7 ms·

- Retail salespeople - Office clerks - Registered nurses - Customers service reps - Waiters/waitresses - Secretaries and admins

- Retail salespeople - Office clerks - Registered nurses - Customers service reps - Waiters/waitresses - Secretaries and admins - Freight and stock laborers - Janitors - Operations managers - Stock clerks and orders fillers - Truck drivers - Personal care aides - Bookkeepers and accounting clerks - Nursing assistants - Maids and housekeepers - Sales reps wholesales and manufacturing - Maintenance and repair workers - Elementary school teachers - Accountants - Childcare workers - Teacher assistants - Landscapers and groundkeepers - Construction workers - Cooks - Security guards So jobs difficult physically and/or emotionally, some with long hours and little pay and often portrayed as really boring... I wonder why they don't want these jobs...

maxerickson 10y ago
I'm sure someone will tell me it just isn't possible, but it sure does seem to be the case that the economy is miss-pricing labor, badly.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Demand is only so elastic, things can only be mispriced for so long until it corrects. I suspect that it will correct once the stock market stays up for some time and the existing workforce begins to retire.
  - lowbloodsugar 10y ago
    s/retire/die/ There is no retirement any more.
- dTal 10y ago
  The harsh truth is that pay, like anything else is a function of supply and demand. The supply of people with no particular marketable skills beyond a pair of hands and the ability to follow directions is huge.
CuriouslyC 10y ago
The real nasty element of all these jobs is that they have basically no path for career advancement. Personal development/career advancement is basically a requirement to be happy, so you're basically guaranteed to be miserable in the long run even if for example, you really like cooking or working with children.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Many of the jobs on the list have opportunities for career advancement, but into different jobs, which are more likely to be reported targets of aspirations, even if people are willing to use the listed jobs as stepping stones.
  - malandrew 10y ago
    This. Many of those different jobs are not entry level jobs, and you need to wisely pick an entry level job that will best serve as a stepping stone to the work you want to do. For example, many young people aspire to manage, but you first need understand those jobs and processes you want to manage before you can effectively manage them.
    - CuriouslyC 10y ago
      Management is really a separate skill from anything else, you can't learn it by doing non-management jobs. Additionally, the level of competence in a field you need to be able to manage that field is really quite low. For example, something like 8% of college football coaches never played the sport themselves. Even for the coaches that played ball, many of them were bench-warmers at the collegiate level. Assuming you're already a good manager, I think the necessary domain competence required to effectively manage something can easily be picked up fairly quickly with an "assistant manager" apprenticeship under someone with experience managing that area.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > Management is really a separate skill from anything else, you can't learn it by doing non-management jobs. That's a common viewpoint, though I think its untrue in a number of ways. First, management is not a skill, its a function which requires a number of skills. Second, the skills management requires are without exception, or nearly so, not at all unique to management, but each is common to many jobs and non-job tasks humans commonly perform (and, particularly, lots of them are central to many non-management jobs that are analytical and/or administrative in nature.) Third, actual effective management work requires substantial specialized knowledge of the field being managed, in addition to the skills of general management.
douche 10y ago
These are all really terrible jobs. Most of them ought to be automated out of existence in the next 10-20 years. There's got to be something better we can do then bring about a resurrection of the Victorian-era servant class.
- malandrew 10y ago
  Job offers are by definition something someone pays others to do because (1) they don't want to do it themselves; and/or (2) it's not an effective use of their time to do it themselves. Yet, those jobs still need to be done. Given both (1) and (2), but especially, (1), we likely will always have jobs that people will consider terrible jobs because someone has to do it and the person needing it done has the money to pay for it to be done. It's great if automation solves some of those needs, but this idea that undesirable jobs simply shouldn't exist strikes me as absurd.
- dTal 10y ago
  - Registered nurses - Customer service reps - Personal care aides - Nursing assistants - Elementary school teachers - Childcare workers - Teacher assistants Something seems more than a tad dystopian about the idea of automating any of these.
Arizhel 10y ago
The other thing they're missing is: how has this changed over time? I don't think it has much. How many people ever aspired to be a waiter, a customer service rep, an office clerk, a stock clerk, etc.? Zero? People don't aspire to these jobs when they're young and full of hope for their future; they get into these jobs after cold, hard reality hits them and they need a job. Maybe they flunk out of college, or don't get accepted into college, or have to go to work early to support their family, etc.; these are the jobs that people do because they don't have a choice, and need the paycheck. Asking teenagers if they'd love to do these jobs is doing it wrong; it's like asking teenagers if they look forward to going to prison and becoming felons. No one plans for that.
I_am_neo 10y ago
Money is no motive, many may think that is a slight, but it's truth. Personal accomplishment is the best motive. But sometimes people's motives become clouded with things they "want" like the good little consumers they are taught to be. When success is no longer measured by how many physical items one can collect, and based on the health and happiness of the community around them, then only then might true success be realized.

maxerickson 10y ago

I'm sure someone will tell me it just isn't possible, but it sure does seem to be the case that the economy is miss-pricing labor, badly.

cmdrfred 10y ago
Demand is only so elastic, things can only be mispriced for so long until it corrects. I suspect that it will correct once the stock market stays up for some time and the existing workforce begins to retire.
- lowbloodsugar 10y ago
  s/retire/die/ There is no retirement any more.
dTal 10y ago
The harsh truth is that pay, like anything else is a function of supply and demand. The supply of people with no particular marketable skills beyond a pair of hands and the ability to follow directions is huge.

CuriouslyC 10y ago

The real nasty element of all these jobs is that they have basically no path for career advancement. Personal development/career advancement is basically a requirement to be happy, so you're basically guaranteed to be miserable in the long run even if for example, you really like cooking or working with children.

dragonwriter 10y ago
Many of the jobs on the list have opportunities for career advancement, but into different jobs, which are more likely to be reported targets of aspirations, even if people are willing to use the listed jobs as stepping stones.
- malandrew 10y ago
  This. Many of those different jobs are not entry level jobs, and you need to wisely pick an entry level job that will best serve as a stepping stone to the work you want to do. For example, many young people aspire to manage, but you first need understand those jobs and processes you want to manage before you can effectively manage them.
  - CuriouslyC 10y ago
    Management is really a separate skill from anything else, you can't learn it by doing non-management jobs. Additionally, the level of competence in a field you need to be able to manage that field is really quite low. For example, something like 8% of college football coaches never played the sport themselves. Even for the coaches that played ball, many of them were bench-warmers at the collegiate level. Assuming you're already a good manager, I think the necessary domain competence required to effectively manage something can easily be picked up fairly quickly with an "assistant manager" apprenticeship under someone with experience managing that area.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Management is really a separate skill from anything else, you can't learn it by doing non-management jobs. That's a common viewpoint, though I think its untrue in a number of ways. First, management is not a skill, its a function which requires a number of skills. Second, the skills management requires are without exception, or nearly so, not at all unique to management, but each is common to many jobs and non-job tasks humans commonly perform (and, particularly, lots of them are central to many non-management jobs that are analytical and/or administrative in nature.) Third, actual effective management work requires substantial specialized knowledge of the field being managed, in addition to the skills of general management.

douche 10y ago

These are all really terrible jobs. Most of them ought to be automated out of existence in the next 10-20 years. There's got to be something better we can do then bring about a resurrection of the Victorian-era servant class.

malandrew 10y ago
Job offers are by definition something someone pays others to do because (1) they don't want to do it themselves; and/or (2) it's not an effective use of their time to do it themselves. Yet, those jobs still need to be done. Given both (1) and (2), but especially, (1), we likely will always have jobs that people will consider terrible jobs because someone has to do it and the person needing it done has the money to pay for it to be done. It's great if automation solves some of those needs, but this idea that undesirable jobs simply shouldn't exist strikes me as absurd.
dTal 10y ago
- Registered nurses - Customer service reps - Personal care aides - Nursing assistants - Elementary school teachers - Childcare workers - Teacher assistants Something seems more than a tad dystopian about the idea of automating any of these.

Arizhel 10y ago

The other thing they're missing is: how has this changed over time? I don't think it has much. How many people ever aspired to be a waiter, a customer service rep, an office clerk, a stock clerk, etc.? Zero? People don't aspire to these jobs when they're young and full of hope for their future; they get into these jobs after cold, hard reality hits them and they need a job. Maybe they flunk out of college, or don't get accepted into college, or have to go to work early to support their family, etc.; these are the jobs that people do because they don't have a choice, and need the paycheck. Asking teenagers if they'd love to do these jobs is doing it wrong; it's like asking teenagers if they look forward to going to prison and becoming felons. No one plans for that.

I_am_neo 10y ago

Money is no motive, many may think that is a slight, but it's truth. Personal accomplishment is the best motive. But sometimes people's motives become clouded with things they "want" like the good little consumers they are taught to be. When success is no longer measured by how many physical items one can collect, and based on the health and happiness of the community around them, then only then might true success be realized.