Spritual Teaching is Most Satisfying Job, Study Shows

note: for those considering becoming a Healing Tao instructor, take heed. Even if its only part time, your job satisfaction is about to go way up…. -m.

MONEY REALLY CAN’T BUY HAPPINESS, STUDY FINDS

CLERGY ARE THE MOST SATISFIED WITH THEIR JOBS; LAWYERS, DOCTORS DOWN ON THE
LIST

By Barbara Rose
Chicago Tribune
April 17, 2007

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0704160387apr17,1,1882115,print.s
tory?coll=chi-bizfront-hed

The old saw “money can’t buy happiness” apparently holds true when it comes
to work.

Highly-paid professionals like doctors and lawyers didn’t make the cut when
researchers set out to find the most satisfied workers.

Clergy ranked tops in both job satisfaction and general happiness, according
to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

Physical therapists and firefighters were second- and third-ranked in job
satisfaction, with more than three-quarters reporting being “very
satisfied.”

Other occupations in which more than 60 percent said they were very
satisfied included teachers, painters and sculptors, psychologists and
authors.

“The most satisfying jobs are mostly professions, especially those involving
caring for, teaching and protecting others and creative pursuits,” said Tom
W. Smith, director of NORC’s General Social Survey, a poll supported by the
National Science Foundation.

The worker satisfaction study, set for release Tuesday, is based on data
collected since 1988 on more than 27,500 randomly selected people.

For the most satisfied workers, intrinsic rewards are key, the study
suggests.

“They’re doing work they’re very proud of, helping people,” Smith said.

Clergy ranked by far the most satisfied and the most generally happy of 198
occupations.

Eighty-seven percent of clergy said they were “very satisfied” with their
work, compared with an average 47 percent for all workers. Sixty-seven
percent reported being “very happy,” compared with an average 33 percent for
all workers.

Jackson Carroll, Williams professor emeritus of religion and society at Duke
Divinity School, found similarly high satisfaction when he studied
Protestant and Catholic clergy, despite relatively modest salaries and long
hours.

“They look at their occupation as a calling,” Carroll said. “A pastor does
get called on to enter into some of the deepest moments of a person’s life,
celebrating a birth and sitting with people at times of illness or death.
There’s a lot of fulfillment.”

Others in helping professions describe their work as a calling.

“I believe I was probably put on this earth to make someone’s life a little
easier, that’s what I get out of my job,” said Gina Kolk, an Oak Park
physical therapist who has practiced 23 years. “I love my job. I think it’s
because I see results very quickly. I see positive things happen to people
very quickly. I get rewarded every day by what I do.”

Satisfaction generally rises with social status, and higher status often
goes hand in hand with higher pay, Smith said. An exception is doctors, a
high-paying profession that ranked No. 1 in occupational prestige. General
practitioners earn more than twice as much as physical therapists, for
instance, averaging $140,370 annually compared with $65,350, according to
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet doctors scored lower in
satisfaction and happiness.

Peter Eupierre, 55, an internal medicine physician who practices in Melrose
Park, had eight patients in his waiting room and three in examining rooms
Tuesday afternoon.

“I think most doctors are satisfied; the problem is we have so much
pressure,” he said. “The demand for time is such, we are always behind and
sometimes it can be pretty stressful.

“When someone comes in ill and you’re able to restore them to health,
there’s nothing greater than that. [But] there are so many regulations, it’s
not like it used to be. The demands outside the actual patient care are much
greater than they used to be.”

Occupations with the least satisfied and happy workers tended to be
low-skill manual and service jobs, Smith found.

Roofers, waiters and laborers ranked at the bottom in job satisfaction, with
as few as one in five reporting they were very satisfied.

Bartenders, known for listening to other people’s troubles, apparently need
sympathetic ears: Only 26 percent said they were very satisfied.

…………..

TOP OCCUPATIONS IN JOB SATISFACTION

1. Clergy

2. Physical therapists

3. Firefighters

4. Education administrators

5. Painters, sculptors

BOTTOM OCCUPATIONS IN JOB SATISFACTION

1. Roofers

2. Waiters, servers

3. Laborers (not construction)

4. Bartenders

5. Hand packers and packagers