Do it for SCIENCE!!!

June 19, 2007 10:36 AM

Popular Science's Annual Worst Jobs... in Science
posted by spec80 (42 comments total)

The person who made this list has obviously never been a lowly lab assistant before. Sure, it's usually not icky (although I did have to blend fish guts before which is not the most fun thing ever), but it does tend to involve lots of waiting, mind-numbing repetition, working in a concrete cube with no windows, and pull-out-your-hair frustration.

I still love science, though.
posted by kookaburra at 10:52 AM on June 19, 2007

The picture accompanying the Elephant Vasectomist job is amazing.
posted by jourman2 at 10:54 AM on June 19, 2007

Performing vasectomies on endangered species must make it awfully hard to sleep at night, no matter what the context.
posted by hermitosis at 10:55 AM on June 19, 2007

Some of those are pretty gross, but the people who do them seem to love them. That's not actually a bad job then, is it. I agree with kookaburra and say that lab assistant should really be on the list. You get to do all the tedious, crappy, and boring stuff associated with research, without much (or any) acknowledgment.
posted by arcticwoman at 11:04 AM on June 19, 2007

Microsoft Security Grunt has to be a terrible job, but where's the science? Hazmat Diver too, to a lesser extent.
posted by DU at 11:11 AM on June 19, 2007

You mean: in SCIENCE!
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:14 AM on June 19, 2007

Microsoft Security Grunt has to be a terrible job, but where's the science?

Microsoft security — more like science fiction amirite?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:15 AM on June 19, 2007 [2 favorites]

Putting the "vast" in vas deferens.
posted by GuyZero at 11:21 AM on June 19, 2007

I agree, for the right person this can't possibly be a "worst" job. Forensic entomologist, for instance. I've never liked the bugs that much myself, but I've known people who do.

I mean, these are jobs that are being filled by degreed professionals, not illegal immigrants. OK, maybe degreed professionals with a sketchy H-1B.
posted by dhartung at 11:30 AM on June 19, 2007

I loved the illustrations too; all done by Chris Gall.
posted by zeoslap at 11:37 AM on June 19, 2007

Pfft, some of these people are obviously quite happy with their "worst" jobs (given the quotes in the articles). They're simply things that seem sorta icky or unusual to the average reader of Popular Science. Part of making a career in science is becoming an unbelievable nerd who is fascinated by things that make peoples' eyes glaze over at a cocktail party.

I have a biologist friend who, in the late winter / early spring every year, pulls on a dry suit and goes diving in freezing cold estuaries to grab very large and slippery salmon and insert RFID tags into them. He eagerly looks forward to it every year, because the data he gets from it is invaluable and he's "only gotten hypothermia from it twice, or maybe three times."
posted by xthlc at 11:40 AM on June 19, 2007

#11: web designer for popsci.com. Now where's my magnifying glass so I can read that text?
posted by DefendBrooklyn at 11:43 AM on June 19, 2007

The illustration for whale feces researcher put a smile on my face. The entry for oceanographer erased it pretty quickly.
posted by brundlefly at 11:46 AM on June 19, 2007

I'd imagine the worst job at Microsoft would be the guy who has to read all the error messages.
posted by Flashman at 11:49 AM on June 19, 2007

Man, some of those drawings are freaking amazing.
posted by ORthey at 11:54 AM on June 19, 2007

I have to agree that being a lab grunt can be pretty crappy and mundane. I did have some interesting lab assistant jobs over the years, so it's not like all the jobs suck. The worst job in Science to me would be administrator, 'cause you're not actually, you know, doing science any more.
posted by Eekacat at 11:59 AM on June 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

This strikes me as a list of "lousy science jobs" made by someone who doesn't like anything that involves any discomfort or anything "icky." Which is, I'm glad to say, not a good description of most people who are in science jobs. Forensic entomology is awesome, and we need all the oceanographers we can get.

Yep, lab assistants are awesome. As if Carl Safina. He has a blog.
posted by Tehanu at 12:06 PM on June 19, 2007

The illustrations are amazing.
posted by maxwelton at 12:08 PM on June 19, 2007

Meh.

Graduate students rank worse than lab assistants/associates.

The undergrad assistant much more per hour than I, as a PhD graduate student with a MSc degree lost somewhere in my closet.
posted by porpoise at 12:13 PM on June 19, 2007

Oceanographer girlfriend says pish posh.
posted by filchyboy at 12:21 PM on June 19, 2007

Awesome! You really made my day, spec80 and popsci!

Number 2: Oceanographer
Nothing but bad news, day in and day out

I knew it of course and been saying it for years! But, damn! I can't believe I lost the first place to Hazmat Divers.

And, I am an immigrant (legal though, you can't have everything I guess).
posted by carmina at 12:21 PM on June 19, 2007

I am so asking for a raise.
posted by carmina at 12:26 PM on June 19, 2007

Did they have to put their list of 10 on 10 separate pages?
posted by notmydesk at 12:34 PM on June 19, 2007

Did they have to put their list of 10 on 10 separate pages?

Use the printer-friendly version
posted by inigo2 at 12:43 PM on June 19, 2007

Yeah, the illustrations are quite good, but in the elephant one, he played a bit fast and loose with the scale. Either that is a pygmy doing the chopping or it's a 24 foot tall elephant.

Which if you think about it would be pretty awesome. I mean elephants are nifty to begin with, make them twice the hight? Hell yeah.

And now I'm having fantasies of a poacher hot on the trail of a group of elephants, he gets one of them in his rifle sights when he hears a quiet grunt behind him, he turns and looks up. And keeps looking up. And waaay up there he sees the top, which turns out to be a really pissed off pachyderm.

The next day a crater with a poacher shaped puddle is discovered.
posted by quin at 1:01 PM on June 19, 2007

Number 9: Forensic Entomologist
One day a local detective called me who knew I’d majored in entomology in college and said, ‘Hey, Neal, we got a body at the morgue with insects on it. You wanna give it a shot?’ The corpse turned out to be a guy I used to have breakfast with, and there were maggots in his teeth. Then I found some in his eyes, and I thought, ‘This is what I want to do. This is just way too cool.’

See, everyone can find their happy place in the world. That's heartening.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:02 PM on June 19, 2007

I used to put mammalian placentas (some of them human) in a giant metal blender, mix in some organic solvents (usually alcohol), and blend them into a slurry. Then, I'd pour the placenta slurry into a dialysis bag and stick it in a giant vat of saline and dialyze it for (infinity-minus-one) hours. While that was going on I'd make more dialysis bags, which were just long sections of dialysis tubing tied at the ends. They looked like sausages when I poured the slurry in.

Anyway, I did all this in a "cold room" in South Florida, which was enough to permanently cripple my inner thermostat. One day, I mixed the human placenta and some cat placenta and poured it on a mango tree, creating something very much like swamp thing but with claws. I called the creature "Lois", but I'm not sure it was a girl. And that is my totally true really awful science job.
posted by Mister_A at 1:20 PM on June 19, 2007 [2 favorites]

I clicked on the link, saw the whale feces illustration and I was coming in here, thinking I'd just drop a little off-topic comment about how good the artwork was and on my skimming! (not even reading, skimming!) I saw it was mentioned several times already.

On the other hand, there was a handy, bookmarkable link to the illustrator's homepage.
posted by Brainy at 1:36 PM on June 19, 2007

Graduate students rank worse than lab assistants/associates.

The undergrad assistant much more per hour than I, as a PhD graduate student with a MSc degree lost somewhere in my closet.

Yes, you earn less, but as a PhD student, your trophic level in the lab food web is higher than an undergraduate's.
posted by Tehanu at 1:59 PM on June 19, 2007

"Hazmat" divers (industrial divers, most of them) are a pretty interesting bunch. They have a lot of physical bravery. they face not only the normal dangers of industrial diving, which can kill or maim even the experienced, but also the hazmat problems too, which are far worse in water than in air. Water contains the pollution and acts a solvent on the suits.

There a no wild and crazy hazmat divers, at least no old ones. They are the most methodical group you would ever meet, but at the same time, are stand-up, can-do people who only say no if they mean it. The primary safety and health plan is usually done by an industrial hygienist, by the way, but many of the divers can do their own (be the chemist, toxicologist, ppe specialist, etc...).

The ones who get mad respect are those who do it in deep water or under ice (so, now, three things which can kill or maim).

The forensic entomologists are a odd bunch too---we have a forensic mycologist in our group. His hobby is figuring out the fungi species which rot corpses. He has great cocktail stories about pig carcasses.
posted by bonehead at 2:08 PM on June 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Liz Warren, a researcher at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, managed to convince 15 men to spend 21 straight days in bed. They were tilted head-down at a 6-degree angle, which, along with their inactivity....$6000 payday"

This is research? You can make money doing this?

Shit, I watched a Joss Wheddon and Star Trek marathon just like that and all I got was bills from my supermarket and pot dealer. The diaper thing in the afternoons took a little getting used to: I'm strictly a Depends before-12pm kinda-guy.
There are hazards associated: I ran out of kleenex and crisco on Day 4 of Buffy.
Calluses hurt. Do NASA astronauts get calluses? Hey, Liz: can I claim retroactively from NASA? Liz?
posted by lalochezia at 2:28 PM on June 19, 2007

I used to put mammalian placentas (some of them human) in a giant metal blender, mix in some organic solvents (usually alcohol), and blend them into a slurry.

"Mmmmm...steaky!"
posted by kirkaracha at 3:07 PM on June 19, 2007

I used to put mammalian placentas (some of them human) in a giant metal blender, mix in some organic solvents (usually alcohol), and blend them into a slurry.

Gives a whole new meaning to "Hmmm, what're _you_ Waring?"
posted by greatgefilte at 4:22 PM on June 19, 2007

You mean: in SCIENCE!

Actually, it would be "in SCHHIENCHE!" ( with lots of spit and plenty of lisp.)

Although I pity the poor lab assistant, I usually beat the crowd when I tell them my first job - emptying the 50 gallon barrels of trash and cleaning the bathrooms at a state park.
posted by bradth27 at 4:48 PM on June 19, 2007

One of my friends had the job of extracting semen from rabbits. Get one hot female, some ready males, and a fake vagina to place in between them at just the right moment. Uggh.
posted by caddis at 10:05 PM on June 19, 2007

I was recruited for the job of inserting semen into rabbits, but I just couldn't embrace the furry lifestyle.

Uggh, indeed.
posted by quin at 10:13 PM on June 19, 2007

Chris Gall also did the (excellent) illustrations for the (completely insane) NRA comic book.
posted by stammer at 11:42 PM on June 19, 2007

"Mammalian placenta" is redundant. Sorry.

*shoots editor*
posted by Mister_A at 6:44 AM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Some of the jobs on the first two lists were actually, genuinely awful (and I've done a couple of them), but this list isn't even in the ball park. I assume they've run out of bad jobs, or are just listing things they think sound cool or can be illustrated amusingly. Pop Sci Worst Science Jobs List has officially jumped the shark.

(as an aside, faecal collection is much more pleasant than rumen collection with the bonus that the smell washes off rather than fades over several days like rumen stench)

And I have no sympathy for grad students, despite being one myself. At the end you get a good degree and career prospects and a future, you're working for your own benefit. Whereas lab techs get to just keep being lab techs.
posted by shelleycat at 9:24 PM on June 20, 2007

I disagree with oceanographer being on the list...most people I meet tell me that's actually what they wanted to be when they grew up but then abandoned it to do other things. Then again, I say "marine biologist", which is apparently more dreamy-sounding.

One of my friends once had to douche monkeys for some sort of experiment - I use that as my reference point whenever I'm discontent with something I have to do. "At least I'm not douching monkeys."
posted by nekton at 6:21 PM on June 21, 2007

*stops douching monkey, looks at screen*

Whatever.

*returns to douching monkey*
posted by brundlefly at 10:34 PM on June 21, 2007

My first job I was a dog groomer. So at 14, I had a job where one of my duties included emptying the gland in dogs' butts. It's something dog groomers & vets do that, mercifully, you don't know about. And I wasn't super happy about doing it, especially at 14.

So likewise, when I don't like doing something I use that as my reference point. As in "Life could be worse, I could be squeezing dogs' butt glands..."
posted by miss lynnster at 3:59 AM on June 22, 2007