This gig's the bomb, buddy
America's 'happiest jobs' survey reveals some astounding results – including HRFor some, this part of the year is all about the excitement of awards season.
Will a British film make it on to the Oscar for Best Picture shortlist? Who’ll give the most OTT acceptance speech at the Grammys? Are the BAFTAs going to be as glitzy as the Golden Globes?
Yes, if you like a shortlist and a nail-biting awards ceremony, January and February simply can’t be beaten. But the one list we couldn’t wait to get our hands on was CareerBliss’s Happiest Jobs in America 2014.
Colleagues and flexibility
We were not disappointed. Featured on the Business Insider website, this year’s top twenty was full of surprises and some of the vaguest justifications we’ve seen in any list, for anything, anywhere.
In fact, if we had a pound for every time colleagues, bosses, work freedom and flexibility were given as reasons for a job being a happy one, we wouldn’t need a job at all . (Well, we’d at least be able to spend a pleasant afternoon down the pub with our newly amassed riches).
To be fair, these were just four of the eight job satisfaction factors being used to compile the list, but still, a little more detail might have been nice.
One of the biggest surprises was that the role deemed to be the second happiest of any job in America wasn’t rock star. Or film director.
It wasn’t travel reporter or food critic. Not miracle-working brain surgeon or high-flying lawyer.
No, the second happiest job of all was QA Analyst.
A model of happiness
The photo used to illustrate this job gives the impression that it involves sitting at a computer and staring at a magically suspended pink ball.
But according to PCmag.com a QA Analyst is:
A person who is responsible for maintaining software quality within an organization. Such individuals develop and use stringent testing methods and may also be involved with ISO 9000 and the SEI models.
Which doesn’t make it sound like a barrel of laughs. But apparently QA Analysts are happy because they like their colleagues, bosses and work freedom (which is another £3 for the pub fund).
The sixth ‘happiest job’ was Controller. Now some of the people commenting on the list seem to think that, despite the picture of an Air Traffic Controller, this is actually referring to a Financial Controller.
We can only hope that this is the case as the highest rated factor for people in this job was, yet again, work freedom.
Call us old-fashioned but we don’t like the idea of the people guiding the world’s planes safely through the air being free to come and go as they please, following their own rules and spending the afternoon on Facebook.
Colleagues and flexibility, again
By now, you’re probably itching to know if/where HR appeared on the list. So we’ll put you out of your misery – we can reveal that HR Manager not only made it into the top ten, but a very respectable seventh.
Apparently, HR managers love their work setting, their colleagues, and the flexibility they have in getting their work done.
HR Manager was beaten to the top spot not only by Controllers and QA Analysts, but also Sales Reps (5th happiest), Loan Officers (4th), Realtors (3rd) and Research/Teaching Assistants – who claimed the top spot.
Trailing behind were the likes of General Manager, Retail (20th), Network Engineer (17th), Facilities Manager (12th) and Intern (9th).
Load of compost
As highlighted by one of the comments (made by a certain ‘dot_compost’), ‘what a strange list’.
That had us nodding in agreement, whilst also thinking: ‘What a strange user name’.
Meanwhile, a ‘Bobby Id’ was amongst those asking the question on everyone’s lips – ‘Is this a joke?’ He even took the time to add hyphens in between every letter of ‘ridiculous’, so bemused/outraged/dismayed was he by the whole thing.
After much debate, we decided the list wasn’t, in fact, a joke. We actually found it heart-warming that so many everyday jobs are making so many people in America so happy.
And no, we haven’t even started making a dent into our £32 pub fund.
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