World’s best job in genes

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/06/2018 (2963 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Remember when you were a kid and couldn’t wait to grow up, lace up the skates and play in the National Hockey League (NHL), where you’d score the winning goal in the Stanley Cup final?

Or dreamed of becoming an astronaut and strapping yourself on top of a skyscraper-sized rocket and blasting off for the moon?

Or maybe signing up for the fire department so you could slide down those cool fire poles, drive a bright-red fire truck, sound that awesome ear-splitting siren and, just maybe, become Mr. March in the annual fundraising calendar?

Ha ha ha! I think it is safe to say that — and this comes from a place of love — you were a (bad word) idiot.

I am laughing at your crushed dreams — and mine, for that matter — because I have finished reading the annual report from CareerCast.com, a job-search and career-guidance website that, for the past 30 years, has evaluated hundreds of professions to determine the best and worst jobs available.

CareerCast.com ranks these occupations from best to worst on four “core criteria” — work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook — and this year their hip research analysts declared the official best job on the employment block is (dramatic pause) “genetic counsellor.”

I know exactly what you are thinking. You are thinking: “Huh?” This is because, assuming you are as well educated as myself, you do not have a (very bad word) clue what a genetic counsellor is.

What I do know is that, when I was a kid, we did not have a job called genetic counsellor. This was because back in those days — this was when William Shatner was captain of the Starship Enterprise — we did not actually have genetics.

No, in terms of hardcore science, what we had back when I was a kid was those little modelling clay volcanoes that, when you filled them with baking soda and vinegar, would spew sudsy “lava” over a bunch of plastic army men that you were using as innocent villagers in your Grade 2 science project.

Here’s what CareerCast.com has to say about this year’s No. 1 job in the world of work: “the advancement of technology is also apparent in another industry undergoing constant and dramatic change: health care. The best job of 2018, genetic counsellor, is in health care, and owes its exponential growth to technology.

“Advancements in genomics fuel the growth of this line of work. Genetic counsellors work with patients expecting children to assess and evaluate risk of genetic disorders and birth defects. They also advise patients at risk of congenital disorders.”

OK, so we can now see that genetic counsellors have a job we are going to make fun of, because they are clearly awesome people performing a vital task, arguably even more important than the handful of wretched outcasts who write humour columns for daily newspapers.

The other important thing I recall about our early school days was the fact that, at some point, almost all of us crashed and burned in math, prompting conversations such as this:

You: “How’d you do on the math test?”

Your friend: “I got a zero, which I think is a prime number, right?”

You: “Don’t worry, because we’ll NEVER need to use math in the real world.”

Remember those conversations. Ha ha ha! We really were idiots, weren’t we? I say that because, according to CareerCast.com’s latest job-rating report, almost all of the Top 10 jobs involve number-crunching.

Along with genetic counsellor, we are talking mathematician (No. 2), statistician (No. 5), data scientist (No. 7), information security analyst (No. 8) and actuary (No. 10).

What this means for all you modern parents is that you can skip the skating lessons and start praying your offspring understands fractions and long division (assuming those are still math things) and land jobs involving lab coats, laptops and those geeky plastic pocket protectors.

Fortunately, there was also some good news contained in the pages of the latest job-rating report, by which I mean the fact that my profession is no longer considered to be the worst job that any human being could hold.

For years, the job of reporter was firmly at the bottom of CareerCast’s ratings, but this year there is a new worst job imaginable and, surprisingly, it has nothing to do with being a member of the Trump administration.

No, according to CareerCast, trailing the entire job field at No. 220 was (another dramatic pause) “taxi driver.” Yes, cabbie is officially the least desirable job on the planet.

At this point, due to the fact that I still am required to take cabs from time to time, allow me to say that I totally reject this notion and firmly believe that cab drivers are pillars of western civilization and are deserving, at least, of several Nobel prizes.

The experts don’t share my love of cabbies, however. “Booming popularity for ride-sharing apps — Uber and Lyft dominate the space — has had profound impact on the worst job of 2018: taxi driver,” Kyle Kensing, online content editor for CareerCast, said in a statement that landed in my email inbox.

“Growth outlook for the hiring of taxi drivers fell by more than half, down from 11 per cent by 2014 estimates, to five per cent in projections for 2026. That decline in projected hiring outlook… aligns with a sharp increase in the number of drivers working for ride-sharing companies.”

It is with some pride that I point out the job of newspaper reporter is now only the third-worst job, behind cabbies and loggers. Which makes sense, especially when you consider a logger runs the risk of losing a medically important limb to a chainsaw, whereas the worst things reporters typically face is a nasty paper cut or being insulted by Donald Trump.

Sadly, my occupation is still rated as a worse way to make a living than being an exterminator (No. 211), apparently because pest-control experts actually have to come in contact with real rodents, whereas journalists merely cover their activities in federal politics.

So the point I am trying to make today is there are many reasons to feel hopeful about the modern job market. They may not become NHL stars or astronauts, but your kids have an excellent chance of landing a respectable position… because apparently it’s in their genes.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca