressure on you to meet growth targets. Again, pass the Prozac or at least the antacid.

One job that involves pushing the proverbial envelope on the stress test that I found mildly amusing was a family therapist as I can imagine the gist of some of those sessions – particularly when trying to broker a crumbling marriage and mediate child custody battles.

Strangely though, accountant never appeared in the top 20 on any career stress list. For someone who has been involved in either covering or consulting in the accounting profession for 20 years, I found that a true head scratcher.

Next time someone decides to cobble a list of stressful jobs, poll any CPA from mid-February until the end of April then report back. I guarantee you that will move the needle of any study.